Shloka 50
Vidura’s Questions on Devotion and Sarga; Maitreya Begins the Account of Creation
त्वं न: सुराणामसि सान्वयानां कूटस्थ आद्य: पुरुष: पुराण: । त्वं देव शक्त्यां गुणकर्मयोनौ रेतस्त्वजायां कविमादधेऽज: ॥ ५० ॥
tvaṁ naḥ surāṇām asi sānvayānāṁ kūṭa-stha ādyaḥ puruṣaḥ purāṇaḥ tvaṁ deva śaktyāṁ guṇa-karma-yonau retas tv ajāyāṁ kavim ādadhe ’jaḥ
You are the original personal founder of all the devas and their various orders, yet You are the oldest and ever unchanged. O Lord, You have no source and no superior; You placed the seed of all living beings within the external energy, the womb of guna and karma, and yet You Yourself are unborn.
The Lord, the original person, is the father of all other living entities, beginning from Brahmā, the personality from whom all other living entities in different gradations of species are generated. Yet the supreme father has no other father. Every one of the living entities of all grades, up to Brahmā, the original creature of the universe, is begotten by a father, but He, the Lord, has no father. When He descends to the material plane, out of His causeless mercy He accepts one of His great devotees as His father to keep pace with the rules of the material world. But since He is the Lord, He is always independent in choosing who will become His father. For example, the Lord came out of a pillar in His incarnation as Nṛsiṁhadeva, and by the Lord’s causeless mercy, Ahalyā came out of a stone by the touch of the lotus feet of His incarnation as Lord Śrī Rāma. He is also the companion of every living entity as the Supersoul, but He is unchanged. The living entity changes his body in the material world, but even when the Lord is in the material world, He is ever unchanged. That is His prerogative.
FAQs
This verse explains that the unborn Supreme Lord, through His divine potency, implants the seed of creation into material nature—the womb of the modes (guṇas) and activities (karma)—from which the first great sage (Brahmā) manifests.
Maitreya emphasizes that while the cosmos undergoes change through the guṇas and karma, the Supreme Person remains steady and unchanged, being the original foundation behind all demigods and cosmic administration.
It encourages grounding one’s identity in the unchanging Lord rather than in shifting moods, outcomes, and roles—cultivating steadiness, humility, and devotion amid life’s changes.