Markandeyapurana 10.5

10.5

kathaṃ na jīryate tatra piṇḍīkṛta ivāśaye /
strīkoṣṭhe yatra jīryante bhuktāni sugurūṇyapi /
bhakṣyāṇi yatra no janturjoryate kathamalpakaḥ //

Jaimini spoke:
Declare my doubt, when I enquire, O powerful brahmans, wherein the appearance and disappearance of living beings consist. How is an animal produced? How too does it develop? How, again, is it placed when contained within the womb, pressed upon by the limbs? How, again, when it has issued from the womb, does it grow? And how at the moment of departure is it deprived of the sentient state? Every dead person also experiences the results of both his good and his bad deeds, and how then do those deeds bring about[2] their results to him? Why does the foetus not become digested there in the stomach, as if it were converted into a morsel of food? In the female’s belly, where the various foods consumed are digested although highly indigestible, how is it that the little animal is not digested there? Declare all this to me, free from doubtful terms; this very matter is a transcendant mystery, where men do err.