Brahmā said: O excellent Devas, it was for us both—Viṣṇu and myself that Liṅga manifested itself in the ocean. It was when the aerial charioteers had gone to the Janaloka together with the Sages and when the period of sustenance being over the creation was withdrawn and when at the end of a thousand sets of four yugas, they had gone to Satyaloka and in the end, except their overlords, had attained identity with me, then all immobile beings had dried up due to all-round drought and other beings like men, animals, Piśācas, Rākṣasas, Gandharvas including plant life were scorched to death by the rays of the Sun. Everything was a single vast sheet of water. It was terribly dark all round. In that vast sheet of water, the lord devoid of impurities and free from calamities had gone to sleep. He had a thousand heads,[1] a thousand eyes, a thousand feet and a thousand arms. He, the universal soul, omniscient, the source of origin of all, was characterized by the qualities of rajas, tamas and sattva in the form of Brahmā, Rudra and Viṣṇu. He was omnipresent and the supreme lord in view of his being the soul of all. He was in the form of Kāla with Kala in his umbilicus. He was white, black, pure, of huge arms, the soul of all and identical with Being and non-Being.