The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c38.29

v2.c38.29

This hymn is the finest effort of the imagination of the Vedic poet, and nothing else equals it. The conceptions of unity, of fervour as the cause of development, of the power in the shell, of the primeval chaos of waters, are all familiar in the Brāhmaṇas and on the whole degraded in their development. In the Rigveda itself the other efforts to attain the conception of the unity of the universe are directed in the main to setting up personal deities, who are credited with the creation and government of the whole of the universe. Of these the most famous and enduring is Prajāpati.³ He it is who later at least is the god who is first born, the golden germ, Hiraṇyagarbha, who creates the whole universe, who gives life, whose commands the gods obey, whose shadow is death and immortality, who is lord of man and beast, of the mountain and the sea. Thus in the one god are summed up the duties of creator, of ruler, and preserver of the universe.