After Uddhava inquires from Śrī Kṛṣṇa about the duties of the social and religious orders of the varṇāśrama society, the Lord replies that in the first age, Satya-yuga, there was only one social order, called haṁsa. In that age men were automatically dedicated to pure devotional service from their very birth, and since everyone was perfect in all respects, the age was called Kṛta-yuga. The Vedas were then manifest in the form of the sacred syllable om, and the Supreme Lord was perceived within the mind in the form of the four-legged bull of religion. There were no formalized processes of sacrifice, and the sinless people, who were naturally inclined to austerity, simply engaged in meditation on the personal form of the Lord. In the following age, Tretā-yuga, there became manifest from the heart of the Supreme Personality of Godhead the three Vedas, and from them the three forms of the sacrificial fire. At that time the system of four varṇas and four āśramas, which prescribes material and spiritual duties for the different members of society, appeared from the bodily limbs of the Lord. According to how the social divisions took birth from higher and lower features of the Lord’s body, they became endowed with higher and lower qualities. After this description, Lord Kṛṣṇa explains the natures of persons in each of the four varṇas and of those who are outside the limits of the varṇas. He also describes those qualities that pertain to humanity in general.