Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.2445

c8.2445

After that, during Pralaya (deluge), Prakṛti and Puruṣa stand apart due to equality of the guṇas, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas in Prakṛti. Viṣṇu in the form of Time starts the work to join them both together. Then when the time of creation came Viṣṇu, the Supreme Being, the supreme soul, the god of all living beings, omnipresent and omnipotent by his will entered the emotionless Puruṣa and emotional Prakṛti and created sensations in them. Smell is the sense which creates sensation in one by its nearness to it. Just like that Viṣṇu by his very presence near them created disturbances in them. It is Viṣṇu, the best of Puruṣas, who acts as Prakṛti which can disturb and which can be disturbed, which exists in states of contraction and expansion. It is Viṣṇu, the god of the gods, who exists in forms of Sūkṣma and Sthūla, and as the great tattva and as the devas like Brahmā.