- Primary creation, or cosmogony; 2. Secondary creation, or the destruction and
renovation of worlds, including chronology; 3. Genealogy of gods and patriarchs; - Reigns of the Manus, or periods called Manvantaras; and 5. History, or such par-
ticulars as have been preserved of the princes of the solar and lunar races, and of
their descendants to modern times. (Wilson 1961: iv)
This translation puts an explanatory gloss on the lines which are found in several
Pura ̄n.as:
sargas ́ ca pratisargas ́ ca vam.s ́o manvantara ̄n.i ca / vam.s ́a ̄nucaritam. ceti pura ̄n.am.
pañcalaks.an.am // (Va ̄yu4.10b–11a; cf.Matsya53.65bc;Vis.n.u3.6.25,27).Most scholars since Wilson’s time have more or less followed his translation.
Yet there are difficulties in it. Sargais undoubtedly “creation” and manvantara ̄n.i
“periods called Manvantaras,” but the other three items are more problematic.
One might expect pratisargato mean “counter-creation,” i.e. “destruction,”
rather than “secondary creation.” Indeed, Willibald Kirfel, whose attempt to
constitute a text which represented the earliest form of the pañcalaks.an.amaterial
was as influential in 1927 as Wilson’s work had been almost a century earlier,
stated that this was the most obvious meaning of the word (Kirfel 1979: xxxvii;
he draws upon the Prapañcahr.dayaand Va ̄caspatimis ́ra’s Sa ̄m.khyatattvakaumud ̄ı).
But he found it difficult to accept this meaning, because it did not occur in any
of the texts which made up his reconstituted pura ̄n.am.pañcalaks.an.am.Instead, he
relied upon two verses found in the Matsyaand its parallels in the Padma(Matsya
8.1,Padma1.7.68, 5.7.68; Matsya9.6,Padma1.7.85, 5.7.85) and deduced from
these that, in this context, pratisargameant “further creation” (Weiterschöpfung),
in line with the translation offered by Wilson.
Nevertheless, pratisargais found in at least four Pura ̄n.ic passages with the
meaning “destruction.” In Vis.n.u6.1.1–2, the respondent/questioner Maitreya
says that the narrator Para ̄s ́ara has told him about sarga,vam.s ́a, the duration of
themanvantaras(manvantarasthiti), and vam.s ́a ̄nucarita, and that now he wants to
hear about the dissolution of the universe. Only when Para ̄s ́ara has given him
this information does Maitreya declare that he has been told about sarga,pratis-
arga,vam.s ́a,manvantara ̄n.i, and vam.s ́a ̄nucarita.InBrahma ̄n.d.a4.1.239–40,Va ̄yu
100.133, and 102.132,5, pratisargaalso occurs with the meaning “destruction.”
One reason for Kirfel’s preferring the meaning “further creation” was that he
thought ofpañcalaks.an.aas indicating five successive blocks of material, so that
it functioned as a kind of table of contents, in which pratisargaought to stand
for something that could come between sargaandvam.s ́a.This seems to have been
the thinking behind Wilson’s translation of the pañcalaks.an.acomponents also
(and presumably the thinking of the pandits who had assisted Colebrooke with
the translation which Wilson adopted), since he regarded vam.s ́aas “genealogy
of gods and patriarchs,” which would fit in well with its position between “sec-
ondary creation” and “reigns of the Manus,” while vam.s ́a ̄nucaritawas referred
the pura ̄n.as 135