domain. Desirous of prosperity
connected with the possession of earth they are incapable of bearing one
another. I, therefore, think that earth must be possessed of many
attributes. Tell me all these, O Sanjaya, Many thousands, many millions,
many tens of millions, many hundreds of millions, heroic men have come
together at Kurujangala. I desire to hear, O Sanjaya, with accurate
details, about the situation and dimensions of those countries and cities
from which they have come. Through the potency of that regenerate Rishi
Vyasa of immeasurable energy, thou art endued with the lamp of celestial
perception and the eye of knowledge.'

"Sanjaya said,--'O thou of great wisdom, I will recount to thee the
merits of earth according to my knowledge. Behold them with thy eye of
wisdom. I bow to thee, O bull of Bharata's race. Creatures in this world
are of two kinds, mobile and immobile. Mobile creatures are of three
kinds according to their birth, viz., oviparous, viviparous, and those
engendered by heat and damp. Of mobile creatures, O king, the foremost
are certainly those called viviparous. Of viviparous creatures the
foremost are men and animals. Animals, O king, of diverse forms, are of
fourteen species. Seven have their abodes in the woods, and seven of
these are domestic. Lions, tigers, boars, buffaloes, and elephants as
also bears and apes, are, O king, regarded as wild. Kine, goats, sheep,
men, horses, mules, and asses,--these seven amongst animals are reckoned
as domestic by the learned. These fourteen, O king, complete the tale of
domestic and wild animals, mentioned, O lord of earth, in the Vedas, and
on which the sacrifices rest. Of creatures that are domestic, men are
foremost, while lions are the foremost of those that have their abode in
the woods. All creatures support their life by living upon one another.
Vegetables are said to be immobile, and they are of four species viz.,
trees, shrubs, creepers, creeping plants existing for only a year, and
all stemless plants of the grass species.[30] Of mobile and immobile
creatures, there are thus one less twenty; and as regards their universal
constituents, there are five. Twenty-four in all, these are described as
Gayatri (Brahma) as is well-known to all.[31] He who knows these truly to
be the sacred Gayatri possessed of every virtue, is not liable, O best of
the Bharatas, to destruction in this world. Everything springeth from the
earth and everything, when destroyed,