Indian Antiquary Vol 04

SR No.: 032496
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 410
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1875.
describes the creation of the world, thus (p. narrative, however, at this stage, is far from 1,5):
being clear. As has been already remarked, “This universe existed only in darkness, he makes Brahma assign (p. 4, 21) " to all imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable, un- creatures distinct names, distinct acts, and discovered, as it were wholly itumerged in distinct occupations, as they had been revealed sleep.
in the pre-existing Veda," without any previous "Then the self-existing power, himself un- mention of either the creatures themselves or discerned but making this world discernible, the Vedas; for it is in the succeeding verses with five elements and other principles appeared that he first says, “ Brahma, the supreme with undiminished glory, dispelling the gloom. ruler, created an assemblage of inferior deities
"He, whom the mind alone can perceive, with divine attributes and pure souls, and whose essence eludes the external organs, who prescribed the sacrifice from the beginning." has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, And "from fire and from the Sun he milked even He, the soul of all beings, whom no being out the three primordial Vedas, named Rig, can comprehend, shone forth in person.
Yojus, and Saman, for the due performance of "He, having willed to produce various be- the sacrifice." After this, again, he states that ings from his own divine substance, first with a Brahma "gave being to time and the divisions thought created the waters, and placed in them of time, to the stars also, and to the planets, to a productive seed.
rivers, oceans, and mountains, to level plains “That seed became an egg bright as gold, and to uneven valleys." Then follows the blazing like the luminary, with a thousand establishment by Brahma of certain other metabeams; and in that egg he was born himself, physical principles and moral qualities. And Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits. lastly (p. 5, 81), "that the human race might
"From that which is, the first cause, not the be multiplied, he caused the Brahman, the object of sense, existing, not existing, without Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the sudra to beginning or end, was produced the divine male, proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and famed in all worlds under the appellation of his foot," and this having been effected, he Brahma."
brought about the production from himself of In these perhaps somewhat laboured passages Manu, or, to use Manu's own words, of me Manu taught that God, the Author and Origin the framer of all this world." of all things, is to be conceived of as the great | Manu next goes on to say "It was I who, First Cause, a spiritual being, self-existent alone desirous of giving birth to & race of men, perfrom eternity to eternity, without form or parts, formed very difficult religious duties, and first incomprehensible and unknowable to man; and produced ten lords of created beings, eminent that in him the universe was involved as it in holiness, Marichi, Atri, &c. They, abunwere an idea, before it was caused by himself dant in glory, produced seven other Manus, to be a discernible reality.
together with deities," great sages, genii, giants, According to the foregoing account the Cre- savages, demons, serpents, snakes, birds of prey, ator commenced the work of evolving or separate companies of Pitris or progenitors manifesting the world by willing the production of mankind, meteorological phenomena of all of the waters from his own divine immaterial kinds, comets and luminaries, apes, fish, birds, substance; upon them he developed himself, cattle, deer, men, ravenous beasts, insects. from the same substance, into the male form "Thus," Manu proceeds," was this whole Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits, assemblage of stationary and moveable bodies cognizable by man and famed in all worlds. framed by those high-minded beings, through
Brahma, after pausing a year on the waters, the force of their own devotion, and at my proceeded with the work of creation in a course command, with separate actions allotted to each. which seems at first limited to the production Whatever act is ordained for each of those of certain abstract principles, or perhaps germs, creatures here below, I will now declare to you, of a metaphysical and moral kind. Manu's together with their order in respect to birth."
• For which reason he is sometimes termed Nalyana, .e. according to Kallika's gloss "the spirit of God moving on the water."