The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c10.70

c10.70

The tenth book of the Rig-Veda contains the famous creation hymn (10.129). This remarkable production has always interested Sanskritists profoundly; it has also passed over into the general literature of religion and philosophy. That great and sober critic, the late Professor William D. Whitney, remarked anent it in 1882, that the unlimited praises which had been bestowed upon it, as philosophy and as poetry, were well-nigh nauseating.¹ And yet, twelve years later, in 1894, Deussen, who, I am sure, is not trying to contradict Whitney, breaks out into new praise, more ecstatic than ever: "In its noble simplicity, in the loftiness of its philosophic vision it is possibly the most admirable bit of philosophy of olden times." And again, "No translation can ever do justice to the beauty of the original."² I think we may grant that the composition shows a good deal of rawness, unevenness, and inconsistency. Yet it is perhaps easier to undervalue such a performance than to exaggerate its importance. It occurs in one of the earliest literatures of the world; it brushes aside all mythology, and it certainly exhibits philosophic depth and caution when it designates the fundamental cause of the universe not by a name, but as "that" (*tad*), or "the one thing" (*ekam*). But let my hearers judge for themselves: