The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c10.113

c10.113

More transcendental are the exploitations in the direction of monotheism of such conceptions as Kāla, “Time,” “Father Time”; of Kāma, “Love,” “Eros”; of Prāṇa “Breath of Life”; and others even more faint and tentative. The conception of Eros we have met above as the first movement in The One after it had come into life; its deification is never very pronounced. Prāṇa, or “Breath of Life,” is an almost universal cosmic principle; it will occupy our attention in connection with the final shaping of Hindu theosophy. The most transcendental of these personifications is that of “Time”—namely: Prajāpati, “the lord of creatures,” at first an abstraction, is readily associated with the generative power of nature. Now this generative power is revealed particularly in the cycle of the year. By easy association Prajāpati is next boldly identified with year: “Prajāpati reflected, ‘This verily, I have created as my counterpart, namely, the year.’ Therefore they say, ‘Prajāpati is the year,’ for as counterpart of himself he did create the year.” Thus the prose Brāhmaṇa texts naively, yet closely, reason. And out of some such reasoning “Time” itself emerges as a monotheistic conception, in whose praise the Atharva-Veda sings two hymns¹: