The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c10.80

c10.80

The poet is careful in his thought of what positively was. It is "That One" (*tad ekam*); it exists and breathes, but it breathes in a higher sense, without breath (literally "wind") which is physical and material. It is difficult to imagine a more cautious, or even a more successful attempt to conceive and express a first cause or principle without personality. Yet we must not fail to observe that even so subtle a conception as the neuter "That One" is furnished with the anthropomorphic attribute of breath, because after all, in the long run, it must be decked out in some sort of flesh and blood. The third stanza takes up anew the description of chaos, and follows it up with a second description of the primal force: