Outlines of Indian Philosophy

Author(s): Paul Deussen
Publisher: Crest Publishing House

Page 21

OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
There was no vault of heaven, no realm of air, Where was the ocean, where the deep abyss?
What mantled all? Where was it, in whose care?
2. Death was not known nor yet immortal life;
Night was not born and day was not yet seen. Airless he breathed in primevality
The One beyond whom nought hath ever been.
3. Darkness prevailed at first, a chaos dread;
'Twas this great world, clad in its cloak of night. And then was brought to being the germ of all,
The One pent in this husk, by Tapas' might.
4. And first of all from him proceeded love,
Kâma, the primal seed and germ of thought. In Non-existence was by sages found
Existence' root, when in the heart they sought.
5. When through the realm of Being their are they spanned,
What was beneath it, what was in their ken? Germ-carriers beneath! Strivings above!
The seeds of things were hid, the things were seen.
6. Whence sprang the universe? Who gave it form?
What eye hath seen its birth? Its source who knows? Before the world was made the gods were not;