Text 23]
The Process of Creation
215
bhūtair mahadbhir ya imāḥ puro vibhur nirmāya śete yadamūṣu pūruṣaḥ bhuṅkte guṇān ṣoḍaśa ṣoḍaśātmakaḥ so'laṅkṛṣīṣṭa bhagavān vacāṁsi me
bhūtaiḥ—by the elements; mahadbhiḥ—of material creation; yaḥ—He who; imāḥ—all these; puraḥ—bodies; vibhuḥ—of the Lord; nirmāya—for being set up; śete—lie down; yadamūṣu—one who incarnated; pūruṣaḥ—Lord Viṣṇu; bhuṅkte—causes to be subjected; guṇān—the three modes of nature; ṣoḍaśa—in sixteen divisions; ṣoḍaśātmakaḥ—being the generator of these sixteen; saḥ—He; alaṅkṛṣīṣṭa—may decorate; bhagavān—the Personality of Godhead; vacāṁsi—statements; me—mine.
TRANSLATION
May the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who enlivens the materially created bodies of the elements by lying down within the universe, and who in His puruṣa incarnation causes the living being to be subjected to the sixteen divisions of material modes which are his generator, be pleased to decorate my statements.
PURPORT
Śukadeva Gosvāmī (unlike a mundane man who is proud of his own capability) as a fully dependent devotee invokes the pleasure of the Personality of Godhead so that his statements might be successful and so that they might be appreciated by the hearers. The devotee always thinks of himself as instrumental for anything successfully carried out, and he declines to take credit for anything done by himself. The godless atheist wants to take all credit for activities, without knowing that even a blade of grass cannot move without the sanction of the Supreme Spirit, the Personality of Godhead. Śukadeva Gosvāmī therefore wants to move by the direction of the Supreme Lord, who inspired Brahmā to speak the Vedic wisdom. The truths described in the Vedic literatures are neither theories of mundane imagination nor are they ficticious, as the less intelligent class of men sometimes think. The Vedic truths are all perfect descriptions of the factual truth without any mistake or illusion, and Śukadeva Gosvāmī wants to present the truths of creation not as a meta-physical theory of philosophical speculation, but as the actual facts and figures of the subject, since he would be dictated to by the Lord exactly in