Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c5.s1.14

c5.s1.14

³² Cf., e.g., *Manusmṛti*, i. 5ff. The world is stated here to have originally existed in the form that was unperceived, undifferentiated, incognitable and incognizable. It was brought into view by the self-born, unmanifest and inconceivable Supreme Being Hiraṇyagarbha who appeared by himself and, by mere willing, produced water out of his own body and threw in it the seed that became the golden egg. Hiraṇyagarbha himself was born in the egg as Brahman (also called Nārāyaṇa), the grandfather of the world. Brahman is the being produced by the unmanifest and eternal cause which partakes of the nature of the existent and the non-existent. The supreme Lord dwelt in the golden egg for a year and, by