History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.24

v7.c95.24

It would be noticed that the sage, who was a poet and philosopher, proclaimed that there was that one Being, raised high above all gods, conditions and limitations; he, the sage, gives expression to what he conceived to be the state before the creation of the universe. Night and day, death and immortality are opposites These exist only when there is manifestness or creation and therefore he says 'there was no death, nor anything immortal' The hymn does not say that there was non-being out of which being grew. What he means is that That One alone breathed, the opposites, being and non-being, did not exist. For translations and remarks on this hymn, vide Max-Müller's 'History of ancient Sanskrit Literature' (1859) pp. 539-566, and 'Six systems of Indian Philosophy' (1919 ed.) pp. 49-52, Dr. Radhakrishnan's 'Indian Philosophy' (1923), vol I. pp. 100-104 Prof Whitney (Proceedings of American Oriental Society Vol. XI p. CXI.), in his characteristic supercilious manner referred to above on p 512, remarked that the praises bestowed on this hymn were nauseating. Deussen, long after Whitney's diatribe, said 'in its noble simplicity, in the loftiness of its philosophic vision, it is possibly the most admirable bit of the philosophy of olden times' and that 'no translation can ever do justice to the beauty of the original' (vide Bloomfield's 'The religion of the Veda,' p. 234, ed. of 1908). Vide Keith's 'Religion and philosophy of the Veda and Upanisads.' Vol. II. pp. 435-436. In many other passages of the Ṛgveda, different gods are referred to as creators God Prajāpati is said to have created heaven and earth, the wide, deep, well formed and to have pushed them by his power without support (IV. 56. 3). Indra is said to have created the Sun and Uṣas (Ṛg II. 12 7) and to have established heaven without any beam to support, supported and spread the earth (Ṛg. II. 15. 2).