444 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 3, Ch. 12

Almost all the conditioned souls who are rotting in the material world
are misusing their independence, and therefore five kinds of nescience are
imposed upon them. As an obedient servitor of the Lord, Brahma creates
all these as a matter of necessity, but he is not happy in doing so because
a devotee of the Lord naturally does not like to see anyone falling down
from his real position. Persons who do not care for the path of realization
get full facilities from the Lord for executing their proclivities to the
fullest extent, and Brahma helps in that procedure without fail.

TEXT 4

WAG TA Aa A AATAAAAT: |
aaga To arifuftamaetaa: Il v Il

sanakam ca sanandam ca
sanatanam athatmabhih

sanat-kumaram ca munin
niskriyan iirdhva-retasah

sanakam—Sanaka; ca—also; sanandam—Sananda; ca—and; sanatanam—
Sanatana; atha— thereafter; atmabhuh— Brahma, who is self-born; sanat-
kumaram—Sanat-kumara; ca—also; munin—the great sages; niskriyan—
free from all fruitive action; urdhva-retasah—those whose semina flows
upwards.

TRANSLATION

In the beginning, Brahma created four great sages named Sanaka,
Sananda, Sanatana and Sanat-kumara. All of them were unwilling to adopt
materialistic activities because they were highly elevated due to their
semina’s flowing upwards.

PURPORT

Although Brahma created the principles of nescience as a matter of
necessity for those living entities who were destined to ignorance by the
will of the Lord, he was not satisfied in performing such a thankless task.
He therefore created four principles of knowledge: sankhya, or empirical
philosophy for the analytical study of material conditions; yoga, or mysti-
cism for liberation of the pure soul from material bondage; vairagya, the
acceptance of complete detachment from material enjoyment in life to
