Devanagari
तदा संहृत्य चान्योन्यं भगवच्छक्तिचोदिता: ।
सदसत्त्वमुपादाय चोभयं ससृजुर्ह्यद: ॥ ३३ ॥
Verse text
tadā saṁhatya cānyonyaṁ
bhagavac-chakti-coditāḥ
sad-asattvam upādāya
cobhayaṁ sasṛjur hy adaḥ
Synonyms
tadā
—
all those
;
saṁhatya
—
being assembled
;
ca
—
also
;
anyonyam
—
one another
;
bhagavat
—
by the Personality of Godhead
;
śakti
—
energy
;
coditāḥ
—
being applied
;
sat
—
asattvam — primarily and secondarily
;
upādāya
—
accepting
;
ca
—
also
;
ubhayam
—
both
;
sasṛjuḥ
—
came into existence
;
hi
—
certainly
;
adaḥ
—
this universe .
Translation
Thus when all these became assembled by force of the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, this universe certainly came into being by accepting both the primary and secondary causes of creation.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
O best of the brāhmaṇas! As long as the gross elements, senses and mind were not mixed together, it was not possible for them to produce material bodies. Coming together by the impulse of the Lord’s energy, accepting primary and secondary forms, they created the body of the whole universe and the individual bodies in it.
Purport
In this verse it is clearly mentioned that the Supreme Personality of Godhead exerts His different energies in the creation; it is not that He Himself is transformed into material creations. He expands Himself by His different energies, as well as by His plenary portions. In a corner of the spiritual sky of
brahmajyoti
a spiritual cloud sometimes appears, and the covered portion is called the
mahat-tattva.
The Lord then, by His plenary portion as Mahā-Viṣṇu, lies down within the water of the
mahat-tattva,
and the water is called the Causal Ocean (Kāraṇa-jala). While Mahā-Viṣṇu sleeps within the Causal Ocean, innumerable universes are generated along with His breathing. These universes are floating, and they are scattered all over the Causal Ocean. They stay only during the breathing period of Mahā-Viṣṇu. In each and every universal globe, the same Mahā-Viṣṇu enters again as Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu and lies there on the serpentlike Śeṣa incarnation. From His navel sprouts a lotus stem, and on the lotus, Brahmā, the lord of the universe, is born. Brahmā creates all forms of living beings of different shapes in terms of different desires within the universe. He also creates the sun, moon and other demigods.
Therefore the chief engineer of the material creation is the Lord Himself, as confirmed in the
Bhagavad-gītā
(9.10)
. It is He only who directs the material nature to produce all sorts of moving and nonmoving creations.
There are two modes of material creation: the creation of the collective universes, as stated above, done by the Mahā-Viṣṇu, and the creation of the single universe. Both are done by the Lord, and thus the universal shape, as we can see, takes place.
Commentary (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The kāraṇa-sṛṣṭi has been described. Now the kārya-sṛṣṭi is described. When these ingredients were unmixed (asaṅgatā), and when it was not possible for them to make the bodies (āyatana), then the Lord entered them. They became combined by his compacting energy, and taking primary and secondary forms, created the body of the universe as a whole and the individual bodies.