Panćadaśī on the process of creation

[dwai]

Quote

Tad bhogāya puna bhogya bhogā yatana janmane, pañcīkaroti bhaga vān prayekaṁ viyadā dikam (26). Dvidhā vidhāya caikaikaṁ caturdhā prathamaṁ punaḥ, svasve tara dvitīyāṁ śaiḥ yojanāt pañca pañca te (27).

 

It was mentioned that there are five potentials of the five elements—sound, touch, etc. These electrical energies, we may call them, that are at the back as the causative factors of the five elements and are mixed up by God Himself in some proportion, are called panchikarana, or the process of quintuplication, due to which, the physical world of earth, water, fire, air and ether are manifest. Half of thesabda, or the hearing tanmatra, is mixed with one-eighth of each of the remaining four, and therefore, it becomeshalf in its composition as sabda tanmatra; and one-eighthof it consists of a little portion of the others, namelytouch, colour, taste and smell. In a similar manner are the other elements also. For the touch principle, half of it is the touch principle, and one-eighth of the other four aretaken into consideration and mixed with this half, and it then becomes vayu, or wind. Sabda becomes space, or sky,as we call it, by this quintuplication process. In the same process, the fire principle becomes fire, or light. In the same process, the taste principle becomes water. The smell principle undergoing the same process of quintuplicationbecomes the physical earth.

So the five gross elements—ether, air, fire, waterand earth—are constituted of some other elements also,and they are not entirely the original potentials whollymanifest in them. It is a peculiar combination and permutation that becomes necessary for the chemical type of combination, as it were, which causes the manifestation of the five gross elements. Thus, on the one side, the whole physical universe has been cosmically created, and on the other side, it has been individually created.

Here's the text I am working with -- https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/panchadasi/Commentary_Panchadasi.pdf

 

Edited December 17, 2018 by dwai