  We present explicit forms of general breather (GB), Akhmediev breather (AB),
Ma soliton (MS) and rogue wave (RW) solutions of the two component nonlinear
Schr\"{o}dinger (NLS) equation, namely Manakov equation. We derive these
solutions through two different routes. In the forward route we first construct
a suitable periodic envelope soliton solution to this model from which we
derive GB, AB, MS and RW solutions. We then consider the RW solution as the
starting point and derive AB, MS and GB in the reverse direction. The second
approach has not been illustrated so far for the two component NLS equation.
Our results show that the above rational solutions of the Manakov system can be
derived from the standard scalar nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation with a
modified nonlinearity parameter. Through this two way approach we establish a
broader understanding of these rational solutions which will be of interest in
a variety of situations.
