1

What is not Absolute, that is MAYA.

She is the negative principle of opposites, as with the pairs

knowledge-ignorance, beyond-within, inertia-prime potency.

Thus She, of herself, arises as the many forms of Nature.

2

Before the origin of things, there was

the clay itself, the Absolute ground of Being.

Whatever is not known as the Absolute-in-itself, is MAYA,

the principle of non-Absolute possibility.

3

"The non-Self is un-Real, the Self is Real."

That is knowledge of the Real, as in recognizing

the reality of the rope through the snake appearance.

4

"The Self is un-Real, the non-Self is Real."

That is AVIDYA dominating awareness,

as in mistaking the rope for a snake.

5

That which creates the sensory system, the mind,

specific intelligence and the five vital processes

far transcends even these non-material

limbs of the Self-intelligence.

6

The Self-intelligence adopts these limbs as its own

and, by its own MAYA, imagines itself

as in pleasure or pain.

But none of this has primary Reality.

7

In the world of senses and sense-objects,

what emanates forth from the Self

is the willing-imaging self,

the basis of the material world.

8

Lack of knowledge of mother-of-pearl

is the basis for an illusion of silver in the shell.

That principle which, in the Self, is the basis

for the apparent world, is called TAMAS.

9

Because of its marvelous aspect

of containing all this universe like a tree in a seed,

(or by virtue of its importance)

the prime potent power is called PRADHANA.

10

Because the marvelous diversity of nature (PRAKRITI)

is created by the three modalities (tamas, rajas, and sattva),

She is known as PRAKRITI-TRIGUNA.

(Nature-of-the-three-modes.)