13.20 Viddhi, know; ubhau, both; prakrtim Nature; and also the purusam, individual soul;-these two; Nature and the soul. the aspects of God-to be api, verily; anadi, without beginning. Those two that have no beginning (adi), are anadi. Since the godhood of God is eternal, therefore it is logical that even His aspects also should have eternality. For God's god-hood consists verily in having the two aspects. Those two aspects through which God becomes the cause of creation, continuance and dissolution of the Universe, and which are beginningless, are the sources of mundane existence.
Some interpret the phrase anadi in the tatpurusa [Tatpurusa: Name of a class of compounds in which the first member determines the sense of the other members, or in which the last member is defined or alified by the first, without losing its original independence.-V.S.A.] sense of na adi, not primeval (not cause). (According to them) thery indeed is established the causality of God. Again, if Nature and soul themselves be eternal, the mundane existence would surely be their creation, and the causality of the mundane existence would not be God's.
That is wrong because, there being nothing to rule over before the emergence of Nature and soul, there will arise the contingency of God ceasing to be God! And if the mundane state be uncaused [Uncaused, i.e. not caused by Nature and soul, but by God independently of those two aspects.] there arises the contingency of the absence of Liberation, [If God were. Himself the sole cause of mundane existence, independently of His two aspects, then it would be endless because there would be nothing to prevent liberated souls from being put under bondage again.] the scriptures becoming useless, and the absence of bondage and freedom. On the other hand, all these become justifiable if God and the two aspects be eternal.
How?
Viddhi, know; the vikaran, modifications that will be spoken of-the intellect etc., the body and the organs; ca eva, as also; gunan, the alities (sattva etc.)-manifest in the form of the mental states of happiness, sorrow and attachment; as prakriti-sambhavan, born of Nature. Nature, Maya, is the power of God, which is the cause of the modifications and which consists of the three alities. Those modifications and alities, which have that Nature as their source,-know those modifications and alities as 'born of Nature', as transformations of Nature.
Which again, are those modifications and alities born of Nature?