The Geography of the Puranas c13.s4.9

c13.s4.9

A similar account of the first aggregation of the elements in the form of an egg is given in all the Purāṇas with the usual epithet Haima or Hiraṇya (golden). The symbolic representation of the nucleus from which the Universe was created and which undoubtedly has its origin in the Vedas was adopted by many nations. Traces of it occur amongst the Syrians, the Persians, the Egyptians and the Greeks. The idea of the Orphic Egg amongst the Greeks and that described by Aristophanes as well as the consecration of an egg as a part of the ceremony in the Dionysiaca and other mystics show how far the concept of a nucleus from which the Universe grew was embedded in the philosophy of ancient nations. If we interpret the epithet Haima or Hiraṇya (golden) as ‘bright and reddish yellow’ and the word ‘water’ as ‘water-vapour’, i.e., in its gaseous state we can see in the description of the Golden Egg the origin of the idea of a ‘hot, incandescent nebula’ which is the starting point of modern cosmological theories.