Indian Antiquary Vol 11

SR No.: 032503
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 396
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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262
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
beliefs, now one and now another of their gods is credited with the production of heaven and earth, of men and animals, and even of the other gods themselves. Here and there, however, are found signs of more advanced thought on these subjects, beginnings of the speculations which rise to great. er and greater importance in the Brahmanas, the Upanishads, and the philosophical systems. The most interesting of these, and the most noted, is a hymn in the tenth or supplementary book of the Rig-Veda, evidently to be reckoned among the most modern constituents of that great collection. It has been repeatedly translated, or more or less loosely paraphrased, and accompanied with lauda. tory comments, often of a greatly exaggerated character. Hence a simple version and brief exposition may seem not superfluous.
The point of view of the author of the hymn is given most plainly in the two concluding verses, which, in the metre of the original, run thus: 6. Who truly knoweth? Who can here proclaim it?
Whence hither born, whence cometh this creation ? Hitherward are the gods from its creating;
Who knoweth, then, from whence it came to being? 7. This creation-from whence it came to being,
Whether it made itself, or whether notWho is its overseer in highest heaven,
He surely knoweth: or if he does not know?
One or two points here are questionable. In 6c, we have the instrumental instead of the more regular ablative; hence Ludwig translates: "the gods have arrived hither by the sending of this one" (the pronoun, namely, may be masculine as well as neuter; it is not feminine, referring directly to visrishti, 'creation'). But the denial of prior existence to the gods, which is the main point, comes from either interpretation. Again, in 76, the subject and meaning of the verb dadhe are unclear; it must be either 'it set (or made) itself,' or he set (or made) it for himself;' i. e. the "overseer" of the next line. I have thought the former more acceptable; but whether the middle can have so pregnantly reflexive a sense admits of doubt.
[SEPTEMBER, 1882.
In the first verse and a half, then, he attempts to depict the chaos negatively, by telling what was not then in existence. And he commits the rhetorical fault of beginning with a denial so absolute that what follows in the way of detail can only dilute it and weaken its force. Thus: 1. "Not the non-existent existed, nor did the existent exist, at that time:" i. e. in that indefinable past which preceded the present order of things there was neither existence nor non-existence. Surely, then, there can be nothing more to say about it; yet he goes on: "not the room of air existed, nor the firmament that is beyond." Then follows in the second line a series of questions (not entirely clear, since kim may either mean what' or be mere interrogative particle): "what enveloped ? where? in whose protection? what was the ocean, the abyss profound ?" The next verse proceeds: 2. "Not death existed, nor what is immortal, then" -a very unnecessary amplification; since if there was, as already declared, neither existence nor even non-existence, there evidently could occur no cessation of existence, nor could there be anything that prolonged an existence without cessation. Finally, "there was no distinction of night from day;" and so the negative description ends with a mere denial of the existence of light-a conception that is further enlarged upon in the fourth
verse.
To the apprehension of the poet, as is seen, the gods themselves are only a part of the present order of things, and their existence to be accounted for along with the rest, while no competent knowledge of its origination is to be expected from them. He rejects the old faith and its simple solution of the problem; to be sure, he has not so cast it out of his mind as to deny the existence of a general manager of the universe, located in the old heaven, but even his power to satisfy our curiosity is questioned. The rest of the hymn is the poet's own solution, which, after all, he is not afraid to venture to put forth, drawn from the depths of his consciousness.
Now comes something positive; and it appears that there was in existence, after all, a certain indefinite It, or That, or This (for tad might mean any one of the three; probably "It" is our best rendering): "Breathed, without wind, by inner power, It only: than It, truly, nothing whatever else existed besides." Of course, if there is a tad, the attribute of existence cannot be denied it: and the poet by this time is content merely to assert that nothing except this existed (asa: the verb is the same with that used at the beginning of the first verse). He deludes himself with the belief that by first denying absolutely everything, and then denying all but an indefinable something, he has bridged over the abyss between non-existence and existence, and given a start to the development of the universe. And he anthropomorphizes his "It" by making it breathe, as if a living being; though he adds, by way of saving clause, that such breathing occasioned no perceptible motion of air.
The third verse is in good part a repetition of the second, in slightly different terms. It reads thus: 3. "Darkness existed, hidden by darkness, at the beginning; an undistinguished sea was this all; the void that was covered with emptiness -that alone was born by the might of fervor." The first half-verse presents a familiar and widelyspread conception; an unillumined ocean is one