Bhagavad Gita Bhasya (Gambhirananada)

English Translation of Sri Sankaracharya's Sanskrit
Commentary - Swami Gambhirananda
13.20 Viddhi, know; ubhau, both; prakrtim Nature;
and also the purusam, individual soul;-these two;
Nature and the soul. the aspects of God-to be api,
verily; anadi, without beginning. Those two that
have no beginning (adi), are anadi. Since the
godhood of God is eternal, therefore it is logical
that even His aspects also should have eternality.
For God's god-hood consists verily in having the
two aspects. Those two aspects through which God
becomes the cause of creation, continuance and
dissolution of the Universe, and which are
beginningless, are the sources of mundane
existence. Some interpret the phrase anadi in the
tatpurusa [Tatpurusa: Name of a class of
compounds in which the first member determines
the sense of the other members, or in which the last
member is defined or qualified by the first, without
losing its original independence.-V.S.A.] sense of
na adi, not primeval (not cause). (According to
them) thereby indeed is established the causality of
God. Again, if Nature and soul themselves be
eternal, the mundane existence would surely be
their creation, and the causality of the mundane
existence would not be God's. That is wrong
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