The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s2.t4.2

c7.s2.t4.2

In all considerations of this section, it is well to keep in mind that the Indian idea of creation differs essentially from our own. For whilst by creation, we understand something done once for all, and therefore at a given time, the consciousness of the Vedântin is dominated by the concept that from eternity to eternity the world periodically emerges from and again returns to Brahman; and it emerges and returns times without number: "the past and future world-periods (kalpa) are measureless," as the Purâna passage quoted on p. 495, 10, declares.