Purana Series - 1: Vishnu Purana: Pralaya, Prakriti and Purusha
Michael Beloved , what are your views on Purusha and Prakriti as described below? Is it similar to Sankhya philosophy or it is different philosophy?
Looks like Prakriti is also an inspiration from Vishnu, I thought it was from Durga ? Is it a different timecycle or parallel universe?
How do you see below explaination?
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During the period of Pralaya, the nature exists in a state of equilibrium. It is during this period that Purusha (masculine forces of creation) separates from Prakriti (feminine forces of creation) and Kalroop of Vishnu (eternal, unending form of the Lord) is manifested. Lord Vishnu is beyond all the bonding of life like birth, growth, intelligence, senses, decay and death. Purusha is the first appearance of Lord Vishnu. Prakriti is the manifestation of His action while Kalroop is His supreme appearance."
During the Pralaya, there was neither day nor night, neither earth nor sky and neither darkness nor light. At the subsidence of Pralaya, with His desire, the Lord entered the Purusha who is beyond all bonding. His entry stimulated the process of creation. First of all, a single great element originated encompassing all the other lesser elements.
From this great element originated three egos- Sattvic, Rajas and Tamas. Tamas created sky with sound as the main virtue. The sky then created the sense of touch. Touch produced air. Hence, touch is the main feature of air; no one can see air but only have an experience of it through touch. Air created Rupa, which gave birth to fire with Rupa as its main virtue. Fire gave birth to taste. Taste produced water with taste as its main property. From water originated scent, which produced earth with scent as the main feature. These senses have no special expression.
The ego Rajas produced ten sense organs whereas the ruling deities of these organs were produced by Sattvic ego. Thus, the ten deities who rule ten sense organs and the eleventh entity mind are Sattvic in nature. Skin, eyes, ears, nose and tongue- these five organs aid the mind in its function. O Maitreya! Anus, sex organs, hands , legs and speech organs are the five organs that help in action. Works like excretion, reproduction, movement and speech are carried out with the help of these five organs.
All the five elements like sky, air, fire, water and earth are full of emotions. Hence, they are also known to have a special significance. All these elements have different and distinct powers. Without their combination, creation of the universe was impossible.
In the beginning, all these elements were present in the great ball or egg, which came into existence because of the inspiration of the Lord. As this ball increased in size, it formed the base as Prakriti in which, Lord Vishnu Himself entered as Hiranyagarbh. When the universe comes into existence, Lord Vishnu fosters it till the end of Kalpa.
At the end of Kalpa, Lord Vishnu Himself devours the entire physical elements in Rudra appearance.During that time, He inundates the entire universe and Himself sleeps on Shesha in Ksheersagar. When he awakes once again, He begins the process of creation in the appearance of Brahma.
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My views are that one has to first understand the vocabulary of the particular text. It is a serious mistake to standardize the word meanings for every Purana or other similar text.
For instance, if one reads the Vishnu Purana one has to be ready to accept that Vishnu is the God but if one reads the Shiva Purana, one has to begin by accepting Shiva as God.
Of course, this seems contradictory but still to follow the text one has to follow with meanings given by the writer. If, however one cannot stomach so much change in vocabular, then one should leave those texts aside or merely regard them as they are considered by many people, as mere myths.
When reading a specific Purana, one has to begin by first culling out the definitions used in that book and then applying that as one reads. In that way one can follow the mind of the writer. Otherwise, there will be unnecessary confusion. This means that how Michael Beloved uses or defines a word has no value in some other writer’s book.
Usually, my definitions tally with the Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana) and with that Purana only. If one tries to take my definitions elsewhere, there will be confusion.
Your statement in bold font below is out of place because it indicates taking one definition and trying to use it in another text which is unreasonable.
Looks like Prakriti is also an inspiration from Vishnu, I thought it was from Durga ? Is it a different timecycle or parallel universe?
If in one Purana, prakriti is an inspiration from Vishnu and then in another Purana or text, it is from Durga, then what is the problem. All one needs to do is to stay on one side or the other. But if one tries to straddle both sides, they may move apart and then what will happen? One will be in a dangerous split.
If one stays on one side and understands that side’s views, then if one goes completely to the other side and understands that, and if one does not try to bring the two in harmony, there will be no confusion.
The idea of the Puranas was for each particular set of people in a certain part of India, to use one of the Puranas. It was never for them to read all the Puranas and compare or contrast the text. Previously it was near impossible to do that comparison as we can today because we have ready access to books, while people before did not have access to the written form and only an oral format given by the leading pandits in their area. One should stick to one Purana which one’s nature agrees with and leave the others aside. Otherwise, it is likely that one’s brains will explode.
