A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s7.170

v1.c8.s7.170

Just as these creation-legends usually begin by relating that Prajāpati "torments and mortifies himself," so we often read also that, after the creation was accomplished, he was weak, exhausted and wearied, whereupon some sacrifice is described, through which his strength had to be restored. On one occasion it is the gods who offer this sacrifice, on another occasion Agni alone shows this favour to Prajāpati, and on yet another occasion he regains his strength, "after having sung hymns and tortured himself," by creating the sacrificial animals and sacrificing them.³ It is indeed remarkable that this world-creator Prajāpati, who really is the highest god in the Brāhmaṇas, has nothing lofty about him and often plays a rather pitiful part. Once he is actually even offered as a sacrifice himself by the gods!⁴ (In a legend which is referred to in several places, he is accused of incest, which he has committed with his daughter Dyaus (heaven) or Uṣas (dawn). In order to punish him for this sin, the gods, out of their most frightful forms, formed the god Rudra. The latter pierced Prajāpati with his arrow, whereat Orion and other constellations arose.¹ Very noteworthy, too, is the fact that in the Brāhmaṇas (and in the Veda generally) there is no *one* Indian creation legend, which, as for instance the biblical legend in Europe, has found more or less general recognition in India, but that we find a great number of creation-legends, containing the most diversified ideas and speculations, which cannot be made to harmonize with one other at all. Thus we find, for example, in the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa, soon after the above quoted legend, an entirely different account of the creation. Prajāpati, here too,² tortured and mortified himself, in order to produce beings. He brought forth creatures, first the birds, then the small creeping things, then the snakes. But no sooner had they been created than they all vanished again, and Prajāpati was once more alone. He thought diligently about the reason for this, and at last the idea came to him that the creatures perished for lack of food. So he created new beings, from whose breasts he let milk flow forth, and these remained alive. Again, in another place in the same work,³ Prajāpati creates the animals out of his vital organs, out of his mind he created man, out of his eye the horse, out of his breath the cow, out of his ear the sheep, out of his voice the goat. Because man is created out of Prajāpati's mind, and the mind is the first of the vital organs, therefore man is the first and strongest of all animals.⁴