2:4 Pumán which is the same with Purusha, incorporated spirit. By this and the two preceding terms also the commentator understands the text to signify that Vishńu is any form of spiritual being that is acknowledged by different philosophical systems, or that he is the Brahma of the Vedánta, the Íśwara of the Pátanjala, and the Purusha of the Sánkhya school.

2:5 The three qualities, to which we shall have further occasion to advert, are, Satya, goodness or purity, knowledge, quiescence; Rajas, foulness, passion, activity; and Tamas, darkness, ignorance, inertia.

2:6 Pradhánabuddhyádisú. This predicate of the Deity distinguishes most of the Puráńas from several of the philosophical systems, which maintain, as did the earliest Grecian systems of cosmogony, the eternal and independent existence of the first principle of things, as nature, matter, or chaos. Accordingly, the commentator notices the objection. Pradhána being without beginning, it is said how can Vishńu be its parent? To which he replies, that this is not so, for in a period of worldly destruction (Pralaya), when the Creator desists from creating, nothing is generated by virtue of any other energy or parent. Or, if this be not satisfactory, then the text may be understood to imply that intellect (Buddhi) &c. are formed through the materiality of crude nature, or Pradhána.

3:7 Vishńu is commonly derived in the Puráńas from the root Vis, to enter, entering into, or pervading the universe, agreeably to the text of the Vedas, 'Having created that (world), he then afterwards enters into it;' being, as our comment observes, undistinguished by place, time, or property. According to the Mátsya P. the name alludes to his entering into the mundane egg: according to the Padma P., to his entering into or combining with Prakriti, as Purusha or spirit. In the Moksha Dharma of the Mahábhárata, s. 165, the word is derived from the root ví, signifying motion, pervasion, production, radiance; or, irregularly, from krama, to go with the particle vi, implying, variously, prefixed.

3:8 Brahmá and the rest is said to apply to the series of teachers through whom this Puráńa was transmitted from its first reputed author, Brahmá, to its actual narrator, the sage Paráśara. See also b. VI. c. 8.

3:9 The Guru, or spiritual preceptor, is said to be Kapila or Sáraswata; the latter is included in the series of teachers of the Puráńa. Paráśara must be considered also as a disciple of Kapila, as a teacher of the Sánkhya philosophy.

3:10 Maitreya is the disciple of Paráśara, who relates the Vishńu Puráńa to him; he is also one of the chief interlocutors in the Bhágavata, and is introduced in the Mahábhárata (Vana Parva, s. 10.) as a great Rishi, or sage, who denounces Duryodhana's death. In the Bhágavata he is also termed Kausháravi, or the son of Kusharava.