RāmānujaViśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
Interpretation
Brahman really and literally transforms (parinama) itself into the world: matter and souls, present as its body in a subtle, undifferentiated state before creation, are evolved by Brahman into their gross, differentiated form as the manifest universe. This transformation is a genuine modification, not a mere apparent one.
Related Satkāryavāda, Brahman as Material Cause, Brahman · Rāmānuja
Where Rāmānuja’s commentary grounds this interpretation. Open a sūtra to read the commentary context.
From Rāmānuja’s commentary
Prakriti, we reply, in such passages denotes Brahman in its causal phase when names and forms are not yet distinguished.
This highly subtle matter stands to Brahman the cause of the world in the relation of a mode (prakâra)
From Rāmānuja’s commentary
owing to the essential nature of modification (parinâma)
modifies (parinâmayati) itself by gradually evolving the world-body in the inverse order in which reabsorption had taken place.
From Rāmānuja’s commentary
Those on the other hand who establish the non-difference of cause and effect, on the basis of the theory of the effect's non-reality, are unable to prove what they wish to prove; for the True and the False cannot possibly be one.