The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.82

v1.c17.82

The late tenth book also gives us the beginnings of the philosophy of India. The multiplicity of gods is questioned and the unity of the universe is asserted, while attempts are made to represent the process of creation as the evolution of being from not being, first in the shape of the waters and then in the shape of heat. Other hymns more simply consider the process as that of a creation by Viçvakarman, 'the all-maker,' or Hiraṇyagarbha, 'the golden germ,' apparently an aspect of the sun. In yet another case the sacrificial theory is applied, and in the *Purushasūkta*, the earliest authority for caste divisions, the world is fashioned from the sacrifice of a primeval giant whose name Purusha, 'man,' reappears in later philosophy as the technical term for spirit. These speculations are of interest, not for their intrinsic merit, but for the persistence with which the same conceptions dominate the religious and philosophical systems of India.