In the beginning, to be sure, nothing existed, neither the heaven nor the earth nor space in between.
So Nonbeing, having decided to be, became spirit and said: “Let me be!” 1 He warmed himself further and from this heating was born fire. He warmed himself still further and from this heating was born light.
TB II, 2, 9, 1-2
Numerous texts are to be found in the Vedic scriptures, of extraordinary diversity and incomparable richness, which seek unweariedly to penetrate the mystery of the beginnings and to explain the immensity and the amazing harmony of the universe. We find a proliferation of speculations, doubts, and descriptions, an atmosphere charged with solemnity, a sense of life lived to the full--all of which spontaneously bring to mind the landscape of the Himalayas. These texts seem to burst forth impetuously like streams issuing from glaciers. Within this rushing torrent may be discerned a certain life view, deep and basic, an evolving life view that can yet be traced unbroken from the Rig Veda, through the Atharva Veda and the Brahmanas, to the Upanisads.
What is fascinating about the experience of the Vedic seers is not only that they have dared to explore the outer space of being and existence, piercing the outskirts of reality, exploring the boundaries of the universe, describing being and its universal laws, but that they have also undertaken the risky and intriguing adventure of going beyond and piercing the being barrier so as to float in utter nothingness, so to speak, and discover that Nonbeing is only the outer atmosphere of Being, its protective veil. They plunge thus into a darkness enwrapped by darkness, into the Beyond from which there is no return, into that Prelude of Existence in which there is neither Being nor Nonbeing, neither God nor Gods, nor creature of any type; the traveler himself is volatilized, has disappeared. Creation is the act by which God, or whatever name we may choose to express the Ultimate, affirms himself not only vis-à-vis the world, thus created, but also vis-à-vis himself, for he certainly was neither creator before creation nor God for himself. The Vedic seers make the staggering claim of entering into that enclosure where God is not yet God, where God is thus unknown to himself, and, not being creator, is “nothing.” Without this perspective we may fail to grasp the Vedic message regarding the absolute Prelude to everything: that One, tad ekam (which is the less imperfect expression), or this, idam (which is the other way of saying it). Idam, this, that is to say, anything that I can refer to, though it is never exhausted by the reference; idam, that which I think, mean, touch, imagine, will, reject, love, hate--anything to which I may be able to point with any means at my disposal, my senses, mind, intuition, emotions, or whatever; idam, that which takes as many forms as I am capable of imagining and constantly transcends all of them; this, that is, whatever can fall into the range of my experience, idam, at the absolute Prelude, was neither Being nor Nonbeing, neither Consciousness nor Ignorance. 2 This, in whatever form, is tad, that: outside, beyond, transcendent, hidden in its own immanence, absolutely ungraspable and ineffable. 3 Furthermore, this that is ekam, One, absolute oneness, because all specific generic and ontic differences are included in the ekam and it is precisely this that makes differentiation intrinsically possible. Things can differ only against a background of oneness.
Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Germ, appears here as a powerful symbol and Prajapati is one of the most important mythical names for the carrying out of this process, though he emerges at the very end of it. 4 For a fuller understanding of the myth we may consider it in three stages or moments which are, of course, neither chronological nor perhaps ontological, but which are certainly anthropological (or rather metahistorical) and helpful for our understanding: Solitude, Sacrifice, Integration.
1. SOLITUDE
In the beginning, things undoubtedly began. But what about the beginning itself “before” the actual “beginning”? We cannot say “before” the beginning without falling into contradiction. The beginning is precisely the beginning, because it has no “before,” because it is itself beginningless. Thus, if we want to speak about the beginning in itself, we shall have to use a language of opposites and make ample use of paradoxes: in the beginning there was neither Being nor Nonbeing, there was neither space nor the sky beyond, neither death nor nondeath, no distinction between day and night. In the absolute void the One breathed by its own propulsion without breath; shadows were concealed by shadows. The symbol here is utter solitude. The One enwrapped in the void took birth. Nonbeing made himself atman, and cried: I will be! Let me be! This was the Self in the form of a Person. But the Primal Being is not yet fully born, he is not yet fully “out,” for when he is looking around he sees nothing. So he is forced to look upon himself and take cognizance of himself. Only then is he born; only then does he discover properly not only himself but also his total solitude, his helplessness, one could say. When self-awareness comes to birth it discovers that it is alone and is afraid, “for the one who is alone is afraid,” because aloneness is an unnatural state and thus even Being needs to be surrounded and “protected” by Nonbeing. The ontologic anxiety of Being facing Nonbeing is born simultaneously with self-awareness. It looks for an object, for “some-thing” which can be grappled with: anxiety tends to be converted into fear. Now, fear is overcome by a second act of reflection: the discovery that nothing exists to be frightened of. But the cost of this rationalized defense is boredom; there is no joy at all in brooding over oneself. Then arises the desire for another. It is the beginning of the expansion, the breaking of the Self--and thus starts the process of the primordial Sacrifice.
2. SACRIFICE
Prajapati desires a second but he has no primary matter out of which to create the universe. This dilemma is important. A second identical to him will not satisfy his craving, for it will merge with him; a second inferior to him will obviously not do either, for it will be his puppet, the projection of his own will. It will offer him no resistance, nor will it be a real partner. The Vedic Revelation unveils the mystery by means of the myth of the sacrifice of Prajapati, who dismembers himself in order to let the world be, and be what it is. Creation is the sacrifice, the gift of Prajapati in an act of self-immolation. There is no other to whom to offer the sacrifice, no other to accept it. Prajapati is at the same time the sacrificer, the sacrifice (the victim), the one to whom the sacrifice is offered, and even the result of the sacrifice. Even more, as we shall see later on, sacrifice becomes the first Absolute. 5
Prajapati, being alone and self-sufficient, can have no external motivation impelling him to create the worlds. The texts, however, mention two factors that are not motives for action but indwelling principles of reality itself: kama and tapas, love and ardor. Whether reference is being made to the personalist tradition of Prajapati or to the nonpersonalist tradition of the One emerging from Nonbeing, it is invariably by means of these two powers that the creative process commences. Tapas is the primordial fervor, the original fire, the supreme concentration, the ultimate energy, the creative force that initiates the whole cosmic movement. Order and truth (rita and satya) were born from tapas. Furthermore, “desire [kama] was the original development [of the One] which was the first sowing [retas] of consciousness [manas].” 6 Thus kama enters upon the scene. 7 This love or desire cannot be a yearning toward any object; it is a concentration upon the Self and is related to tapas. Tapas incited by kama penetrates into the Self to the point of bursting asunder, of dismemberment.
Tapas and kama go together. Love is the fervor that imparts power to create and tapas is the energy of love which produces the world. “He desired: Can I multiply myself? Can I engender? He practiced tapas, he created the whole world, all that exists.” 8 But this world, once in existence, has its own destiny. This is the third act of the drama.
3. INTEGRATION
Whereas the first act of the drama has no actor, properly speaking, and the whole action is played behind the curtain, and whereas the second act has God as the actor, this third part presents Man as the hero. Prajapati, having created the world out of the self-sacrifice of himself, is exhausted, feeble, drained away, and on the point of death. He is no longer powerful and mighty; the universe has the possibility of escaping the power of God; it stands on its own. “Once engendered, the creatures turned their backs upon him and went away.” 9 They try to free themselves from the creator, but fall into chaos and disorder. If the universe has to subsist, God has to come again and penetrate the creatures afresh, entering into them for a second time. This second redeeming act, however, needs the collaboration of the creature. Here is the locus for Man’s collaboration with the unique act of Prajapati which gives consistency and existence to the world. This is Man’s place and function in the sacrifice.
This sacrifice is not just a kind of offering to God so that he may release to us what we have earned. On the contrary, it is the action by which we create and procreate along with God and reconstruct his Body. This action gathers the first material for the total yajna (sacrifice), not from animals, flowers, or whatever, but from the inmost depth of Man himself. It is the outcome of Man’s urge to be in tune with that cosmic dynamism which enables the universe constantly to win over the power of Nonbeing. “That I may become everything!” is the cry that the Shatapatha Brahmana put not only into the mouth of Prajapati, but also into the heart of every being. 10 This is the cry that every man will feel in face of the limitations of his own person and the small field of action in which he can operate. When confronted with himself, when beginning to enter into the poised state of contemplation, when at peace with himself and at the threshold of realization, Man has this tremendous desire to be this and that, to become this and that, to be involved in every process and to be present everywhere. It is not so much the hankering for power which drives Man, as some moralists would have us believe, much less a simply hedonistic urge; on the contrary, it is this existential desire to be and thus to be everything and, in the last instance, to Be, not just to share a part or to be present in a corner of the banquet of life and existence, but to be active at the very core of reality, in the divine center itself whence all emerges and is directed. “Let me have a self!” is another refrain. The wise Man, described time and again in the shruti, is not the escapist and unfriendly solitary, but the full Man who, having realized his own limitations, knows how to enter into the infinite ocean of sat, cit, and ananda, of being, consciousness, and joy.
1 The vision of this hymn comes out of a profound insight into the mystery of reality. It is the product of a mystical experience that far transcends the limits of logical thinking; it is a religious chant--for only in music or poetry can such a message be conveyed--invoking in splendid verses the Primal Mystery that transcends all categories, both human and divine. This hymn, while trying to plumb the depths of the mystery, formulates no doctrinal system but expresses itself by means of a rich variety of different symbols related to the one single insight. The hymn, in fact, presents an extraordinary consistency, which is patent only to the contemplative mind; in the absence of this latter, however, it is bound to appear either as syncretistic or as agnostic, as has in fact been sometimes asserted.
We are dealing here, in the first place, not with a temporal cosmogonic hymn describing the beginning of creation, or even with an ontological theogony, or with a historical description concerning the formation of the Gods or even of God. It is not the description of a succession of stages through which the world has passed. The starting point of the hymn is not a piece of causal thinking seeking the cause of this world or of God or the Gods, but rather an intuitive vision of the whole. This hymn does not attempt to communicate information but to share a mystical awareness that transcends the sharpest lines of demarcation of which the human mind is capable: the divine and the created, Being and Nonbeing. It seeks to give expression to the insight of the oneness of reality which is experienced as being so totally one that it does not need the horizon of nonreality or the background of a thinking process to appear in its entire actuality. This oneness is so radically one that every distinction is overcome; it is that unutterable and unthinkable process that “sees” all that is and is-not, in its utmost simplicity, which is, of course, not a jnana, a gnosis, but an ignorance, an interrogation. The One is not seen against any horizon or background. All is included. All is pure horizon. There are no limits to the universal or, for that matter, to the concrete.
The first verse brings us straightaway to the heart of the mystery and is composed of a series of questions. Neither an affirmation nor a negation is capable of carrying the weight of the ultimate mystery. Only the openness of an interrogation can embrace what our mere thinking cannot encompass. The Ultimate is neither real nor nonreal, neither being nor nonbeing, and thus neither is nor is-not; the apophatism is total and covers everything, even itself: “darkness was wrapped in darkness.”
Being as well as Nonbeing, the Absolute (or Ultimate) as well as the Beginning, are contradictory concepts when applied to the primordial mystery. “Absolute” means unrelatedness, and when we speak or think about it we are negating that character. “Ultimate” points toward the end of a process that has no “after,” and “Beginning” toward a point that has no “before.” But what is to prevent our thinking a “previous” to the Beginning and a “beyond” to the Ultimate, unless our mind artificially imposes a limit on its thinking or bursts in the effort? If we think “Being” we cannot be prevented from thinking “Nonbeing” also, and so the very concept of an all-including “Being” which does not include “Nonbeing” defeats its own purpose. Indeed, a metaphysician might say that “Nonbeing” is a nonentity and an unthinkable concept; yet the fact remains that at least on the level of our thinking the concept of “Being” cannot include its contradiction. This verse tells us that the primordial mystery cannot be pinpointed to any idea, thing, thought, or being. It is primarily neither the answer to a set of riddles nor the object of current metaphysical speculations concerning the how or the why of creation. It is beyond thinking and Being. The symbol of water is the most pertinent one: the primordial water covers all, supports all, has no form of its own, is visible and invisible, has no limits, pervades everything, it is the first condition of life, the place of the original seed, the fertilizing milieu.
The seer then continues by a series of negatives: there was neither death nor nondeath, nor any distinction between day and night. All the opposites, including the contradictories, are on this side of the curtain. At this point we have not yet reached Being and thus we have not yet the possibility of limiting Being by Nonbeing. 11
This One is not even a concept. It is not a concept limit like truth, goodness, beauty, and similar concepts when applied to the Absolute; it is rather the limit of a concept, unthinkable in itself and yet present on the other side of the curtain as the necessary condition for the very existence and intelligibility of everything. Whereas the concepts of being, goodness, truth, and the like admit degrees of approximation to the fullness of that to which they refer, the One does not. There are degrees of being, of goodness, of truth. There are no degrees of oneness. The One represents the peak of mystical awareness, which India developed later in her Advaitic philosophy, and the West in Trinitarian theology.
Darkness and emptiness are also symbols of the first moment. This darkness is not, however, the moral or even the ontological darkness of the world, but the primordial darkness of the Origin. The negative as well as the positive aspect of existence belongs to the Ultimate. Evil and good, the positive and the negative, both are embraced in the One that encompasses everything. Now, to cancel darkness by darkness, is it not to let the light shine forth? Furthermore, it is said that desire, love, fervor, were the dynamic forces that brought reality to a temporal process of originating something out of something. Out of nothing nothing can come. Nothingness is not previous to, but coextensive with Being. The source of Being is not another Being or anything that can be considered as being an origin out of which things come to be. The process, according to the intuition of the Vedic rishi, is one of concentration, of condensation, of an emergence by the power of love. This love cannot be a desire toward “something” that does not exist, or even a desire coming out of a nonexisting Being. It is this very concentration that originates the Self which is going to be and have that love. Primordial love is neither a transitive nor an intransitive act; it is neither an act directed toward the other (which in this case does not exist) nor an act directed toward oneself (which in this case is also nonexistent), but it is the constitutive act by which existence comes into being. Without love there is no being, but love does not happen without ardor or tapas. It is fervor, tapas, that makes the being be; they are not separable. The relation between kama, desire and love, on the one hand, and tapas, ardor and heat, on the other, is one of the universal cosmic laws linking Being and the whole realm of beings (vv. 3-4).
The poets, those sages who seek to penetrate the mystery of reality, discover in Nonbeing the gravitational center of Being; only when this is realized can the cord that differentiates them be extended. The rope connecting Being and Nonbeing is the ultimate rope of salvation (v. 5).
The two last stanzas voice several agonized queries and give expression to a deep-rooted unextirpable uncertainty for which no reply is vouchsafed, because reality is still on the move and any definite answer would preclude its constant newness. This insight brings us again to that ultimate level where the One is situated. From that depth the sage expresses the most fundamental question about the essential and existential enigma of the universe: What, he asks, is the origin of this universe, of all this, idam? Who, or what, is its purpose, its end, its direction? It cannot be the Gods, for they themselves belong on this side of the curtain. Nobody can know what is the very foundation of knowing, nor can anyone say that it is not known. This latter assumption would amount to being biased in favor of a certain negative theology or philosophy. To say that we do not know can be as assertive as to say that we do know. The last question is not the expression of a renunciation of knowledge or a declaration of agnosticism, which would here amount to a dogmatic affirmation, but the declaration that the problem--and not only the answer--is beyond the subject and object of knowledge itself. Only he who is beyond and above everything many know--or he may not, for how may there be any assurance concerning it? It is not only that we know that we do not know, which would then be mere pretending, but that we really do not know even if it is at all knowable by any possible knowledge. The hymn concludes with this query, this constitutive uncertainty which is of infinite magnitude, because we are all involved in it. To answer the query would amount to killing the very unfolding of reality. It is the openness of this interrogation which allows the universe to emerge and to exist.
1. At first was neither Being nor Nonbeing.
There was not air nor yet sky beyond.
What was its wrapping? Where? In whose protection?
Was Water there, unfathomable and deep?
2. There was no death then, nor yet deathlessness;
of night or day there was not any sign.
The One breathed without breath, by its own impulse.
Other than that was nothing else at all.
3. Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness,
and all was Water indiscriminate. Then
that which was hidden by the Void, that One, emerging,
stirring, through power of Ardor, came to be.
4. In the beginning Love arose,
which was the primal germ cell of the mind.
The Seers, searching in their hearts with wisdom,
discovered the connection of Being in Nonbeing.
5. A crosswise line cut Being from Nonbeing.
What was described above it, what below?
Bearers of seed there were and mighty forces,
thrust from below and forward move above.
6. Who really knows? Who can presume to tell it?
Whence was it born? Whence issued this creation?
Even the Gods came after its emergence.
Then who can tell from whence it came to be?
7. That out of which creation has arisen,
whether it held it firm or it did not,
He who surveys it in the highest heaven,
He surely knows or maybe He does not!
1. SB X, 5, 3, 1-2 (§ I 13) considers that manas, the mind, or rather the spirit, is the one and only thing that fulfills the condition of being neither existent nor nonexistent. The spirit is existent only in things, and things without the spirit are nonexistent.
Cf. § I 14.
Indian tradition has interpreted these first two mantras as voicing all the different perspectives under which the ultimate metaphysical problem can be envisaged. Cf. SU IV, 18 (§ I 7); BG XIII, 12.
2. Own impulse: svadha, the active principle, has been translated as ‘by its own energy” (Zaehner), “power” (Mascaró, Macdonell, Edgerton), “impulse” (Bose), “of itself” (Misch), “strength” (Raghavan), “will power” (Telang-Chaubey), “élan,” “initiative” (Renou), “Eigengesetz” (Geldner), just to give an idea of different readings. Cf. the later idea of shakti or the divine power of the Godhead, always represented as the Goddess, spouse of the corresponding God.
The One: tad ekam. Cf. § VI 1 and also RV I, 164, 10; X, 82, 2; 6 (§ VII 12); AV VIII, 9, 25-26; IX, 9, 7; IsU 4 (§ VII 11).
Cf. other texts in § I 7.
3. For the primordial Waters, cf. § I 15 for further references.
Indiscriminate: apraketa, without a recognizable sign, undifferentiated, indistinguishable, unrecognizable, referring to the amorphous chaos, the unformed primordial Waters.
Water: salila, flood, surge, waves, the ocean, waters. The Greek word pelagos would perhaps render the idea of salila, the open sea without shores or boundaries, amorphous water, a kind of chaotic magma.
The Void: abhu, or abhu, the primordial potency, capable of becoming everything.
Ardor: tapas, cf. § I 2.
4. Cf. AV XIX, 52, 1 (§ II 13), where it is translated somewhat differently.
5. “Bearers of seed” are considered to be the male forces and “mighty forces” the female principle. Cf. daksa and aditi as the masculine and feminine principles, respectively, in RV X, 72, 4 (§ VII 2).
6. Cf. KenU I, 1 (§ VI 3).
2 Tapas or cosmic ardor, ascetic fire, arduous penance, concentration, which here amounts to an ontic condensation, is said in this last but one hymn of the Rig Veda to be the energy giving birth to cosmic order and to truth. The three major concepts of Indian wisdom and of Man’s awareness are tapas, rita, and satya, ardor, order, and truth.
In the preceding hymn the universe is said to emerge out of or through ardor. 12 In this hymn (v. 1) the first result of the protocosmic energy is said to be the double principle underlying the whole of reality: on the one hand, order (the structure, the formal principle, the contexture of reality) and on the other, truth (the contents, the substance, the material principle, the concrete and crystallized reality itself). Owing to rita, this world is not a chaos, but a cosmos, not an anarchic mass, but an ordered and harmonious whole. Owing to satya, the world is not a haphazard place, an irresponsible game, or an inconsistent and purely fluid appearance. Satya is not primarily an epistemic truth but an ontic truthfulness, an ontological fullness, with content, weight, and reality, namely, being.
The eka, the One of the Hymn of the Origins, is still void and devoid of reality. No reality can emerge without these two principles of order and truthfulness, or, in other words, harmony and self-consistency. Cosmic ardor gives birth also to that undifferentiated reality which has no better symbol than cosmic night, the night that does not have the day as counterpart, but envelops everything, though in the darkness of the not-yet-manifested.
From this yoni, “magma” or “matrix,” space and time came to be, that is, the ocean and the year. After space and time, life can appear and thrive; all that “blinks the eye” begins its career through existence. Once life is there, the world can be ordered according to its regular and harmonic forms of existence: sun, moon, heaven, earth, the sidereal spaces and the light, the last-named being the culmination and perfection of the work of fashioning the world--and all by the power of fervor! No wonder that the performance of tapas is considered as the reenactment of this primordial and cosmic act by which the universe came to be. The contemplative and meditative saint performing tapas is not the Man who sits idle, gazing passively at things or at nothing. He is the most active collaborator in the maintenance of this world and experiences in himself the ardor, fire, energy, and power of concentration which are capable of destroying the world, as later myths will tell us.
1. From blazing Ardor Cosmic Order came and Truth;
from thence was born the obscure night;
from thence the Ocean with its billowing waves.
2. From Ocean with its waves was born the year
which marshals the succession of nights and days,
controlling everything that blinks the eye.
3. Then, as before, did the creator fashion
the Sun and Moon, the Heaven and the Earth,
the atmosphere and the domain of light.
1. Blazing Ardor: tapas has been translated by “spiritual fire” (Bose), “heat” or “ascetic fervour” (Edgerton), “power of heat” (Macdonell, Zaehner), “fervour” or “warmth” (Griffith), “austerity” (Telang-Chaubey), “chaleur ascétique,” “puissance de l’ardeur,” “ardeur créatrice” (Renou), “heisser Drang” “heisses Verlangen,” “Askese” (Geldner), etc.
Cf. AV X, 7, 1 (§ I 3); BU I, 2, 6 (§ I 14); V, 11; KenU IV, 8; SU I, 15 (§ VI 5); MundU III, 1, 5; MaitU IV, 4. Also cf AV XI, 8, 2; 6 where it is said that tapas is born from karman.
Cosmic Order: rita. Cf. RV IV, 23, 8-10 and § III B Introduction.
Truth: satya Cf RV X, 85, 1 (§ II 16 Introduction); etc. Cf. also § IV Introduction.
2. Everything that blinks the eye: everything that lives. Cf. MaitS I, 5, 12 for the creation of night by the Gods (§ V 1 Introduction).
3. As before: yatha-purvam, as previously, suggests a cyclic interpretation, but could equally be considered an expression of a dynamic process: now the world is being created and sustained as before.
The creator: dhatr, or ordainer.
3 From time immemorial in many cultures, both archaic and fully developed, axis mundi, the center of the world, stands not only for a geographical orientation but also for a historical point of reference and for an ontological foundation. Furthermore, the idea also has a theocosmological meaning: the Godhead is the actual support of the universe. True to type, the skambha, the “support,” the “pillar,” is seen in the Atharva Veda as the frame of creation and, even more, as that invisible and ever transcendent ground on which everything stands and toward which every being tends. The vision is circular and anthropological. Man and the cosmos are not two different creations, each governed by different laws. There is one point, without dimensions, as we would be tempted to word it today, that is, without forming part of the things of which it is the point of reference, which is the support, the ground, of everything. Knowledge of this skambha constitutes the full realization of the mystery of existence, the discovery of Brahman and the deciphering of the hidden treasures of the world.
The Cosmic Pillar, the axis mundi, is not a sacred place; it is not a particular mountain or shrine, or even a particular event, as many a religious tradition affirms, but a “manifest though hidden” Ground, as another hymn on skambha is going to say. 13 It is an ever dynamic pole which stands there not only to offer a static, a sure, foundation of reality, but also to explain the never-ending processes of nature the wind never tired of blowing, the mind never ceasing to think, the waters--both earthly and celestial--never ceasing to flow (v. 37). Skambha holds even opposites together (v. 15); it is a tree whose branches are Being and Nonbeing (v. 21). The whole universe resides in skambha and all values that Men acknowledge as authentic are rooted in it; faith (vv. 1, 11), worship (v. 20), sacrifice (v. 16), and all that transcends the empirical level are grounded in it.
The recurrent question of this hymn is: What is skambha? Who is it? Meditating upon the hymn one discovers the following progression. First, the skambha appears as both the epistemic hypothesis and the ontological hypostasis which are needed to make intelligible and to sustain the manifold aspect of reality. There is no intelligibility without a certain reduction to unity. But, second, unity cannot be on the same level as plurality, for that would involve the most blatant contradiction. It must somehow lie deeper. This means, third, that the epistemic plurality does not contradict the ontological unity. But, fourth--and here is the purport of this hymn--the ontological order has to be abandoned no less than the epistemic one. The insight of the Vedas would then seem to be that the skambha is the whole of reality deprived not only of its phenomenic character but also of its ontological reality; the skambha “is” not, because it stands as the condition and possibility of Being itself. In other words, the skambha symbolizes that naked “thatness,” tat-tva, which renders reality intelligible in its manifold character and also gives a basis to all that is. All lines of thought converge on one single hypothetical point, just as by following the rays of light we would converge on the invisible center of the sun. Now by concentrating on that unthinkable point one reaches a state in which thought is transcended, and that point emerges refulgent and radiant in its unique character, like the sun in the metaphor. It would be a mistake to give any kind of “thinkable” reality to such a point. To be “thought” is to be “born” into reality or into this world, but skambha is the unthinkable par excellence; otherwise it would not be skambha, the Unborn that is just ready to spring up into the world (v. 31).
The intuition regarding this Cosmic Pillar or Support does not consist in seeing it, but in discovering the vestiges of its feet when they have disappeared in order to jump into the real; it is like seeing the vibrations of the springboard a moment after the dive. To know skambha is to know the Lord of creatures without his creatures and without his Lordship. The hymn is traditionally said to be addressed to Skambha or to the atman, the Self of the universe. Underlying the whole symbolism is the idea of the cosmic Man or purusa.
1. In which of his limbs does Fervor dwell?
In which of his limbs is Order set?
In what part of him abides Constancy, Faith?
In which of his limbs is Truth established?
2. From which of his limbs does Fire shine forth?
From which of his limbs issues the Wind?
Which limb does the moon take for measuring rod
when it measures the form of the great Support?
3. In which of his limbs does the earth abide?
In which of his limbs the atmosphere?
In which of his limbs is the sky affixed?
In which of his limbs the great Beyond?
4. Toward whom does the rising Flame aspire?
Toward whom does the Wind eagerly blow?
On whom do all the compass points converge?
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
5. Where do the half months and months together
proceed in consultation with the year?
Where do the seasons go, in groups or singly?
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
6. Toward whom run the sisters, day and night,
who look so different yet one summons answer?
Toward whom do the waters with longing flow?
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
7. The One on whom the Lord of Life
leant for support when he propped up the world--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
8. That which of all forms the Lord of Life
created--above, below, and in between--
with how much of himself penetrated the Support?
How long was the portion that did not enter?
9. With how much of himself penetrated the Support
into the past? With how much into the future?
In that single limb whose thousand parts he fashioned
with how much of himself did he enter, that Support?
10. Through whom men know the
worlds and what enwraps them,
the waters and Holy Word, the all-powerful
in whom are found both Being and Nonbeing--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
11. By whom Creative Fervor waxing powerful
upholds the highest Vow, in whom unite
Cosmic Order and Faith, the waters and the Word--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
12. On whom is firmly founded earth and sky
and the air in between; so too the fire,
moon, sun, and wind, each knowing his own place--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
13. In whose one limb all the Gods,
three and thirty in number, are affixed--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
14. In whom are set firm the firstborn Seers,
the hymns, the songs, and the sacrificial formulas,
in whom is established the Single Seer--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
15. In whom, as Man, deathlessness and death combine,
to whom belong the surging ocean
and all the arteries that course within him;
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
16. Of whom the four cardinal directions
comprise the veins, visibly swollen,
in whom the sacrifice has advanced victorious--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
17. Those who know the divine in
Man know the highest Lord; who knows the highest Lord
or the Lord of Life knows the supreme Brahman.
They therefore know the Support also.
18. He whose head is Universal Fire,
who has for his eyes the Angirases
and for his limbs the practitioners of sorcery--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
19. He whose mouth, so they say, is Brahman,
whose tongue is a whip steeped in honey,
of whom Viraj is considered the udder--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
20. Out of his body were carved the verses,
the formulas being formed from the shavings.
His hairs are the songs, his mouth the hymns
of the Seers Atharvan and Angiras--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
21. The branch of Nonbeing which is far-extending
men take to be the highest one of all.
They reckon as inferior those who worship
your other branch, the branch of Being.
22. In whom the Adityas, Rudras and Vasus,
are held together, in whom are set firm
worlds--that whch was and that which shall be--
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
23. Whose treasure hoard the three and thirty Gods
forever guard--today who knows its contents?
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
24. In whom the Gods, knowers of Brahman,
acknowledge Brahman as the Supreme--
he who knows the Gods face to face
is truly a Knower, a Vehicle of Brahman.
25. Great are the Gods who were born from Nonbeing,
yet men aver this Nonbeing to be
the single limb of the Support, the great Beyond.
26. The limb in which the Support, when generating,
evolved the Ancient One--who knows this limb
knows too by that same knowledge the Ancient One.
27. It was from his limb that the thirty-three Gods
distributed portions among themselves.
Thus in truth only knowers of Brahman
are also knowers of the thirty-three Gods.
28. Men recognize the Golden Embryo
as the unutterable, the Supreme.
Yet it was the Support who in the beginning
poured forth upon the world that stream of gold.
29. In the Support the worlds consist; in him
Creative Fervor and Order have their ground.
You I have known, O Support, face to face,
in Indra wholly concentrated.
30. In Indra the worlds consist; in Indra
Creative Fervor and Order have their ground.
You I have known, O Indra, face to face,
in the Support wholly established.
31. Before dawn and sunrise man invokes
name after name. This Unborn sprang to birth
already with full sovereignty empowered.
Than he nothing higher ever existed.
32. Homage to him of whom the earth is the model,
the atmosphere his belly, who created the sky
from his head. Homage to this supreme Brahman!
33. Homage to him whose eye is the sun
and the moon which is ever renewed, whose mouth
is the Fire. Homage to this supreme Brahman!
34. Homage to him whose in-breath and out-breath
is the Wind, whose eyes are the Angirases,
whose wisdom consists in the cardinal points.
Homage once again to this supreme Brahman!
35. By the Support are held both heaven and earth,
by the Support the broad domain of space,
by the Support the six divergent directions,
by the Support is this whole world pervaded.
36. Homage to him who, born of labor
and Creative Fervor, has entered all the worlds,
who has taken Soma for his own exclusive possession.
Homage to this Supreme Brahman!
37. How does the wind not cease to blow?
How does the mind take no repose?
Why do the waters, seeking to reach truth,
never at any time cease flowing?
38. A mighty wonder in the midst of creation moves,
thanks to Fervor, on the waters’ surface.
To him whatever Gods there are adhere
like branches of a tree around the trunk.
39. To whom the Gods always with hands and feet,
with speech, ear, and eye bring tribute unmeasured
in a well-measured place of sacrifice.
Tell me of that Support--who may he be?
40-41. In him exists no darkness, no evil.
In him are all the lights, including the three
that are in the Lord of Life. The one who knows
the Reed of gold standing up in the water
is truly the mysterious Lord of Life.
1. Fervor: tapas.
Order: rita eternal Order, Sacred Law.
Faith: shaddha, cf. § I 36.
Truth: satya.
2. Support: skambha, throughout.
Fire: Agni.
Wind: Matarishvan, also a form of Agni.
Moon: the yardstick for measuring time.
4. “Whom” could equally well be rendered by “what” here and in all the succeeding verses.
7. Lord of Life: Prajapati, throughout.
Propped up: the root stambh-, to fix, to support, etc., is evidently connected with skambha (stambha is also a pillar, post, support, cf. RV IV, 13, 5). Skambha is more basic and interior to the universe than its creator, Prajapati.
8. The penetration of space. The portion that did not enter: i.e., his transcendent part, cf. RV X, 90, 1; 3 (§ I 5).
9. The penetration of time.
10. Holy Word: brahman, which here could also be translated by “World principle” Cf RV X 129 1 (§ I 1).
11. Creative Fervor: tapas.
Cosmic Order: rita.
13. Affixed: samahita, collected, united. The Skambha is the principle that unites all the Vedic Gods.
For the number ot the Gods, cf. also BU III, 9, 1-9 (§ VI 2).
14. Hymns: the Rig Veda.
Songs: the Sama Veda.
Sacrificial formulas: the Yajur Veda.
Single Seer: ekarishi, often refers to the sun. Cf. the mystical use of this term in the U (IsU 16; § VII 31, MundU III, 2, 10; § I 37), although it also appears as the name of a rishi (cf. BU IV, 6, 3).
15. Man: purusa. The coincidentia oppositorum: all meet in Man. Cf. RV X, 121, 2 (§ I 4). Cf CU III, 19, 2, for the metaphor of the ocean and the arteries.
16. Veins: nadi. This verse begins the anthropocosmic desription which is continued in vv. 18 sq.
17. The divine in Man: brahman in purusa.
Highest Lord: paramesthin. There are, so to speak, four aspects of the Absolute; in order of interiority they ane: Prajapati-Paramesthin-Purusa-Brahman.
18. Universal Fire: vaisvanara, the sun.
Practitioners of sorcery: yatavah or demons. Evil is part of cosmic reality.
19. Whip steeped in honey: cf V IX, 1 where the whip symbolizes a cosmological principle.
Viraj: the cosmic Cow, Speech.
20. The four Vedas originate from Skambha.
21. Cf. TU II, 6 (§ I 7). Priority is here given to the ontic apophatism which is developed later in the Indian tradition.
23. For the treasure, cf. AV X, 2, 31-32 (§ III A a Introduction).
24. Face to face: pratyaksam, directly, or else it refers to Brahman, in which case it would mean: “He is a knower of the visible [manifest] Brahman.” TU I, 1 (§ VI 10) confirms the latter meaning.
25. The Gods also come out of Nothing.
This “single limb,” ekam tad angam, of Skambha has sometimes been interpreted as the linga, the male organ, which is a symbol of the creative principle.
26. The Ancient One: purana, the original, primeval principle, in BU IV, 4, 18 (§§ VI 11), related to Brahman.
27. Portions: referring to the sacrifice of the purusa whose parts are distributed (cf. RV X, 90, 7; 11; § I 5).
28. Golden Embryo: hiranyagarbha, as a manifestation of the nonmanifested. Supreme. Skambha is prior even to him. Cf. RV X, 121, 1 (§ I 4); AV IV, 2, 7.
29. Indra is here identified with the supreme God.
Face to face: pratyaksam; here too the other meaning, “visible, manifest,” is also possible. It could be understood that Indra is the manifest form of the invisible Skambha.
31. For the birth of the Unborn, cf. RV X, 82, 6 (§ VII 12); BU IV, 4, 20-26 (§§ VI 11; VI 6).
32. Model: prama, it can also mean basis, foundation (i.e., the feet of the cosmic purusa).
34. Whose wisdom. . . : prajna; one could also translate: who made of the directions his consciousness.
35. Six. . . directions: the four cardinal points together with the above and the below.
37. The waters: a clear reference to the intimate connection between the cosmic and the spiritual elements (apah and satyam).
38. An allusion to the cosmic Tree. Cf. RV III, 8 (§ III 19 and Introduction).
40-41. The three lights are probably fire, moon, and sun. Cf. RV VII, 101, 2 (§ VII Bc Antiphon).
Mysterious: guhya, secret, hidden.
Reed of gold: a similar idea to that of the Golden Germ, but not referring here to the seed of the soma-plant as in RV IV, 58, 5. Three additional stanzas (vv. 42-44) have been omitted here because they are a digression from the theme of the hymn.
4 “To the Unknown God,” Deo ignoto, is the title that, since the days of Max Muller, has usually been given to this solemn hymn of praise and glorification of the Supreme, whose name is kept in suspense until the final and perhaps later interpolated verse. 14 The poem chants the majesty of the cosmos and the glory of its Master whom it is incumbent upon Man to adore. One feels, however, that the rishi is tormented as well as enchanted by the splendor of a world so near and tangible, yet so inexplicable and elusive.
Three leading themes concerning the mystery of existence emerge like melodies in a concerto, now sounding together in harmony and counterpoint, now repeated singly or with clashing effect. These three closely connected melodies are all expressed in the first stanza: (a) the origin of reality (“In the beginning arose the Golden Germ”); (b) the Lordship of God (“He was, as soon as born, the Lord of Being”); (c) the human adventure of returning to the primeval state (“What God shall we adore with our oblation?”).
a) Verses 1, 7, and 8 explain the divine origin in terms of the cosmic egg, well known to both the Indian and other cosmogonies. Something happened in the womb of the Supreme; it stirred, evolved, it came to be, it manifested itself. Theological thinking will later say that the movement, if any, is seen only from our human point of view, but the Rig Veda is not concerned with systematic development and the language is both poetical and mystical, using symbols that disclose themselves only to a meditative gaze, as is suggested here by the symbol of the risen sun, the most powerful symbol for the hiranyagarbha, the Golden Germ. We cannot call this first step a creation: God is not created. Nor can we call it evolution in the usual sense of the word, nor a becoming, as if God first were not and later came to be. Vedic thought here struggles with the primordial problem of the piercing into the very nature of the Godhead and the luminous discovery of its dynamism and life. God as God is only coextensive with beings; God is a relative term, related to the creatures; God is not God to himself; Being appears when the beings are also there. And yet, “previous” to all this there seems to be an internal “divine” life, a disclosure, an explosion, a birth inside the ultimate mystery itself. The idea behind hiranyagarbha is that there is a production, a process within the “womb” of the Ultimate. Because there is life, there is a birth in and of God. The classical term is sacrifice, as used in verse 8: creation as a sacrifice. But for this the Golden Germ has had to disclose itself and be born. God is born (even to himself). This is the mystery of this hymn. The Birth of God is our title.
b) Once born, the Golden Germ becomes the Lord, the Lord of Being itself, in the general and also in the partitive sense: Lord of Being and of beings. He is the only king, and the poet raises his voice in praise and celebration of the lordship, both cosmic and human, of this unknown and nameless God, who, being a Father of all creation, transcends it. It is his lordship that gives unity and harmony to the whole world.
c) Who, what, shall be the object of our worship? To whom shall we direct it? This question encompasses the whole of human destiny: Man’s struggle to overcome all existential hazards in order to reach his final goal, which, in a way, is a recovery of his primordial divine state. Two fundamental ideas are contained in this famous line, repeated like a refrain at the end of each verse. The first idea concerns the very name of God; the second, our relation with him.
It is often said that this refrain tells us, certainly, that there is a God, but that he is unknown. Yet this conclusion is not quite in accordance either with the letter of the text or with its spirit. Nor is it in accordance with the main tenor of the Vedas, which are not exotic texts or agnostic treatises but plain and majestic religious chants to the divine as an integral part, indeed the kernel, of human life. God and the Gods are living realities in the whole Vedic Revelation. Furthermore, the text does not literally say that the name of God is unknown, for in fact it discloses the name of God; it says only that it is neither a proper name, nor a substantive, nor a substance, nor a “thing,” but simply the interrogative pronoun itself. Never has a pronoun been more properly used instead of an unutterable and nonexistent name. His name is simply ka (who?) or, to be even more exact, kasmai (to whom?). 15 That this is the name of Prajapati, the Father of all beings, is explicitly affirmed in the following myth, which is reported with slight variations in several texts:
Indra, the last born of Prajapati, was appointed by his Father Lord of the Gods, but they would not accept him. Indra then asked his Father to give him the splendor that is in the sun, so as to be able to be Lord over the Gods. Prajapati answered: “If I give it to you, then who shall I be?” “You shall be what you say: who? [ka], and from then on this was his name.” 16 God is an interrogation in the dative, a to whom? toward whom all our actions, thoughts, desires, are directed; God is the problematic and interrogative end of all our dynamism. If the proper form of the Greek name for God is the vocative, the Vedic name is a dative: it is not only the term of invocation, it is also the receiver of sacrifice. The contemplative slant will prevail, however, and the name will be the pure nominative: ka and ultimately aham. 17
This brings us to our second remark. The to whom is not simply a theoretical question; it is the object of our adoration, the term of our worship, the aim of the sacrifice. God cannot be “known” if by knowledge we understand a merely mental consciousness; he can be reached only by sacrifice, by holy action, by orthopraxis, the ultimate concem of all religion. Sacrifice, moreover, needs to know only the interrogative of God. The living God with whom the sacrifice is concerned is not a concept, not a defined and graspable reality, but rather the term of the actual sacrifice which, though constantly running the risk of missing the target, finds in the dynamic to whom its justification and its reward. Sacrifice is not a manipulation of the divine, but the existential leap by which Man plunges, as it were, into the not-yet-existent with the cosmic confidence that the very plunge effects the emergence of that reality into which he plunges. The only oblation that the Lord of the Gods, of Men and of the universe, can fittingly accept is the oblation that enables him to go on creating the world by the reenactment of the sacrifice of himself, that sacrifice by which the world is called upon to be. 18 By this act Man shares in the cosmic process by which God creates the world. The last verse exemplifies a highly characteristic and important feature of the Vedas which we term “cosmotheandric,” with reference to a particular union that takes place between the human and the divine, or, as here, between the spiritual and the material, or, in yet another context, between the natural and the supernatural. This life-affirming attitude is far from being a shallow naturalism or a bucolic approach to life; it is a deeply religious and consciously theological attitude. We may substantiate this by simply commenting on the word rayi, appearing in the last verse.
The word is commonly translated as “riches.” 19 It derives from the root ra-, to give, to impart, to bestow. 20 Rayi is then a gift, a present, in this instance bestowed on Man by the divine as a reward and as the fruit of a sacrifice offered in integrity of heart. It means both material prosperity and internal happiness, spiritual wealth. Here it is a gift of grace conferred over and above Man’s normal lot. When there remains nothing to be desired, joy is full, and fullness of spiritual wealth is rayi, a treasure of riches, the symbols of which in Vedic parlance are cows, horses, chariots, food, sons, gold. 21 It would be “katachronic” to understand this symbolism as evidencing a materialistic outlook, but it would be no less inappropriate to interpret it in a discamate and spiritualized way, as if it were referring solely to intangible “graces.” As we shall see later, the word rayi is used in the Upanisads to express one of the two factors or elements of the primordial couple which are variously termed Matter and Spirit, Grace and Life, Wealth and Breath. 22
1. In the beginning arose the Golden Germ:
he was, as soon as born, the Lord of Being,
sustainer of the Earth and of this Heaven.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?
2. He who bestows life-force and hardy vigor,
whose ordinances even the Gods obey,
whose shadow is immortal life--and death--
What God shall we adore with our oblation?
3. Who by his grandeur has emerged sole sovereign
of every living thing that breathes and slumbers,
he who is Lord of man and four-legged creatures
What God shall we adore with our oblation?
4. To him of right belong, by his own power,
the snow-clad mountains, the world-stream, and the sea.
His arms are the four quarters of the sky.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?
5. Who held secure the mighty Heavens and Earth,
who established light and sky’s vast vault above,
who measured out the ether in mid-spheres--
What God shall we adore with our oblation?
6. Toward him, trembling, the embattled forces,
riveted by his glory, direct their gaze.
Through him the risen sun sheds forth its light.
What God shall we adore with our obhtion?
7. When came the mighty Waters, bringing with them
the universal Germ, whence sprang the Fire,
thence leapt the God’s One Spirit into being.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?
8. This One who in his might surveyed the Waters
pregnant with vital forces, producing sacrifice,
he is the God of Gods and none beside him.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?
9. O Father of the Earth, by fixed laws ruling,
O Father of the Heavens, pray protect us,
O Father of the great and shining Waters!
What God shall we adore with our oblation?
10. O Lord of Creatures, Father of all beings,
you alone pervade all that has come to birth.
Grant us our heart’s desire for which we pray.
May we become the lords of many treasures!
1. The Golden Germ: hiranyagarbha, the source of golden light, the Sun-God, the seed of all creation. Cf. RV X, 82, 5-6 (§ VII 12), which tells us of the cosmic egg conceived as a germ by the primeval waters. Cf. AV X, 7, 28 (§ I 3); SB VI, 1, 1, 10-11; XI, 1, 6, 1-2 (§ I 6); CU III, 19; SU III, 4 (§ I 28); IV. 12; also KathU IV, 6 (§ VII 40).
The Lord: lit. the one Lord, patir eka.
Sustainer: dadhara from the root dhr- to hold (whence dharma), to support, to sustain (the earth and this heaven). For ka cf. SB IV, 5, 6, 4.
2. Obey: upasate from upa (near) and the root as- (to sit), to worship, to respect, to honor.
3. Slumbers: nimsatah from ni and the root mis- which may mean either “winking” or “sleeping.” Cf. AV IX, 2, 23 (§ II 12; MundU II 2, 1 (§ VI 3).
Lord: isha, from the root ish- to be master.
4. The world-stream (surrounding the earth): rasa
5. Cf. RV II, 12, 2 (§ II 4); also X, 66, 9, to Vishvedevah, where it is said that
The Holy Ones engendered, according to Laws,
the heavens, the earth, the waters, plants, and trees.
As a help to men they filled the world with Light.
6. The embattled forces: krandasi, figuratively means Heaven and Earth, though it also suggests two armies helping the Gods in their fight against the demons.
10. Lord of creatures: Prajapati.
Treasures: rayi. Cf. §§ II, 6; II 34; VII Introductions. A literal translation of the last two verses is:
What we, desiring, offer to you [in sacrifice],
let that be ours. May we be owners of gifts.
5 “This Is the Man!” Ecce homo, could also serve as title for this hymn, one of the most frequently quoted and most important hymns of the Rig Veda. It reveals to us the character of the creation sacrifice: its all-embracing function in which the entire universe is involved. It is neither a merely divine affair, nor a purely human endeavor, nor a blind cosmic process; it is human, divine, and cosmic all in one. That is, it is cosmotheandric. God, Man, and the universe are correlates. God without Man is nothing, literally “no-thing.” Man without God is exclusively a “thing,” not a person, not a really human being, while the world, the cosmos, without Man and God is “any-thing,” without consistency and being; it is sheer unexisting chaos. The three are constitutively connected. It is this cosmotheandric communion, described with such inspiration in this unique hymn, which has frightened some commentators and caused them either to minimize its importance or to brand it as simply pantheistic. Nothing separates Man from God. There is neither intermediary nor barrier between them. To discover that nothing separates us from Him is realization, which can often take the form of the discovery of this “nothingness.”
The primordial Man is not simply another name for a heteronomous God, nor a mere euphemism for an autonomic individual Man, but the living expression of the ontonomic Man, that total reality of which we are a reflection, a reflection that contains the whole, indeed, but in a rather limited and all too often narrow way. God is not totally other than Man, nor is the world an entity utterly foreign to Man. Man is more than a single individual and more than the sum of all individuals. Without this internal and constitutive link with the whole of reality, any life of contemplation would become sheer egoism or a kind of spiritual narcissism. It would become the ivory tower of a would-be reality, rather than the building of a temple containing all that is. Authentic spiritual life or dharmic existence amounts to assimilating in one’s self the maximum possible of the purusa condition of reality. The consecrated expression for this is realization, which means not only to become aware of reality but to become it; that is why many schools will say that to become aware and to be (that which one becomes aware of) are one and the same thing.
Purusa is not only the cosmic Man; it is also the personal aspect of the whole of reality. The very concept of person excludes isolation, alienation, and solipsistic solitariness and expresses interconnection and unity. The concept of person involves essentially an internal relationship. Everything that is, is a member of the one and unique purusa. To have an insight into the working of the cosmic as well as of the historic and divine laws governing this integral biology is to share in the performance of the sacrifice by means of which the body of the purusa is constantly dismembered and reconstructed. Real time is this process; the rest is only fallacy.
This hymn, of rather late Vedic times, though undoubtedly preu, describes the formation of the world from the body of the primordial Man who is so vast that he covers and even overlaps the earth, not only in space but also in time, for he covers the three ages of the past, the present, and the future. Only one quarter of the cosmic Person is visible and emerges into the sphere of the manifested. Temporal life is only a quarter of the whole Man. We find here the image of the four quarters of reality, which has had a long history in the cosmological conceptions of Man up to the present day. Four is the terrestrial number par excellence and at the same time expresses the mystery of reality, three quarters of which are immortal, concealed, and unspoiled by the shadow of their own external manifestations. On the other hand, nobody can stand for a long time on one single foot, that is, on the external, empirical realm alone. To be conscious of a tree’s roots does not imply their conversion into branches.
From the purusa, viraj, the first divine emanation, proceeded. This uncreated being, whose ontological function is mediatorial in character, ascends and descends into every being and every activity; it is feminine, not only in gender but also in role. Thus the feminine principle is born and from woman henceforth Men are born. With the birth of Men history begins. But history is not all, for the Man overlaps the earth and is related also to the Gods. These Gods stretch out the purusa’s body, just as threads are stretched on the loom, and offer him as an oblation. He is offered in his entirety according to the prescribed rites and with the use of the proper elements, which are represented by the seasons, ritual butter being springtime, wood for the fire being summertime, and the offering being autumn.
In verses 8 to 14 the purusa sacrifices himself by dismembering himself and scattering around the necessary number of portions for the completion of the work of creation. He performs an act of self-immolation so that the universe may come into being. From this sacrifice offered completely, that is, from the limbs of the cosmic Man, come all things both animate and inanimate: animals of every type (8, 10); liturgical formulas (9); the four castes of men (12); the cosmic powers (13-14). From his spirit comes the moon, from his eyes the sun, from his mouth Indra and Agni (fire), from his breath the wind, from his navel the air, from his head the sky, from his feet the earth, from the ears the points of the compass--nothing, nobody, is omitted. Verse 15 sums up the idea of the sacrifice and the last stanza repeats the underlying thought of the whole hymn, that the cosmic Man is the total sacrifice. By sacrifice creation reverts to the Man. The sacrifice of the cosmic Man signifies divine transcendence investing humanity. This universal sacrifice possesses a twofold dynamism, for it includes a sacramental downward movement of the All toward the earth and a sacrificial upward movement of the world toward the All; these two aspects are inseparable one from the other precisely because of the unity of the integral sacrifice.
1. A thousand-headed is the Man
with a. thousand eyes, a thousand feet;
encompassing the Earth all sides,
he exceeded it by ten fingers’ breadth.
2. The Man, indeed, is this All,
what has been and what is to be
the Lord of the immortal spheres
which he surpasses by consuming food.
3. Such is the measure of his might,
and greater still than this is Man.
All beings are a fourth of him,
three fourths are the immortal in heaven.
4. Three fourths of Man ascended high,
one fourth took birth again down here.
From this he spread in all directions
into animate and inanimate things.
5. From him the Shining one was born;
from this Shining one Man again took birth.
As soon as born, he extended himself all
over the Earth both behind and before.
6. Using the Man as their oblation,
the Gods performed the sacrifice.
Spring served them for the clarified butter,
Summer for the fuel, and Autumn for the offering.
7. This evolved Man, then first born,
they besprinkled on the sacred grass.
With him the Gods performed the sacrifice,
as did also the heavenly beings and seers.
8. From this sacrifice, fully accomplished,
was gathered curd mixed with butter.
Thence came the creatures of the air,
beasts of the forest and those of the village.
9. From this sacrifice, fully accomplished,
were born the hymns and the melodies;
from this were born the various meters;
from this were born the sacrificial formulas.
10. From this were horses born, all creatures
such as have teeth in either jaw;
from this were born the breeds of cattle;
from this were born sheep and goats.
11. When they divided up the Man,
into how many parts did they divide him?
What did his mouth become? What his arms?
What are his legs called? What his feet?
12. His mouth became the brahmin; his arms
became the warrior-prince, his legs
the common man who plies his trade.
The lowly serf was born from his feet.
13. The Moon was born from his mind;
the Sun came into being from his eye;
from his mouth came Indra and Agni,
while from his breath the Wind was born.
14. From his navel issued the Air;
from his head unfurled the Sky,
the Earth from his feet, from his ear the four directions.
Thus have the worlds been organized.
15. Seven were the sticks of the enclosure,
thrice seven the fuel sticks were made,
when the Gods, performing the sacrifice,
bound the Man as the victim.
16. With the sacrifice the Gods sacrificed to the sacrifice.
Those were the first established rites.
These powers ascended up to heaven
where dwell the ancient Gods and other beings.
1. Cf. AV XIX, 6, where a similar description is given. The word “thousand” stands for innumerable, or even for an infinite number. Cf. also YV XXXI.
For the idea of the primeval sacrifice, cf. RV X, 81, 3 (§ VII 7); X, 130 (§ III 14); TS, VII, 1, 1, 4; TB II, 1, 2, 1; AB II, 18 (VII, 8); VII, 19 (XXXIV, 1); and §§ III 27; 28.
For the purusa in general, cf. AV X, 2; XI, 8, 4-34; etc., and for the Upanisadic idea of the purusa, cf. § VI 7.
2. The equation without any further qualification of the idam sarvam, “all this” (the universe), with the purusa has caused this hymn to be labeled pantheistic.
The “Immortal spheres” is generally understood as the Gods, who are nourished with amrta, the drink of immortality.
At least six different versions have been given of the second part of this rc--an interesting text for the theology of food.
3. Cf. RV I, 164, 45 (§ I 11); AV II, 1, 2.
5. From him: tasmat, the one quarter of the purusa.
The Shining one: viraj, “the cosmic waters” (Edgerton), “the cosmic egg” (Raghavan), “Mother principle,” “mahat,” “yoni” (V. S. Agrawala). It can be understood as a feminine principle, a kind of “primitive shakti” (Renou), a cosmic source, a womb fecundated by the purusa. The union of viraj and purusa gives birth to viraja (son of Viraj). Cf. RV X, 72, 4-5 (§ VII 2); AV VIII, 10 (the whole hymn is to viraj); IX 2, 5; XI, 8, 30; BU IV, 2, 3.
The theology of viraj might offer a fruitful point of encounter between the different notions of the first uncreated emanations of the Supreme which are to be found in more than one religious tradition: shakti, logos, wisdom, spirit, preexistent Christ, etc. The end of this rc can be interpreted thus “He stretched himself further as Gods, men, etc., then he created the earth and the astral bodies.”
6. Cf. RV X, 81, 1 (§ VII 7). The trinitarian character of the sacrifice has been stressed time and again by scholars of different ages: the three seasons, the three elements, the three offerings, and, more particularly, the trilogy of sacrifice, sacrificed, and sacrificer.
7. A. K. Coomaraswamy renders this freely: “They made the first-born Person their sacrificial victim
“Heavenly beings: sadhyas, “a class of semi-divine beings” (Dandekar), “a class of ancient Gods or demi-gods” (Edgerton), “a class of celestial beings, probably ancient divine sacrificers” (Griffith), “an old class of divine beings” (Macdonell), “those who are not spiritually realized” (Renou). Cf. CU III, 10
Seers: rishis, prophets.
To sprinkle is here a cultic, sacrificial act. Man, once born on earth, is being sacrificed again by all the powers of the world.
8. From this sacrifice, fully accomplished: sarvahut, the integral sacrifice (consummatum est !), the sacrifice of everything without residue, the holocaust. “The sacrifice in which the omniformed purusa was sacrificed” (Sayana), “sacrifice completely offered” (Zaehner, Macdonell), “fully offered” (Bose), “offered as whole-offering” (Edgerton), “great general sacrifice” (Griffith), “sacrifice offert en forme totale” (Renou), “vollständig geopfertes Opfer” (Geldner), “from this sacrifice of the Cosmic Being” (Raghavan), etc.
9. Hymns: rcah.
Melodies: samani.
Sacrificial formulas: yajus.
12. The first clear mention of the four great social divisions. Common man. . . : vaishya. Lowly serf: shudra
15. Man as the victim: purusam pashum, the purusa as animal for the sacrifice. Important passage for the theory underlying human sacrifice. The shruti suggests that it is a degeneration (occurring only when man is likened to an animal). Cf. the legend of Shunahshepa (§ III 23).
16. First established rites: dharmani prathamani, “the first ordinance” (Macdonell), “statutes, ordinances” (Griffith), “the first religious rites” (Zaehner), “die ersten Normen (des Opfers)” (Geldner), etc. Cf. RV I, 164, 50; X, 130, 3 (§ III 14); AV VII, 5, 1 (§ III 15); SB X, 2, 2, 1 (§ III 21).
6 In the Brahmanas we find on the whole the same basic ideas as in the Vedas regarding the origins, but here the prelude of Being is developed and emphasized along the lines of the cosmic sacrifice and its liturgical meaning. Prajapati procreates by summoning his creative energy, by performing that burning concentration known as tapas. Not having anything out of which to create the world, he has to resort to himself, dismembering himself, offering himself as a sacrifice, falling into pieces so that life is drained from him. The creatures he has begotten are not only the whole of him, so that, when the creatures are there, there is no longer place for him, but also they abandon him--because he is no longer! It is the function and privilege of Agni, whom we could call the divine Redeemer, to recompose him. The waters, hearing of Prajapati’s situation, run to his aid and offer the agnihotra sacrifice and thus Prajapati recovers his life. Here is a perpetual process of death and resurrection, described in detail by one of the texts that treat this theme: “He reflected upon himself, ‘How can I bring these beings into my body again? How can I get them back into my body? How can I become again the body of all these things?” 23 A vivid description follows as to how Prajapati made himself a number of bodies in order to win back his creation.
Creation is pictured here as the self-immolation of the Creator. It is only because Prajapati sacrifices himself fully that he can give to creation his whole Self. It is only by the same sacrifice in the opposite direction, by the same sacrifice in which he has himself been offered as oblation, that Prajapati is snatched back from death. He has been sacrificed and he lives; he has been dismembered but stays the same because the sacrifice has recomposed him. This almost dialectical situation may explain why in some texts Prajapati is considered to be half mortal and half immortal. These utterances may be considered as descriptions of that primordial act which, being primordial, transcends time and thus cannot be relegated only to the beginning. It is not possible to express simultaneously in adequate terms the two poles of the event, if we may call an event that act without which no other “happening” has any possibility of happening!
It is unfortunate that certain interpretations of these and similar texts have given the impression that the Brahmanas deal only with empty ritualisms or magic procedures, or even that they do not relate to the present-day form of human consciousness, but mirror a form of mind that might perhaps be called primitive if it were less sophisticated. That there are obsolete parts and metaphors that to a certain type of mind sound odd should not discourage our attempt to understand more deeply the still valid message of the Brahmanas.
i) In the beginning, to be sure, the Lord of creatures was One only. He reflected, “How may I be propagated?” He kindled his own ardor, performing this very act with fervor. He generated the Firstborn from his mouth; and because he generated him from his mouth, therefore the Firstborn is a consumer of food.
SB XI, 1, 6, 1
ii) In the beginning, to be sure, this world was water, nothing but a sea of water. The waters desired, “How can we be propagated?” They kindled their own ardor, performing this very act with fervor. While summoning their creative energy they warmed up and a golden egg was produced. At that time, to be sure, the year was not yet existing. This golden egg floated about for as long as a year.
SB XI, 1, 6, 17
iii) The highest Lord said to his father, the Lord of all creatures, “I have found the sacrifice that fulfills wishes: let me do it for you!” “Be it so!” he answered. He accordingly performed it for him. Having sacrificed, he [the Father of creatures] desired: “Would I were everything here!” He became the Breath, for Breath is everything here.
SB XIII, 7, 1, 1
iv) Brahma, the self-existent, was performing fervid concentration. “In fervid concentration,” he reflected, “there is no infinity. Come, let me sacrifice myself in living things and all living things in myself.” Then, having sacrificed himself in all living things and all living things in himself, he acquired greatness, self-radiance, and sovereignty.
SB III, 9, 1, 1
v) Now the Lord of creatures, having brought forth living beings, felt himself as it were emptied. The creatures turned away from him; nor did they abide with him for his joy and for his sustenance.
SBX, 4, 2, 2
vi) Having brought forth all things that exist, he felt like one emptied out and was afraid of death.
SB VI, 1, 2, 12-13
vii) When he had procreated all the beings and run through the whole gamut of creation he fell into pieces. . . . When he was fallen into pieces, his breath departed from the midst of him, and when his breath had departed, the Gods abandoned him. He said to Agni, “put me, I pray you, together again.”
TB 11, 3, 6, 1
viii) When he had produced the creatures, Prajapati fell into pieces. Being reduced to a (mere) heart he was lying exhausted. He uttered a cry: “Alas, my life!” The waters heard him. They came to his aid and by means of sacrifice of the Firstborn they restored to him his sovereignty.
i) In the beginning: idam agr’eka evasa.
The Lord of creatures: Prajapati.
May I be propagated: prajayeya (passive of pra-jan-; optative to express possibility or probability in the near future), to be born, to be begotten and born again, to be propagated.
He kindled his own ardor, performing this very act with fervor: tapo ‘tapyata, warmed up his own heat.
The Firstborn: Agni. Cf. SB II, 2, 4, 2: “He thus generated him the first [in the beginning: agre] of the Gods; therefore Agni [is he called], for agni, it is said, is the same as agre.” and in the same text Agni is called again purva, the First. Cf. also SB II, 5, 1. 1.
ii) In the beginning . . . this world was water: lit., water was in the beginning, apo ha va’ idam agre. They desired, “How can we be propagated?”: ta akamayanta kathamnu prajayemahi. In SB XI, 1, 1, 1, Prajapati is identified with yajna and this latter with the year (Agni, death, and time). In SB XI, 1, 6, 13 Prajapati considers the year as a counterpart of himself. The waters are also the result of a sacrifice.
iii) The highest Lord: Paramesthin.
The Lord of all creatures: Prajapati.
Paramesthin has already performed this sacrifice (becoming the waters, SB XI, 1, 6, 16); Prajapati performs it repeatedly and the whole world of Gods and beings appears (vv. sq.). The procedure is that each time one performs it for another: Paramesthin for Prajapati, the latter for Indra, his son and Indra for his brothers Agni and Soma; these five deities went on performing this wish-fulfilling sacrifice.
Breath: prana.
iv) Brahma, the self-existent, was performing fervid concentration: brahma vai svayambhu tapo’ tapyata.
No infinity: na . . . anantyam, no “un-ending,” no limitlessness.
v) The exhaustion of Prajapati is literally an emptying of himself.
vi) Afraid of death: sa mrtyor bibhayam cakara. How can Prajapati be reintegrated? Is self-oblation going to be the only means? The root srj- used here means, as in the preceding text, to create, to produce, to bring forth, and also to emanate.
vii) He fell into pieces: vyasransata from the root srans- to fall asunder (as a result of “running through the whole creation”).
His breath departed: visrastat pranah, i.e., death ensued.
Put me, I pray you, together again: tvam ma samdhehi. Restoration is achieved by self-oblation, through Agni.
viii) Being reduced to a (mere) heart: sa hrdayam bhuto ‘shayat, says the text, and the commentary adds: hrdayamavashesah san vyavahartum ashaktah lit. “being reduced to the heart, he was unable to manifest [express].” In other words, only the heart of Prajapati remains, all his other parts having become creation. God is the heart of the world!
Life: atman.
7 In the beginning, that is to say, at every beginning. The Upanisadic speculation interiorizes the whole of the Vedic message, but not along temporal lines. The interiorization is within Man certainly, but it is not temporal, for primordial Man is not considered as a historical being. The “beginning” of the cosmological hymns corresponds with the beginning of Man, but it is not only or mainly a historical beginning or a temporal origin, but rather an ontological principle. The process by which Being springs to “Be” concerns not only the past or the archaeological foundations of the universe or our own temporal origins, but also our profound inmost structure. To know this process means to be involved ontologically in it. One does not reach the “beginning” by riding back on a temporal line but by piercing deep into a Being whose core is not made of time. The Upanisads relate the dawn of human consciousness. Man becomes aware of himself and by this same act becomes aware of his solitude and of the way to break through it. This is not just the desire of another, even of another like him or a part of him; it is a dynamism toward the fullness of the Self, the integration of the Self with the entire universe. To become aware of the Self does not mean to be conscious of one’s own self; on the contrary, it means to have lost any hankering after the small self (ahamkara) and, being lost to one’s self, to discover, recover, be, the Self (atman).
The first experience is the human experience of solitude, of darkness, of anxiety. This experience, endured to its very end, leads to the overcoming of its negative aspect and the overwhelming discovery of the joy of tlhe imperishable. There is certainly a return, though it is not by any means a return with empty hands. But we are still in the prelude of the whole cosmic adventure of all that is. The selection of texts gives an idea of how the Upanisads echo what the Vedas have chanted, and how they orchestrate the tunes of future Indian speculation. 24
i) 1. In the beginning there was nothing here whatsoever. All this was swathed in Death--in Hunger, for hunger indeed is death. Then he resolved to himself: “Would that I had a self!” So he moved around in worship. While he was worshiping, water was born.
BU I, 4, 1-5; 17
ii) 1. In the beginning this was the SeIf alone, in the form of a Man. Looking around he saw nothing whatever except himself. He said in the beginning: “I am” and thence arose the name “I.” So, even today, when a Man is addressed, he says in the beginning, “It is I,” and then adds any other name he may have. Furthermore, since before the world came to be he had burned up all evils; he is Man. He who knows this also burns up whoever wants to be before him.
2. He was afraid; so, even today, one who is all alone is afraid. He thought to himself: “Since nothing exists except me, of what am I afraid?” Thereupon his fear vanished, for of what should he have been afraid? It is of a second that fear arises.
3. He found no joy; so, even today, one who is all alone finds no joy. He yearned for a second. He became as large as a man and a woman locked in close embrace. This self he split into two; hence arose husband and wife. Therefore, as Yajnavalkya used to observe: “Oneself is like half of a split pea.” That is why this void is filled by woman. He was united with her and thence were born human beings.
4. She thought: “How can he unite with me, as he has brought me forth out of himself? Well, I will hide myself.” She became a cow, but he became a bull and united with her. Hence cattle arose. She became a mare, he a stallion; she became a she-ass, he a male ass. He united with her and hence singlehoofed animals arose. She became a she-goat, he a he-goat; she became a sheep, he a ram. He united with her and hence goats and sheep arose. In this way he created everything that exists in pairs, down to the ants.
5. He realized: “I indeed am creation, for I produced all this”--for he had become the creation. And he who has this knowledge becomes [a creator] in that same creation.
17. In the beginning there was only the atman, One only. He desired: “May I have a wife in order to have offspring; may I have wealth in order to perform a work!” For desire reaches this far. Even if one wishes, one cannot obtain more than this. Therefore, even nowadays, if a man is alone, he desires: “May I have a wife in order to have offspring; may I have wealth in order to perform a work!” As long as he does not obtain each of these [desires], he thinks himself to be incomplete. His completeness, however, is this: the mind is his Self [atman]; speech is his wife; breath is his offspring; the eye is his human wealth, for he finds it with the eye; the ear is his divine wealth, for he hears it with the ear; the body [atman] is his work, for he works with the body. Fivefold, indeed, is the sacrifice, fivefold is the victim, fivefold is the man. Whatever there is, the whole universe, is fivefold. He attains all this, who knows thus.
AU I, 1, 1-4
iii) 1. In the beginning this was only one, the Self--no other thing that blinks whatever. He thought to himself: “Let me now create the worlds!”
2. He created the worlds of water, rays of light, death, and the waters:
Heaven and beyond is the world of water;
the sky above is the world of light;
this earth of us mortals is the worlt of death;
what lies below is the world of waters.
3. He thought [again] to himself: “Let me now create the protectors of the worlds.” He raised a man from the waters and conferred a form upon him.
4. He brooded over him. Once this was done a mouth broke open, similar to an egg. From the mouth the Word came out and from the Word fire.
TU II, 6-7
iv) 6. Nonexistent himself does he become
who thinks that Brahman is Nonbeing.
The one who knows that Brahman is,
he himself is recognized to be.
Next there come the supplementary questions:
Does anyone who does not know Brahman
proceed at death to the other world?
Or is it only the one who knows
who attains, at death, to the other world?
Brahman desired: “Would that I could become many! Let me procreate!” He practiced fervid concentration, he created the whole world, all that exists. Having created it, he penetrated within it. Having penetrated within it, he became both the actual and the beyond, both the manifest and the unmanifest, both the founded and the unfounded, both the conscious and the unconscious, both the real and the nonreal. The real became everything that exists here. That is what men call the real.
7. On this there is the following verse:
In the beginning all this was Nonbeing only.
Therefrom, indeed, was Being born.
That Being made itself by it self.
Hence this is designated the well-made.
That which is the well made, that is the essence. And [only] he who attains the essence becomes full of bliss. For who could otherwise live and breathe, if this space were not bliss? It is this [essence] which gives bliss. When man finds absence of fear and a firm ground in that which is invisible, selfless, inexpressible, nonstable, then he attains the state of fearlessness. But when he makes even a fine difference [between the atman and himself], then he has fear, and this is the fear of the one who thinks himself to be wise.
SU IV, 18
v) There where there is no darkness,
nor night, nor day,
nor Being, nor Nonbeing,
there is the Auspicious one alone,
absolute and eternal;
there is the glorious splendor
of that Light from whom in the beginning
sprang ancient wisdom.
MUND U I, 1, 6-7
vi) 6. That which cannot be seen or grasped,
is without family and caste, without eyes and ears,
without hands and feet, eternal, ornnipresent,
all-pervading, most subtle--that is the Immutable,
regarded by the sages as the source of being.
7. As a spider spins and withdraws its thread,
as plants grow on earth and hair on the head
and body of a living man, so also
out of the Imperishable springs forth this all.
i) Death is here cosmic and spiritual, it is hiranyagarbha; hunger is personal and material. These are two facets of the same entity i.e., Death. Prajapati is the eater of food, of all this universe; he eats whatever he has created. Death itself desires an atman. Death is the universal background which envelops everything.
Praise, worship (arka) has here a cosmic significance; also a pun is used in order to explain the birth of the waters and of the fire later on (the root arc-, to shine, to praise, and arka, water or fire).
4-6. Cf. § I 14.
ii) 1. Cf. § VI 8 and also MaitU II, 6.
A Man: purusa, person, the primordial Man, the theandric principle as in RV X, 90 (§ 15). We have here one of the most powerful accounts of the rise of human self-consciousness: the birth of reflection. The “I” is both the aham, unique and One-without-a-second, and also the still-to-be-liberated I which in spite of everything has no name other than “I.”
I am: aham asmi. This is one of the highest revelations of reality, which should not be hypostatized upon a “He.” That is to say, “I am I” is not interchangeable with “He is I” or with “I am He,” the first being only a mental projection and the second sheer blasphemy. Cf. KausU I, 6 (§ V 4) for the right place of the He: “What you are that am I” (yas twam asi so ‘ham asmi.). The Sanskrit pun is untranslatable: purva, before; and us-, to burn, give pur-us-a, the Man.
2. Real anxiety is only fear of fear and thus a dread of utter nothingess. Our own image is frightening when it reflects its hollowness (cf. CU VIII, 7, 1 sq. § VI 6). A process of “conscientization” can rid us of dread, for confidence in the power of the mind tells us that, if there is nothing to frighten us, we have no reason to be fearful.
3. Again a play upon words: the Self split (pat-) unto husband (pati) and wife (patni). The ardhanarishvara character of man is here symbolized. Man is androgynous as an anthropological reality. The desire for a second is only cathartic when it is a holistic movement toward integration, i.e., when it is not concupiscence but love.
5. To “become a creator” does not necessarily mean to be so substantially but to create along with him, i.e., to be, in the functional sense, creator, i.e., creating, because such a man really creates. No mystic would deny this experience, whatever wording one may use in order to describe it.
8-10. Cf. § VI 9.
16. Cf. § III 27.
17. Perform a work: mainly sacrifice, but secular work may also be understood.
Incomplete: akrtsna. Cf. SB X, 5, 3, 8.
His completeness. . . : i.e., man contains everything within himself, his mind (manas), speech (vac), breath (prana), eye (caksus), and ear (shrotra) being the five constituents of the human being. Cf. TU I, 7.
Fivefold . . . sacrifice: the pancamahayajna. Cf. § III 23.
iii) 1. The same verb is used throughout: srj- to create. The operative words are here again: idam, eka, agre, atman, loka.
2. A free translation is given in order to avoid explanations and awkward sentences where the meaning seems to offer no difficulty.
3. The central position of man (purusa) in creation is hereby stressed. Cf. CU III, 13, 6.
The atman gives a form to man; here the root murch-, to assume a shape or substance, is used. Murta is a form already solidified.
4. Cf. CU III, 19, 1.
iv) 3-5. Cf. § VI 7.
6. To know is to become the known. Knowledge implies assimilation and to know the nonexistent therefore, is self-annihilation. Every discourse on anything, even on the Ultimate, belongs to the objective order of the discourse itself. In a way it is not only the subject, but also the object, which sets the level of communication.
7. CU VI, 2, 1-2 (§ VI 2) contradicts the affirmation of Nonbeing as the origin of Being.
Well made: sukrta; just as in AU I, 2, 3, it is said of the purusa that he is a thing “well done,” “well produced,” “well created.”
Essence: rasa. Cf. brahmarasa in KausU I, 5 (§ V 4).
Bliss: ananda.
Atmosphere: akasha, the all-pervading space.
Absence of fear: abhaya, fearlessness, peace. Cf. AV VI, 40 (§ II 35) and AV XIX, 15 (§ II 36).
Firm ground: pratistha-, support, foundation.
Nonstable: anilaya, lit., homeless, without nilaya, resting-place, abode, dwelling.
Thinks himself to be wise: viduso manvanasya; there is a variant reading: vuduso manvanasya, i.e., wise without thinking.
8-9. Cf.§ VI 7.
v) Auspicious one: Siva.
Light: Savitri.
Cf. the tat savitur varenyam of the Gayatri mantra.
vi) 6. Immutable: avyaya, unchangeable.
Source of being: bhutayoni, the womb of existence.
7. For the image of the spider and its thread, cf. BU II, 1, 20 (§ VI 4), SU VI, 10 (§ VI 2), and, wth another meaning, MaitU VI, 22 (§ VI 12).
Out of the Imperishable: aksarat. Cf. MundU II, 1, 1 (§ VI 7).
8-9. Cf. § II 11.
8 The Vedas have described the One as neither Being nor Non being, and the Gita now closes this section by repeating the same idea, affirming that the One is neither immanent nor transcendent but both at the same time in a unique manner. The Ultimate is the source and origin of all and yet is itself not contained or limited by anything. He transcends all immanence and is immanent in all transcendence. He manifests himself in and through the cosmos; each creature reflects a portion of his glory.
The divine mystery, which is to be seen and contemplated, 25 opens up that unique and thus incomparable knowledge of the divine which is not obtained by abandoning creation but by piercing through it. Transcendence does not mean flight from the world, nor does immanence for the Gita mean being entangled in the world, in the net of samsara. Neither seeing God in creatures nor seeing creatures in God is enough if we are to reach that undivided insight and integrated existence which surpasses all understanding. He is not only the beginning and the end; he is also the in-between, the middle, the very process from one “end” to the other. A new human eye is insufficient. The own divine eye is needed. 26 The vision of this eye can no longer be described: the seeing and the seen are one, because the knowing and the known have become the “Light of lights, beyond the darkness,” which is nevertheless “abiding in the hearts of all.” 27
i) 4. By me, by my unmanifested form
all this world is pervaded.
All beings subsist in me, but I
do not reside in them.
5. Yet beings subsist not in me.
Consider my sacred mystery.
My Self is the source and support of all beings,
yet subsists not in them.
BG X, 2-3; 20; 39-41
ii) 2. The hosts of Gods do not know my origin,
nor the mighty seers,
for I am in every respect the beginning
of both Gods and seers.
3. He who knows me as unborn, beginningless,
the great Lord of the world,
he among mortals is undeluded
and freed from sins.
20. I am the Self seated in the heart
of every being.
I of all beings am also the beginning,
the middle, and the end.
39. Whatever, O man, is the seed of all things,
that too am I.
Without me no being, moving or inert,
is able to exist.
40. There exist no bounds to the diffusion of my glories.
What here I have disclosed
illustrates, O strong One, but slightly the extent
of my infinite glory.
41. Whatever is endowed with glory and grace
and is full of vigor,
that, you may know, is only a fragment
of my own splendor.
BG XIII, 15
iii) 15. Outside and within all beings is he;
he moves and he moves not;
because of his subtlety, incomprehensible;
far, but yet near.
i) 3. Cf. § I 38.
4. Cf. BG VII, 12.
Unmanifested form: avyakta-murti, hidden (unmanifest, immanent) form (shape, icon, image).
Subsist in me: matsthani, and dwell: avasthita, both contain the root stha- to stand.
5. Sacred mystery: yogam aishvaram; yoga, union, power, means of union, connection.
The word bhuta, thing, being, appears four times in this shloka: once as subject and the three other times forming part of a compound. The divine is bhutabhrt, the support of beings, bhutabhavana, the origin, source, bringer-forth of beings, but is not (na) bhutastha, subsisting in them. Cf. “The universal Lord hidden in all beings” (SU IV, 15).
ii) 2. Origin: prabhava.
Beginning adi, source.
3. Unborn: aja.
Beginningless: anadi, with no origin. Cf. BG XIII, 12.
20. The name Gudakesha, “the thick-haired,” referring to Arjuna, has been omitted here.
The beginning, the middle, and the end: adi, madhya, anta, not only temporally as birth, life, and death, but also ontologically as origin, sustainer, and goal of everything.
39. O man: Arjuna.
Seed: bija. Cf. its importance in the universal symbolism of any agricultural civilization and its use in traditional Indian philosophy.
40. Glory: vibhuti, the divine manifestation.
41. A fragment of my own splendor: tejo’ mshasambhava, a product or a part of splendor, a fragment of glory, a portion of refulgence.
iii) 15. Incomprehensible: avijneya, unknowable.
Some interpret “far” as “far from the ignorant” and “near” as “near for the wise,” but the sentence may also have an ontological meaning.