yatha -- just as; urna-nabhih -- a spider; hridayat -- from its heart; urnam -- its web; udvamate -- emits; mukhat -- through its mouth; akasat -- from the ether; ghosha-van -- manifesting sound vibration; pranah -- the Lord in the form of the original life air; manasa -- by means of the primeval mind; sparsa-rupina -- which exhibits the forms of the different phonemes of the alphabet, beginning with the sparsa letters; chandah-mayah -- comprising all the sacred Vedic meters; amrita-mayah -- full of transcendental pleasure; sahasra-padavim -- which branches out in thousands of directions; prabhuh -- the Supreme Personality of Godhead; omkarat -- from the subtle vibration omkara; vyanjita -- expanded; sparsa -- with the consonant stops; svara -- vowels; ushma -- sibilants; anta-stha -- and semivowels; bhushitam -- decorated; vicitra -- variegated; bhasha -- by verbal expressions; vitatam -- elaborated; chandobhih -- along with the metrical arrangements; catuh-uttaraih -- each having four syllables more than the previous; ananta-param -- limitless; brihatim -- the great expanse of Vedic literature; srijati -- He creates; akshipate -- 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 sparsas. 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.