Tattva Prabha

(English translation with explanatory notes)

The Topic of Creation (सर्गप्रसङ्ग)

अधिष्ठाय परां शक्तिमीश्वरो व्यज्यते यतः ।
अव्यक्तव्यञ्जको योगः स व्यञ्जयतु नः शिवम् ॥ १ ॥

1) May the Yoga manifest the Blissful in us—the Yoga that manifests the unmanifest, whence the Lord presiding over the Supreme Shakti manifests Himself.

This is a benedictory couplet with which the treatise starts, in accordance with the time-honoured custom. The manifestation of the Blissful in us is the object of the invocation. The truths about the Lord, the Yoga, the Supreme Shakti and their implied relation are to be noted. First, there is the assumption that the Lord presides over the Supreme Shakti for Self-manifestation. Next, there is a tact, an attitude, a poise that is inherent in his presiding over the supreme Power that makes the unmanifest manifest. Then, it is His Shakti that manifests, and He himself is the manifested; but the Shakti is not a mere manifesting instrument, She can remain in and as the unmanifest, She can be in rest as well as in movement. Therefore, it is stated that the manifestation proceeds from the Yoga, while certainly it is the Shakti that manifests. Now, what is the character of the Yoga whence the Shakti reveals the Lord? Derivatively, Yoga is union—union of the individual with the Universal or the soul with God. But when the term is applied to the Lord Himself, obviously it means something comprehensive and more radical which does not exclude the meaning that it is a power which effects the union of the soul with God. While the Yoga-power in the individual ultimately brings about the desired union with the Universal or the Lord, the same in the Lord is a creative poise sustained by the Shakti for bringing out and developing the World-existence. It is an aspect of the Lord which initiates the movement abroad, pravritti, for working out some of the possibilities in the infinitude of His Being, maintaining at the same time his union with everything that is put forth in the Manifestation. It is thus that every creation runs its course for the fulfilment of the purpose for which it is propelled into manifested existence. Therefore while Yoga for an individual soul wending its way to its own source in the Divine Being may be called nivritti, withdraw' from the outward life, not necessarily from world-existence, the Yoga of the Lord is pravritti in as much as it initiates, supports, brings to fruition the fuller development of the manifested being in the individual and collective or Cosmic existence.

It is the Yoga of the Lord in this definite sense that is aspired for and invoked; it is the supreme Shakti of the Lord that works out the purpose of the manifestation; it is the Lord of the Yoga, Yogeshwara himself that is to be manifested—the Blissful in us, Shivam. The Yoga, the Shakti, the Lord—each is distinctly mentioned and related to the Manifestation, which is another term for Creation as we shall see in due course. That this is the subject-matter of the treatise is thus mentioned in the opening verse, and this is in conformity with the ancient convention of Sanskrit authors viz. indication of the subject-matter by implication or suggestion in the opening lines of a work.

सा शक्तिश्चितिरीशस्य चितेः कार्यमिदं जगत् ।
निगमागमसिद्वान्तसारोऽयं विदितो विदाम् ॥ २ ॥

2) That Shakti is the Consciousness of the Lord; this world is the product of that Consciousness. This is the substance of all Vedic and Tantric Teachings, known to the wise.

The supreme Power, Para Shakti, mentioned in the opening verse, is not a fund of energy or blind force; it is the Intelligence, which we call Consciousness that is fundamental to Existence itself. She is not a self-existent Power apart from the Lord, but is the very nature of the Lord's Being. She is Consciousness, static and eternally at rest, self-aware in the Lord, but throws out a movement of Herself from the Lord's Being; and the world, what we call creation, is the product of that movement. Then, it is stated that this world-existence is a product of that Consciousness-Force which is dynamic in its own becomings. It may be asked: what is the basis of such a statement? The reply is that this is the conclusion arrived at by the intuitive thinkers and seers of the Vedic and Agamic persuasion. Reference to the authority of scriptures here is quite relevant because these truths and their direct knowledge transcend the sphere of intellectual endeavour and the reasoning mind normally has no data to proceed on for arriving at conclusions about things that are out of its reach, howsoever wide, exalted, and sharp it may be in its own realm. Therefore the straightforward intelligence of man has to wait and strive for the development of higher faculties to penetrate into these truths or seek help from the trustworthy utterances of those who have had some contact with the region of Truths, some direct perception and intuitional knowledge of the ultra-mundane. For what is natural for the seer with the revelatory faculties for instruments of knowledge of the Sublime is extraordinary and abnormal to the metaphysical seeking of the normal mind. And scriptures are but recorded statements of those who have knowledge of these truths which are facts of their experience. And because these truths are always verifiable by those who are in right earnest and equipped for undertaking the task and as a matter of course could convince themselves of their universality, it is proper to hold the scriptures as authentic. Also, because these supra-intellectual truths are expressed in terms of the intellect in order to make them intelligible to the intelligent mind, it is implied that the higher and subtler faculties of the mind are not there to nullify the intellectual efforts of the mind, but on the contrary the latter find their fruition in the development of the former when properly directed through a felt awareness of their limitations and the consequent openness to receive the higher truths. This is the relevance for referring here to the scriptural teachings and it is not intended to suggest that one is obliged to accept blindly dogmatic statements asserted in the name of Scripture or Revelation.

परमोऽर्थः परं ब्रह्म शव्दस्तच्छक्तिरुच्यते ।
अनयोरविभाज्यं तत्सत्यमेकं सनातनम् ॥ ३ ॥

3) The supreme meaning is Para-Brahman, the Word is said to be his Shakti; the Truth of both is One indivisible, Eternal.

The fundamentals of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo are presented here in terms of the Vedic and Tantric systems of Cosmology. The First Cause, the ultimate term of Being is called Para Brahman, which is the meaning, the essence or the substance. The term ‘artha’ meaning denotes Being to whose very nature consciousness is fundamental. There is a power of expression inherent in it, Shakti; it is Shabda, the Logos, the Primal Sound, the Word, the vibrant movement of that Consciousness which manifests and points to the Being that is its reserve. Hence the Word and the Meaning, Shabda and Artha, the Power of the Being and the Being are both of them, the same Truth, the One Eternal, presenting a biune aspect, yet inseparable because of their essential oneness.

परः शब्दात्वको भूत्वा शक्तस्तपति वर्धते ।
स्वतोऽविभाज्यान्येतानि जगन्ति विसृजविभुः ॥ ४ ॥

4) The Supreme One, the Lord as the vibrant Word, is and becomes the Powerful, incubates, increases, releases these worlds inseparable from Himself.

The Supreme Sole Being has been already stated to be the fundamental consciousness and this latter, while static in the conserving poise, is by the very nature of its infinitude, endued with an expressional aspect which translates itself into a movement for Self-manifestation, connoted by the word Shabda, the vibrant consciousness. He is Shakta, Powerful, ever fresh with a power to bring out something of himself; He maintains it in himself, by the force of Tapas, in the heat of what may be called the creative incubation, tapati, preparing what is to be brought out of himself for the assumption of huge and varied dimensions, of gradations in degree and kind, of difference in stress and quality and feature. By virtue of this poise of His Consciousness which is the agency for manifesting something of the Unmanifest which is beyond all formations, He may be said to increase, vardhate. From such an increase, the outflow of something in himself in the form of these worlds results. This is called the release, visriṣṭi, of the worlds. And these again are not separable from himself since He is said to be the Indivisible One out of whom these worlds are loosened, released and set forth.

नानालोकाः प्रजायन्ते कारणादेकतो विभोः ।
तस्मादेकत्र नानात्वमुत्पन्नमुपपद्यते ॥ ५ ॥

5) From the sole Cause, the Mighty One, many worlds are born; hence it is apposite that the Manifold Birth subsists in the One.

It was stated in the previous couplet that Creation is a release, sriṣṭi, from the Supreme Being. The release or creation of the worlds is a self-interpretation by the power and consciousness of the Lord in the process of his own unfoldment. And each object in the shape of a world or a system of worlds being a self-manifestation of the Supreme, contains in itself all that is necessary to bring out the innermost secret Bliss of existence. Irrespective of their bulk or quality, the manifested forms can have no existence apart from the One from which they are derived, like the thousand leaves of a tree which have no living separate from the trunk and branches from which they shoot forth. Hence it is stated that the Cause is one and mighty enough to hold the many in itself. The common conception that the One is opposed to the Many is an error in the mental reasoning consequent on its constitutional inability to perceive the propriety of apparent opposites that are really aspects of a larger whole. Hence the appositeness of the many in the One has to be affirmed here. It is also to be noted that when we say that the manifold manifestation takes place in the One, it must be understood not only that the One is the ground in which the manifestations appear, but also that it is not a numerical one that is meant but the Substantial One that is the underlying principle as well as the overruling factor of the manifested Many.

The couplet is content with the statement about the appropriateness of the Many sustained in the One. But a doubt may arise that the birth, the Many from the One may continue its existence without any necessary relation maintained between itself and the essential background from which it has sprung. The next verse removes such a possible doubt.

उत्पन्नानामनेकेषां लोकानामीशजन्मनाम् ।
अनुत्पन्नस्य चैकस्य सम्बन्धो ध्रियते सतः ।॥ ६ ॥

6) Relation subsists between the One unborn and the many worlds that are born of the Lord.

The unborn One maintains its connection with its own Manifestation in the form of the worlds. This had to be stated because in some of the systems of philosophic thought it is held that God is aloof from and indifferent to the creation which has somehow come to be and the worlds, once they are born, are left to their own. We need not concern ourselves with the different reasons or considerations that motivate such arguments, for instance, the desire to absolve God from responsibility for the existence of ignorance, evil and suffering in the world. These worlds, with all their imperfections, have taken their birth from the Lord, Iśa-janmanām, and this parental relation does not snap with the moment of their inception. It continues, but with varying stresses on its functional aspects. The relation is real and incessantly operative.

अथ चैकत्व-नानात्वसम्बन्थो ध्रियते न चेत् ।
क्रमो वा नियतिर्न स्याल्लोकयात्रासु लक्षितः ॥ ७ ॥

7) And were it not for the relation sustained between the One and the Many, there would be no order, no law, seen in the world-movement.

It is not the intention here to suggest a logical argument to prove the existence of God, the Lord of creation; for it was stated in the opening lines that the Ultimate Reality, the God—the beginning and end of all the worlds—cannot be proved to exist by means of cold logic and that the truth of it can be comprehended only by the higher faculties of the mind. intuitional, revelatory and other functionings of the Light above the reasoning mind. No keen eye could fail to perceive a certain rhythm, a kind of Order, side by side with disorder, running on its own larger lines, a Law of apparent Necessity in the grand operations of forces in the World-movement. It would even seem clear to the discerning mind that only the Law, the Order abides and the chaos we observe in Nature only indicates the unavoidable or initial failures or necessary evils in the working out of the Cosmos, Order, even as revolutions quite often prove to be necessary or concentrated steps in evolution. But it is not a mechanical law, an Order fixed to a pattern, that we meet with. It vibrates with a Life that overcomes with on irresistible force all obstructions, and operates with the ease and certainty and precision of a Master Intelligence that is unmistakably working it out in the material aspect of this Creation. This fact of a directing intelligence has to be admitted here, without which a working faith in the ultimate manifestation of the Most Blissful in us would be impossible, For, the presentation of this system to the enquiring mind is after all a help, ancillary to the aims of Yoga which is our utmost concern, as stated in the beginning.

नियतिर्यदि निर्मूला निरर्था सा भवेद्, यतः ।
प्रयोजनमनुद्दिश्य न मन्दोऽपि प्रवर्तते ॥ ८ ॥

8).If the law were groundless, it would be devoid of meaning; for even the dunce does not engage in activity without purpose.

Till now we spoke of the Supreme Lord as the Cause of all the worlds, as their ground and base and as their essential being also. Here for the first time it is stated in unequivocal terms what was hinted earlier that there is a purpose in creation. That purpose is the meaning for the realisation of which all laws and movements, ways and means are determined. Here again the idea is this that creation or any part or whole of it has not come to be against the Will and without the knowledge of the Supreme, but it has come to be with the full knowledge and with a purpose and as an effect of the workings of the Divine Will. It is a common saying of the Mimamsakas, recalled here, that even a dunce does not undertake a task without purpose. That is to say, there is the God's Will and there is a divine purpose in the Creation; for otherwise, there would be no point in His Will initiating this gigantic Movement to set it going out of His Being in Eternity.

तस्मात्सर्वस्य लोकस्य गतिरर्थवती यतः ।
प्रज्ञानेतृ जगत्प्राहुरिदं नान्धेन नीयते ॥ ९ ॥

9) Hence the universal movement has meaning. The world has Intelligence for its guide, is not led by the blind.

Once we recognise that the world-creation is a willed movement of the Divine, it acquires a deep significance. The entire world-movement, all Nature, revolves round the central purpose laid down by the Nature's Lord. Not merely as a whole, but in every detail there is a law that is being observed, there is an end that is being served. For, if what propels the world-activity is the Divine Will, what guides it is the Divine Intelligence. It is the shining light of the seeing Wisdom that looks ahead, lights up the way and leads the course of the creation along the foreseen line of its gaze. The Path may appear dark, uneasy, zigzag, meaningless to the human mind but in fact, looked at from the heights of the supernal Intelligence, it would appear different and in its true light. The movement may appear unsteady, wasteful and even guideless or with a blind leader for guide. But it forms no part of the Divine Scheme to entrust a making out of His own Being to a blind force or agent for guardianship. The guiding Intelligence is as fully present in the minutest detail as in the huge magnitude of its labour and may so overwhelm our little minds and seem to them as if it were void of vision and aim.

इच्छापूर्वमिदं सृष्टं नेश्वरस्य तटस्थता ।
अनाप्तकामदोषस्य न गन्धोऽपि प्रसज्यते ॥ १० ॥

10) Preceded by Will this is created; God is not indifferent. There does not arise the question, even a whit, of the fault of unfulfilled desire.

It has been stated that the universal movement is not guideless and left to the care of a care-free blind force, but that there is a conscious principle, the guiding Intelligence which is present in each and all of the created existence. Now the question arises if it is an omnipresent Intelligence that guides, it may be guide of a sort even by its passive presence and itself may not be actively disposed to the universal movement; and the creative principle in the Godhead may work out and formulate the universal existence through forms of mechanical laws, while the Godhead may remain indifferent to the world-product. Here, the answer is given that there is a Will in the Godhead using the creative principle and that this Will carries with it the Intelligence and therefore there is no question of indifference on the part of God. This is what is stated in the first half of the couplet. It must be noted here that God's will is not restricted to this or other world-movement, nor the Intelligence confined to the function of directing the Will and the Will-force towards the world-formation and world-guidance. What is meant here is this: in certain lines of latter Vedantic thought stress is laid on the indifferent aspect of Brahman in regard to Creation. There is no gainsaying that the equality or sameness of Brahman in all creation is in a practical sense the same as indifference of the Impersonal Reality. In that view, one can say that creation is an indifferent expression, natural and effortless, of the Force, Shakti, inherent in the Consciousness, Chit, that is Brahman. But the standpoint taken here, and the truth upon which emphasis is laid is that it is not the Brahman which is passive and equal or indifferent that is meant here as the Cause, but Brahman which is also the Godhead, the Person as the Cause of creation that is willed and held in His infinite being. Therefore there is the Will with its executive force that fashions the forms of creation; consequently the willing Godhead cannot be said to maintain indifference in regard to the universal movement.

Then, it may be asked why there should be a desire or will to create at all. Now we are apt to forget that what is desire in us is a perversion and corrupt counterpart of the Will in the Creative Godhead and imagine that God too is afflicted with wants and to fulfil them he desires and creates. Here the latter half of the verse says that there is no fault, the fault of want, the question of fulfilling any desire on the part of God. It is childish to reason that God need not desire or will to produce because he is full and there is no want in him, and desire after all arises from want while God, the Full, cannot be thought of as having wants causing desires. This is an irrational imposing of the kind of human wants and desires on the Will-force inherent in the Consciousness of the Lord. Thus the question of the fault of unfulfilled desire as the cause of Creation does not arise. How? The next verse says:

अपूर्णः स्रष्टुकामोऽपि जगत्स्रष्टुं कथं प्रभुः ।
आनन्दस्य समृद्धत्वात्पूर्णत्वादस्य सर्जनम् ॥ ११ ॥

11) Can He create the world if He is not full Himself, even though He desires to? Delight, Ananda, being rich and full, this effusion (this creation) takes place.

It is the Will of the creative Godhead that releases the universe of world-movement—what we call creation; and this is no more than an expression or manifestation of the Delight of Being. We may conceive of this effusion as an outflow of the supremely full and rich Bliss of Existence that is immense. It is no desire or want that creates, it is the Will that does. If we pause and consider the course of human activities, the fact will be obvious that it is force that works and effectuates and not desire though it may be an incentive for action in all activities of the ego-ridden individual. Desire without force and substance is impotent and can have no place in any creation which is an output of energy even in human affairs. This is what the text drives at. The creator is full of substantial Delight on which the Will-force plays bringing out quite naturally something of that Delight, Ananda, in the form of what we call creation. The radical significance of the Sanskrit word Ananda itself is at once richness and fullness, samriddhi and all-embracing joy. This truth has been perceived by the seers of old who state in unequivocal terms that the creation issues from Fullness.

यस्माज्जगदिदं पूर्णादंशः पूर्णमुदच्यते ।
तस्मादशेऽपि सम्पूर्ण आनन्दः परमेश्वरः ॥ १२ ॥

12) Because this universal movement, a fragment, is taken out full from the Full (Being), (therefore) in the fragment, the Bliss is intensely full, the Supreme Lord.

The couplet recalls the statement of the Upanishadic truth which makes a summary disposal of the argument of certain schools of metaphysicians. It is an old question, not a living challenge. Still it is but proper to make mention of it here and present in unmistakable terms our position in regard to the infinitude of Being, the Immensity from which the world issues and comes to be, as an emanation or expression of the ultimate Reality. It used to be asked—it may still be asked—how can the Ultimate truth or Absolute Being or Non-being conceived rightly to be infinite have finites in it to be released? If the Infinite is made up of finites, then these finites or parts make up a whole which means that the whole also is finite. And the Infinite being Absolute, how can it include finites in it? If they are not included in it, how can there be finites outside of the Absolute, the Infinite, this latter being all-inclusive? It is the same question in another form of the Absolute and the Relative. The answer is simple and clear. The difficulty arises from the assumption that the Infinite is opposed to the finite or beyond the finite and therefore treated as something negative, not positive like the finite of our common experience. But the sages of the Upanishads see and think differently. This is clear from their statements that He is full of all qualities, sarva gandha, sarva rasa etc. Again there is another class of passages in the Upanishads such as ‘That is not gross nor subtle’ asthula, ananu etc. It is clear from these parallel statements,—not contradictory as certain schools contend—that both are equally valid and the negative description is meant to drive home the truth that the Infinite is beyond the finite, the Absolute beyond the Relative, and that the positive statement that He is all etc. purports to inculcate the truth that it is the same One that is He and It,—He is the positive all, the All; He is It also as the Ineffable beyond all qualities and relatives and not as opposed to them, but as source and support of them. Therefore if to the superficial reasoning of metaphysical ‘logic for the sake of logic’ Infinite cannot exclude or include the finite, to the truth-vision of the ancient seers corroborated by latter sages up to our own times, the same One is Brahman, the It, and is God, the He. That One is at once the Impersonal, the Personal and the Beyond, even as it is at once the Sat, the Chit, the Ananda as we shall see.

If so, we can put it that the Infinite is not devoid and a negation of the finite, but that it is something positive and so immense as to hold in itself an infinite number of finites and allows their release, wills their manifestation in and out of itself.

The question then does not arise that the finites being released from the Infinite go out of it separated, or diminish it. For the finite has no existence at all without the Infinite. After all, what is the finite? Is it not but a limitation in and of the unlimited in the space-time formula of existence? Is it not essentially one with the Infinite, while it is distinct and separate in the formal existence presented to the senses, i.e. the sense-mind, or even the thinking intelligence based upon it? We can call it a quantitative existence against a background that is at once all quantity and beyond all quantity. The same may be said of the quality of the finite with a background that is all quality and beyond it. The sages of the Upanishads put it trenchantly: “That is full and this is full, out of the Full the Full is lifted up. Fullness being taken from Fullness, Fullness alone remains.” And this means clearly that the finite holds the Infinite in itself and every part and whole are essentially one. Therefore the Finite, the creation in this sense is taken from the Full and even though it is but a part, a fragment, still there the Full is present, the Supreme Lord as the Delight of Existence.

कोऽप्यंशो जगदाकारस्तपसा जायते यतः ।
तत्र पूर्णः परः शक्त्या रमते नित्ययेश्वरः ॥ १३ ॥

13) Whence, by dint of Tapas (self-contained Conscious Force) a part assumes the shape of the world; there the Supreme Lord is full, and takes delight along with the Eternal Power.

It has been stated in the opening couplets that it is the Consciousness as Force, Chit-Shakti, that works out the World-existence. Here it is to be noted that the same Force in the self-contained poise is called Tapas in the early Vedantic texts. It conserves and incubates and turns out the Will-Force for the execution and shaping of the creation that is loosened forth from the Infinite Being. It is necessary here to avoid a likely misconception that all creation is an output of the Force and in a sense the Force itself because of its character as a movement and that the Supreme Lord is unconcerned and aloof leaving the creative work to the Shakti alone. Therefore it is stated that He takes delight in the creation along with the Eternal Power, the Nitya Shakti. Now a confusion may result from the use of certain terms in the statements made about creation as caused by the Tapas, by the Consciousness-Force, by the Will-Force or as an effect and effusion of Ananda, a manifestation of the Delight in Existence etc. Therefore the couplets that follow attempt to give an idea of the senses in which these terms are used such as Sat, Chit, Ananda, Prakriti, Maya, Tapas and the rest, for they represent certain aspects of the Sole and Ultimate Truth called variously with due significance.

एक एवाऽव्ययः पूर्णः सच्चिदानन्दलक्षणः ।
उपादानं निमित्तं च विसृष्टेर्जगतः स्मृतः ॥ १४ ॥

14) The Inexhaustible, the Full, the One alone, known as Sat-Chit-Ananda is the Lord of the world-creation, the Cause material as well as efficient.

The One is viewed here in the various aspects that pertain to Creation. First, it is stated that He is One, ekah, inexhaustible, avyayah, because infinite; second, it is the Full, as already explained; next, He is always spoken of as Existence-consciousness-delight, Sat-Chit-Ananda. We have spoken of these three terms separately, but here.for the first time the triple formula is applied to the Sole Reality. The connotation of each term must be clearly understood especially in regard to its being the Cause. And Cause is essential and material as clay for a pot, to use the stock example of Sanskritists; Cause is also efficient, as the potter in the case of a pot. We shall see what aspect of the triple formula of Sat-Chit-Ananda constitutes the material Cause and what the efficient.

प्रकृतिः स्यादुपादानं जगतां ब्रह्मणो वपुः ।
आकाशश्चिद्घनानन्दोऽप्यदितिर्वेदभाषया ॥ १५ ॥

15) The substance of the worlds is the Material Cause, Prakriti; it is the Body of Brahman called Akasha, etherial extension; it is intense consciousness-bliss, Aditi in the language of the Vedas.

It is a fundamental truth and solid bold statement of the Vedantic seers that all creation including the Physical Existence is formed out of Brahman, the Substance, and therefore this latter is the radical Nature, Prakriti, of all world-creation. Even though what we call Matter may appear as devoid of consciousness, still it is Brahman denoted by the triple formula of Sat-Chit-Ananda. Prakriti is generally translated as Nature, but to be precise we have to make a distinction between the primordial and the executive; for the former is the substantial part of Nature, while the latter denotes its play caused by something else, some other element, by another aspect which is the dynamic principle to which we shall presently refer in the verses that follow. It is necessary to remember that Prakriti is generally used or understood in the latter systems as Nature or Force of Nature or Nature at work. But the term is used here to denote the primordial substance which in its manifest form includes Matter also. But essentially, it is the substance pure, the untranslatable Akasa, the etherial Extension, whose nature is Bliss, Akasha Ananda. This is the body of Brahman, akasa-sariram Brahma, in the words of the Upanishad. This Indivisible, the Infinite field we may say, is called Aditi, the Matrix of all Creation. Thus in this couplet Aditi, Akasa, the primordial Prakriti, the body of Brahman, all refer to one and the same aspect, the Delight, Ananda of the triply mentioned Sole Brahman, Sat-Chit-Ananda. Now that we have seen how the Material Cause, Upadana Karana, is Brahman as Ananda, we shall consider the character of the efficient Cause. And this is the text:

चितिशक्तिस्तपोवाच्या निमित्तं जगदुद्भवे ।
सन्नेवमेक एवात्मा त्रिरूपः प्रोच्यते बुधैः ॥ १६ ॥

16).Consciousness-Force, indicated by the term Tapas is the cause efficient for the rise of the world. The one Atman who exists is said to be threefold by the wise.

We have already spoken of Tapas as the Chit-Shakti, Consciousness as the Force that implies the Will to create. And this is the efficient cause, nimitta karana. The Force acts upon the substance, the material which is Brahman, the Akasa Ananda. It shall not be supposed that Brahman the Ananda is separate from Brahman the Chit-Shakti. To drive home this truth the text says that the Atman is One but triple in aspect; for He exists, therefore He is conscious and powerful and full of Bliss. Or it may be put in terms of the Impersonal It, that whatever is, exists, sat. Consciousness exists, Delight exists, and pure existence challenges analysis. It must not be supposed that the three make up the One Brahman, but Brahman the One presents a threefold aspect of the Self-existent Atman, Conscious and Blissful. The comprehension of the One in the triple formula is a necessity for the human mind. It is correct thought and is justified by the corresponding lines of practical approach of the seeker, for they yield the results appropriate to the path leading to that aspect of the Goal. More is not warranted here and will be a digression. The next verse clarifies the distinction between Prakriti and Maya.

अदितिः प्रकृतिः प्रोक्ता तपो मायेति कीर्तिता ।
अदितिः सा त्वखण्डत्वान्मानान्मायेति गीयते ॥ १७ ॥

17. Aditi (the Infinite) is called Prakriti; Tapas is called Maya; because indivisible She is (called) Aditi; and Maya is so called because she measures (the Immeasurable).

The significance of the term Aditi and of Prakriti has been already stated. Here what is stated anew is that Tapas is the same as Maya. We have stated that the field is the Akasa, Ananda, substance on which the Tapas force acts and effectuates; hence it is the efficient Cause. The same Tapas is Maya in this sense of the term. Maya is indeed illusion in the later Vedanta. It is Shakti or Power in the Tantrik systems. Certainly Maya is a power of the Consciousness which in its working, displays cunning, and illusion is a result under certain conditions of its play. But Maya in the supreme consciousness is a Power, Tapas-shakti, with the Will-force and high cunning to divide the Indivisible, to finitise the Infinite, to measure out the Immeasurable. Hence, it is stated that if Aditi is so called because it is indivisible, Maya is so called because it measures the Immeasurable. In the case of both the terms the root-significance is brought out and to be noted.

एका स्वरूपं सत्यस्यापरा व्यापार उच्यते ।
उभाभ्यां सर्जनं धत्ते स्वयमेको परात्परः ॥ १८ ॥

18) The one (former) is the nature or substance of what exists, the Truth, the other the activity. The transcendent and supreme One himself sustains the creation by these two.

The above-mentioned two are the Prakriti, the substance that is Akasa Ananda, and Chit-Shakti, Tapas, the conscious Will-force that dynamises the creative substance. By means of these two aspects of Himself, the supreme Lord, source and support of All, sustains the Creation that is the world-manifestation.

शक्त्या यया मिमीतेऽयममेयं स्वं परः पुमान्।
माया सा कीर्त्यते कैश्विदस्माभिस्तप इष्यते ॥ १९ ॥

19) That Power by which the Supreme Person measures out himself, the Immeasurable, is according to some the Power of Maya; for us it is the Force of Tapas.

The substance of this couplet has been already explained in the preceding verses and further elucidation here is not necessary. But the point to be noted here is this. The One is generally the Brahman, the Impersonal It, the Sat existence, the One is also She, as the Shakti, Consciousness-Force; but in regard to creation that One is He, the supreme Person who measures out his measureless Being by this Shakti, the Maya already described.

एवं त्रिरूपो भगवाननन्त-
स्तपःप्रभावाद्विसृजत्यजाण्डान् ।
स्वांशेषु जातेषु विसृष्टपूर्वे-
ष्वात्मानमेकं बहुधा व्यनक्ति ॥ २० ॥

20) The Lord Eternal is thus threefold, sends forth from the splendour of Tapas the Cosmic Eggs. And in his own portions that were previously released and are born, He manifests the One Self as the Many.

Bhagawan in the text is rendered Lord; but the Sanskrit word connotes something more than being the Master. It suggests the endless qualities that are natural to him. He is Ananta (literally endless, which means he is boundless, inexhaustible, Eternal. He is Sat-Chit-Ananda, therefore mentioned here as threefold which is the term that intimately pertains to him. He lets loose the worlds by the Force of Tapas. This has been explained. The one thing to be noted here is that it is the heat of incubation with an innate splendour that radiates the creative force and hatches the world-embryos, Brahmanda. Ajanda means literally Brahma's egg from which the universe springs. And there are many universes. It is translated here as the Cosmic Eggs. The latter half of the stanza is important in that it briefly but in assured terms mentions the meaning of Manifestation. For it says, the Supreme Lord manifests the Sole Self as many selves. And where are they so manifested? In his own portions that were previously released and thrown as seeds in the creative movements that has produced the world-systems. Here ends the first section of 20 couplets dealing in general with the question of Creation as conceived in this scheme of Teaching. The full import of this verse will become clear in the sections that follow and that is, indeed, the central theme of this treatise.