Verse 1.32 [Creation of the Male and the Female]

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

द्विधा कृत्वाऽत्मनो देहमर्धेन पुरुषोऽभवत् ।
अर्धेन नारी तस्यां स विराजमसृजत् प्रभुः ॥ ३२ ॥

dvidhā kṛtvā'tmano dehamardhena puruṣo'bhavat |
ardhena nārī tasyāṃ sa virājamasṛjat prabhuḥ || 33 ||

Having divided his body into two halves, with the one half, the Lord became Male, and with the other half, Female; from her he produced Virāj.—(32)

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

The creation described here is apparently of another Being; but others have held that it is of the same Brahmā; the meaning being that the body that came out of the Egg being divided into two halves, ‘with one half he became Male’—i.e., he became a male being, capable of instilling semen—and ‘with the other half he became the Female’; that is, his body assumed the form of the Hermaphrodite, like Gaurī-Śaṅkara (combined in a single body). Or, it may mean that he crested the Female apart (from the Male).—Having created her, he produced, from her, by the act of procreation, that being whose well-known name is ‘Virāj.’ What is meant is that Prajāpati had recourse to his own daughter.

This mention of the bifurcation of Prajāpati’s body is based upon the fact that the husband and wife differ only in their bodies, and in all functions they are entirely united.—(32)

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

The ‘Virāṭ’ whose birth is here described is, according to some, the same as,—and according to others, different from—the ‘Brahmā’ described above, in verse 9. That Medhātithi leans towards the latter view is indicated by his assertion that what happened was that ‘the body of Brahmā (described in verse 9) now took the form of the Hermaphrodite,’—or as he adds later, ‘the Female form was separated from His own Male form.’