The History of Indian Literature c9.156.2

c9.156.2

and, as speculation advances, this primary matter continues to sink to a more and more subordinate position, till at length its very existence appears as dependent upon the will of this Being, and so the idea of a creation arises. The steps of this gradation may actually be followed with tolerable distinctness in the Vedic texts. In the more ancient portions the notion everywhere still is that the worlds were but ‘fixed,’ ‘arranged’ (*stabhita*, *skabhita* ∗), by the aid of the *metres* (it is thus that the harmony of the universe is explained); only at a later stage is the idea developed of their *sarjana*, ‘emission’ or creation. As time goes on, the creative Being is conceived as more and more transcendental and supernatural, so that as a means of communication between him and the real universe intermediate grades of beings, demiurges, are required, by classifying and systematising whom speculation strives to introduce order, but naturally only with the result of producing greater confusion. We have thus three distinct views as to the origin of the world—that of its ‘development,’ that of its ‘arrangement,’ and that of its ‘creation.’ The two former agree in so far as the theory of development requires an ‘arranger’ also; they are, however, sufficiently distinguished by the circumstance that in the former this Power is regarded as the first production of the capacity of development residing in primary matter;