Adi-tita, Chapter 2 119
prthvi yaiche ghata-kulera karana asraya
fivera nidana tumi, tumi sarvasraya
SYNONYMS

prthvi—the earth; yaiche—just as; ghata— of earthen pots; ku/era—of the multitude;
karana—the cause; a@sraya—the shelter; jivera—of the living beings; nid@ana—root
cause; tumi—You; tumi—Y ou; sarva-dsraya—shelter of all.

TRANSLATION

“As the earth is the original cause and shelter of all pots made of earth, so You

are the ultimate cause and shelter of all living beings.
PURPORT

As the vast earth is the source for the ingredients of all earthen pots, so the su-
preme soul is the source for the complete substance of all individual living entities.
The cause of all causes, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the cause of the
living entities. This is confirmed in Bhagavad-gitd (7.10), where the Lord says,
bijarh mam sarva-bhitanam (‘‘| am the seed of all living entities’), and in the
Upanisads, which say, nityo nitydndm cetanas cetandnam (‘‘the Lord is the supreme
leader among all the eternal living beings’’).

The Lord is the reservoir of all cosmic manifestation, animate and inanimate.
The advocates of visistadvaita-vada philosophy explain the Veddnta-sitra by
saying that although the living entity has two kinds of bodies—subtle (consisting
of mind, intelligence and false ego) and gross (consisting of the five basic elements)—
and although he thus lives in three bodily dimensions (gross, subtle and spiritual)—
he is nevertheless a spiritual soul. Similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead
who emanates the material and spiritual worlds is the Supreme Spirit. As an
individual spirit soul is almost identical to his gross and subtle bodies, so the
Supreme Lord is almost identical to the material and spiritual worlds. The material
world, full of conditioned souls trying to lord it over matter, is a manifestation of
the external energy of the Supreme Lord, and the spiritual world, full of perfect
servitors of the Lord, is a manifestation of His internal energy. Since all living
entities are minute sparks of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is the
Supreme Soul in both the material and spiritual worlds. The Vaisnavas following
LordCaitanyastress the doctrine of acintya-bhedabheda-tattva, which states that the
Supreme Lord, being the cause and effect of everything, is inconceivably, simul-
taneously one with His manifestations of energy and different from them.

TEXT 38
‘ala-wice Be ae CAT [aor |
‘CAH -ACHCS FTE SLBA GHIA ii ov i
