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covered by darkness first of all Buddhi, the cause of Gunas,
was created from prakrti. From Buddhi was manifested Ahamkara,
the cause of the five Mahabhutas, viz. Akasa, Vayu, Agni, Jala
and Earth. The samkhya doctrine which derived the elements
from ahakhara through the interposition of the transcendent
tanmatras, seems to have been modified by the Brahma-Purana in
as much as it omits the tanmatras and makes the Mahabhutas the
direct product of Ahankara, just as in the ups. the elements are
said to have sprung directly from Brahman. This is in
consonance with the epic view. Further it states that after the
creation of the Mahabhutas, an egg was created in which the
seven islands and the seven oceans were established and in it
Visnu and Mahadeva resided. Then all the people were overpowered
by Tamoguna and meditated on Paramesvara. Then a lustrous
deity was created who removed darkness. That was lord Sun,
(33.3-7). The account of the creation of the Sun resembles
to some extent the account given in the Chandogya upanisad
(III.19).
From the above survey, it becomes clear that the
cosmogony in the Brahma-Purana on the whole seems to be a later
development. Here the evolutionary theory of Samkhya is so
modified as to agree with the vedantic doctrine about the one-
ness of Brahman by assuming that purusa and prakrti are but two
forms of the supreme deity, here identified with Visnu, according