Sūta said:: I bow down to the supreme lord whose body is Śabda-Brahman, who is the revealer of the Śabda-Brahman, whose limbs are the letters whose characteristics are unmanifest, but who manifests himself in diverse ways, who is constituted by the letters a, u, m. who is gross as well as subtle, who is greater than the greatest, who has the form of Om, whose face is the Ṛgveda, tongue the Sāmaveda, throat the Yajurveda, and heart the Atharvaveda, who is the lord beyond Pradhāna and Puruṣa, who is devoid of birth and death and who is called Kālarudra when he assumes tamoguṇa and Brahmā when he assumes rajoguṇa and the all-pervading Viṣṇu when he assumes sattvaguṇa, who is Maheśvara when devoid of all the guṇas[9], who manifests first in seven.[10] forms by enveloping the body of Pradhāna, then in sixteen[11] forms, and finally in twenty-six[12] forms, who is the source of origin of Brahmā, and who assumes the form of the Liṅga merely for the sport of creation, sustenance and annihilation (of the universe). After bowing down faithfully to that supreme lord, I begin recounting the auspicious narrative of the Liṅgapurāṇa.