within it the minds (buddhi) of all puru@sas which were lost in the prak@rti during the pralaya.  The very first work of the evolution of prak@rti to serve the puru@sas is thus manifested by the separating out of the old buddhis or minds (of the puru@sas) which hold within themselves the old specific ignorance (avidya) inherent in them with reference to each puru@sa with which any particular buddhi is associated from beginningless time before the pralaya.  This state of evolution consisting of all the collected minds (buddhi) or all the puru@sas is therefore called buddhitattva. It is a state which holds or comprehends within it the buddhis of all individuals.  The individual buddhis of individual puru@sas are on one hand integrated with the buddhitattva and on the other associated with their specific puru@sas.  When some buddhis once begin to be separated from the prak@rti, other buddhi evolutions take place.  In other words, we are to understand that once the transformation of buddhis is effected for the service of the puru@sas, all the other direct transformations that take place from the prak@rti take the same line, i.e. a preponderance of sattva being once created by the bringing out of some buddhis, other transformations of prak@rti that follow them have also the sattva preponderance, which thus have exactly the same composition as the first buddhis.  Thus the first transformation from prak@rti becomes buddhi-transformation.  This stage of buddhis may thus be regarded as the most universal stage, which comprehends within it all the buddhis of individuals and potentially all the matter of which the gross world is formed.  Looked at from this point of view it has the widest and most universal existence comprising all creation, and is thus called mahat (the great one).  It is called li@nga (sign), as the other later existences or evolutes give us the ground of inferring its existence, and as such must be distinguished from the prak@rti which is called ali@nga, i.e. of which no li@nga or characterise may be affirmed.

This mahat-tatva being once produced, further modifications begin to take place in three lines by three different kinds of undulations representing the sattva preponderance, rajas preponderance and tama preponderance.  This state when the mahat is disturbed by the three parallel tendencies of a preponderance of tamas, rajas and sattva’s called aha@mkara, and the above three tendencies are respectiviy called tamasika aha@mkara or bhutadi, rajasika or taijasa aha@mara, and vaikarika aha@mkara. The rajasika aha@mkara cannot make a new preponderance by itself; it only

250