Great Indian Religion

Author(s): G T Bettany
Publisher: Ward Lock Bowden and Co

Page 18

THE EARLY VEDIC RELIGION.
Father, and that mighty inherent power of the Mother. The prolific Parents have made all creatures, and through their favours (have conferred) wide immortality on their offspring." So closely did the old Hindus approach the Greeks and Romans in their conceptions of Mother Earth and Father Heaven. In various passages, however, they are themselves spoken of as created, especially by Indra, who formed them out of his own body, and to The origin whom they do homage. How then was the of things. origin of things imagined? The following extract is from Sir Monier Williams's metrical rendering of one of the most remarkable Vedic hymns.
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"In the beginning there was neither nought nor aught, Then there was neither sky nor atmosphere above. What then enshrouded all this teeming universe? In the receptacle of what was it contained? Was it enveloped in the gulf profound of water? Then there was neither death nor immortality,
Then there was neither day nor night, nor light nor darkness, Only the Existent One breathed calmly, self-contained. Then first came darkness hid in darkness, gloom in gloom. Next all was water, all a chaos indiscrete In which the One lay void, shrouded in nothingness."
But Dr. Muir's literal translation gives a better notion of the original: "There was then neither nonentity nor entity; there was no atmosphere nor sky above. What enveloped (all)? Where, in the receptacle of what (was it contained)? Was it water, the profound abyss? Death was not then, nor immortality; there was no distinction of day or night. That One breathed calmly, self-supported; there was nothing different from, or above it. In the beginning darkness existed, enveloped in Darkness. All this was undistinguishable water. That One which lay void, and wrapped in nothingness, was developed by the power of fervour. Who knows, who here can declare, whence has sprung, whence, this creation? The gods are subsequent to the development of this (universe); who then knows whence it arose? From what this creation arose, and whether (any one) made it or not,-he who in the highest heaven is its ruler, he verily knows, or