2.1: Vedic Creation Hymn

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Reading One: Vedic Creation Hymn (Rig Veda Book 10, Hymn 129)

This short passage is actually one of several creation hymns in the Vedas. There are several different stories and explanations of creation in the Hindu tradition, which underlies the main theme of this creation story – that no one knows exactly what happened at the creation of the world.

This hymn discusses skepticism at knowing exactly what existed at the beginning of existence, as it states that there was neither “existence nor non-existence” – most likely because those are human concepts and therefore meaningless beyond our realm.

The text refers to “that one” which is a reference to Brahman, the ultimate reality or Spirit of Hinduism. The term “God” is usually not used in reference to Brahman – words like “one”, “spirit”, or “unity” are often used instead.

The text also describes the beginning of existence as coming from “desire”, and “poets” who sought “wisdom” and therefore created a “bond”. This connects to one of the essential teachings of Hinduism, which is that the goal of all our lifetimes is to overcome desire for this world. Desire is what keeps us trapped in the cycle of reincarnation. When we give up the “desire” that creates a “bond” to this world, which in Hinduism is a form of ‘original sin’, then we can be released back to Brahman and eternal, perfect existence.

The last section of the hymn focuses on the unknowability of the specifics of the creation of the universe. The hymn mentions that not even the gods know, because they came “afterwards” – in Hinduism the gods are part of this creation, and also have to find their way back to Brahman. The hymn ends with the mysterious claim that maybe not even God himself, the “one who looks down on it” knows exactly how this universe came to be.

This hymn gives us an important insight into Hinduism, which does not emphasize believing in certain doctrines in order to return to God after death. It instead emphasizes that there are multiple paths, multiple understandings of the truth.

Vedic Creation Story

Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminate chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

Access the reading here:

https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10129.htm