Karika 3

मूलप्रकृतिरविकृतिर्महदाद्याः प्रकृतिविकृतयः सप्त।
षोड़शकस्तुAlternative: षोडशकस्तु विकारोAlternative: विकारः न प्रकृतिर्न विकृतिः पुरुषः॥ ३॥

Translation by Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1837): Nature, the root (of all), is no production. Seven principles, the Great or intellectual one, &c., are productions and productive. Sixteen are productions (unproductive). Soul is neither a production nor productive.

Translation by John Davies (1881): Nature (Prakṛiti), the root (of material forms), is not produced. The Great One (Mahat = Buddhi or Intellect) and the rest (which spring from it) are seven (substances), producing and produced. Sixteen are productions (only). Soul is neither producing nor produced.

Translation by Ganganath Jha (1896): Nature or Primordial Matter, the root of all, is not produced; the Great Principle (Mahat, i.e., Buddhi) and the rest are seven, being both producer and produced; sixteen are the produced; and the Spirit is neither the producer nor the produced.

Translation by Nandalal Sinha (1915): The Root Evolvent is no evolute; Mahat, etc., are the seven evolvent-evolutes; the sixteen are mere evolutes; (that which is) neither evolvent nor evolute, is Puruṣa.

Translation by Har Dutt Sharma (1933): Primal Nature is not an evolute; Mahat, etc., the seven, are evolvents and evolutes; the group of sixteen is evolute; the Spirit is neither an evolute nor an evolvent.

Translation by Radhanath Phukan (1960): The Prakṛti in her original state (as opposed to the Pradhāna of Kārikā XI, which is her subsequent state when her Guṇas come into action) is not a product of any change; the seven Tattvas (viz., Mahattattva, Ahaṁkāra and the 5 Tanmātras) are products of changes from one state to another, each Tattva being related to the other immediately coming after it, in the relation of producer and product or cause and effect; the 16 Tattvas (viz., the 5 Mahābhūtas which are the products of the Tanmātras, the 10 sense-organs together with the mind which form the 11 products of the Ahaṁkāra Tattva) are final products which suffer no further change of state and, for the reason of that, are not the producers of anything else. The Puruṣa is neither the cause nor the result of any change.

Translation by Swami Virupakshananda (1995): The Primal Nature is non-evolute. The group of seven beginning with the Great Principle (Buddhi) and the rest are both evolvents and evolutes. But the sixteen (five organs of sense, five of action, the mind and the five gross elements) are only evolutes. The Spirit is neither the evolvent nor the evolute.

Translation by G. Srinivasan (recent): Fundamental or root resonant oscillatory state is synchronised, coherent and stable; the first interactive oscillatory state is of maximum intensity; then there are seven levels of the harmonic oscillatory interactive stages followed by an expanding radiation above a sixteenth order of the fundamental value; the nuclear core is neither oscillatory nor harmonically interactive.