yathā - just as; ūrṇa-nābhiḥ - a spider; hṛdayāt - from its heart; ūrṇām - its web; udvamate - emits; mukhāt - through its mouth; ākāśāt - from the ether; ghoṣa-vān - manifesting sound vibration; prāṇaḥ - the Lord in the form of the original life air; manasā - by means of the primeval mind; sparśa-rūpiṇā - which exhibits the forms of the different phonemes of the alphabet, beginning with the sparśa letters; chandaḥ-mayaḥ - comprising all the sacred Vedic meters; amṛta-mayaḥ - full of transcendental pleasure; sahasra-padavīm - which branches out in thousands of directions; prabhuḥ - the Supreme Personality of Godhead; oṁkārāt - from the subtle vibration oṁkāra; vyañjita - expanded; sparśa - with the consonant stops; svara - vowels; uṣma - sibilants; anta-stha - and semivowels; bhūṣitām - decorated; vicitra - variegated; bhāṣā - by verbal expressions; vitatām - elaborated; chandobhiḥ - along with the metrical arrangements; catuḥ-uttaraiḥ - each having four syllables more than the previous; ananta-pārām - limitless; bṛhatīm - the great expanse of Vedic literature; sṛjati - He creates; ākṣipate - and withdraws; svayam - Himself.

Just as a spider brings forth from its heart its web and emits it through its mouth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead manifests Himself as the reverberating primeval vital air, comprising all sacred Vedic meters and full of transcendental pleasure. Thus the Lord, from the ethereal sky of His heart, creates the great and limitless Vedic sound by the agency of His mind, which conceives of variegated sounds such as the sparśas. The Vedic sound branches out in thousands of directions, adorned with the different letters expanded from the syllable om: the consonants, vowels, sibilants and semivowels. The Veda is then elaborated by many verbal varieties, expressed in different meters, each having four more syllables than the previous one. Ultimately the Lord again withdraws His manifestation of Vedic sound within Himself.