41. The fire-god said: My dear Lord, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You because by Your favor I am as luminous as blazing fire and I accept the offerings mixed with butter and offered in sacrifice. The five kinds of offerings according to the Yajur Veda are all Your different energies, and You are worshiped by five kinds of Vedic hymns. Sacrifice means Your Supreme Personality of Godhead.
42. The demigods said: Dear Lord, formerly, when there was a devastation, You conserved all the different energies of material manifestation. At that time, all the inhabitants of the higher planets, represented by such liberated souls as Sanaka, were meditating on You by philosophical speculation. You are therefore the original person, and You rest in the water of devastation on the bed of the Sesa snake. Now, today, You are visible to us, who are all Your servants. Please give us protection.
43. The Gandharvas said: Dear Lord, all the demigods, including Lord Siva, Lord Brahma, Indra and Marici and the great sages, are all only differentiated parts and parcels of Your body. You are the Supreme Almighty Great; the whole creation is just like a plaything for You. We always accept You as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and we offer our respectful obeisances unto You.
44. The Vidyadharas said: Dear Lord, this human form of body is meant for attaining the highest perfectional objective, but, impelled by Your external energy, the living entity misidentifies himself with his body and with the material energy, and therefore, influenced by maya, he wants to become happy by material enjoyment. He is misled and always attracted by temporary, illusory happiness. But Your transcendental activities are so powerful that if one engages in the hearing and chanting of such topics, he can be delivered from illusion.
45. The brahmanas said: Dear Lord, You are sacrifice personified. You are the offering of clarified butter, You are the fire, You are the chanting of Vedic hymns by which the sacrifice is conducted, You are the fuel, You are the flame, You are the kusa grass, and You are the sacrificial pots. You are the priests who perform the yajna, You are the demigods headed by Indra, and You are the sacrificial animal. Everything that is sacrificed is You or Your energy.
46. Dear Lord, O personified Vedic knowledge, in the past millennium, long, long ago, when You appeared as the great boar incarnation, You picked up the world from the water, as an elephant picks up a lotus flower from a lake. When You vibrated transcendental sound in that gigantic form of a boar, the sound was accepted as a sacrificial hymn, and great sages like Sanaka meditated upon it and offered prayers for Your glorification.
47. Dear Lord, we were awaiting Your audience because we have been unable to perform the yajnas according to the Vedic rituals. We pray unto You, therefore, to be pleased with us. Simply by chanting Your holy name, one can surpass all obstacles. We offer our respectful obeisances unto You in Your presence.
48. Sri Maitreya said: After Lord Visnu was glorified by all present, Daksa, his consciousness purified, arranged to begin again the yajna which had been devastated by the followers of Lord Siva.
49. Maitreya continued: My dear sinless Vidura, Lord Visnu is actually the enjoyer of the results of all sacrifices. Yet because of His being the Supersoul of all living entities, He was satisfied simply with His share of the sacrificial offerings. He therefore addressed Daksa in a pleasing attitude.
50. Lord Visnu replied: Brahma, Lord Siva and I are the supreme cause of the material manifestation. I am the Supersoul, the self sufficient witness. But impersonally there is no difference between Brahma, Lord Siva and Me.
51. The Lord continued: My dear Daksa Dvija, I am the original Personality of Godhead, but in order to create, maintain and annihilate this cosmic manifestation, I act through My material energy, and according to the different grades of activity, My representations are differently named.
52. The Lord continued: One who is not in proper knowledge thinks that demigods like Brahma and Siva are independent, or he even thinks that the living entities are independent.
53. A person with average intelligence does not think the head and other parts of the body to be separate. Similarly, My devotee does not differentiate Visnu, the all-pervading Personality of Godhead, from any thing or any living entity.
54. The Lord continued: One who does not consider Brahma, Visnu, Siva or the living entities in general to be separate from the Supreme, and who knows Brahman, actually realizes peace; others do not.
55. The sage Maitreya said: Thus Daksa, the head of all Prajapatis, having been nicely instructed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, worshiped Lord Visnu. After worshiping Him by performing the prescribed sacrificial ceremonies, Daksa separately worshiped Lord Brahma amd Lord Siva.
56. With all respect, Daksa worshiped Lord Siva with his share of the remnants of the yajna. After finishing the ritualistic sacrificial activities, he satisfied all the other demigods and the other people assembled there. Then, after finishing all these duties with the priests, he took a bath and was fully satisfied.
57. Thus worshiping the Supreme Lord Visnu by the ritualistic performance of sacrifice, Daksa was completely situated on the religious path. Moreover, all the demigods who had assembled at the sacrifice blessed him that he might increase his piety, and then they left.
58. Maitreya said: I have heard that after giving up the body she had received from Daksa, Daksayani (his daughter) took her birth in the kingdom of the Himalayas. She was born as the daughter of Mena. I heard this from authoritative sources.
59. Ambika [goddess Durga], who was known as Daksayini [Sati], again accepted Lord Siva as her husband, just as different energies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead act during the course of a new creation.
60. Maitreya said: My dear Vidura, I heard this story of the Daksa yajna, which was devastated by Lord Siva, from Uddhava, a great devotee and a disciple of Brhaspati.
61. The great sage Maitreya concluded: If one hears and again narrates, with faith and devotion, this story of the Daksa yajna as it was conducted by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Visnu, then certainly one is cleared of all contamination of material existence, O son of Kuru.
