Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 07, Chapter 03, Text 26-27

Text-26-27

SB 7.3.26-27

sri-hiranyakasipur uvaca
kalpante kala-srstena
 yo ’ndhena tamasavrtam
abhivyanag jagad idam
 svayañjyotih sva-rocisa
 
atmana tri-vrta cedam
 srjaty avati lumpati
rajah-sattva-tamo-dhamne
 paraya mahate namah
 
Translation by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada: 
 
Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the supreme lord within this universe. At the end of each day of his life, the universe is fully covered with dense darkness by the influence of time, and then again, during his next day, that self-effulgent lord, by his own effulgence, manifests, maintains and destroys the entire cosmic manifestation through the material energy, which is invested with the three modes of material nature. He, Lord Brahma, is the shelter of those modes of nature — sattva-guna, rajo-guna and tamo-guna.
 
Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada: 
 
The words abhivyanag jagad idam refer to he who creates this cosmic manifestation. The original creator is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna (janmady asya yatah); Lord Brahma is the secondary creator. When Lord Brahma is empowered by Lord Krsna as the engineer to create the phenomenal world, he becomes the supremely powerful feature within this universe. The total material energy is created by Krsna, and later, taking advantage of all that has necessarily been created, Lord Brahma engineers the entire phenomenal universe. At the end of Lord Brahma’s day, everything up to Svargaloka is inundated with water, and the next morning, when there is darkness in the universe, Brahma again brings the phenomenal manifestation into existence. Therefore he is described here as he who manifests this universe.
 
Trin gunan vrnoti: Lord Brahma takes advantage of the three modes of material nature. Prakrti, material nature, is described here as tri-vrta, the source of the three material modes. Srila Madhvacarya comments in this connection that tri-vrta means prakrtya. Thus Lord Krsna is the original creator, and Lord Brahma is the original engineer.
Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 07, Chapter 03, Text 25
Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 07, Chapter 03, Text 28