Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s5.30

v1.c8.s5.30

The creation of the world is sometimes traced to an original material as it were; in the Puruṣa Sūkta⁴ we find that the gods are the agents of creation, while the material out of which the world is made is the body of the great Puruṣa. The act of creation is treated as a sacrifice in which Puruṣa is the victim. “Puruṣa is all this world, what has been and shall be.”⁵ Anthropomorphism when once it is afoot cannot be kept within bounds, and the imagination of the Indian brings out the greatness of his God by giving him huge dimensions. The poetic mind conjures up a vast composition pointing out the oneness of the whole, world and God. This hymn is not, however, inconsistent with the theory of creation from the One Absolute described above. The whole world even according to it is due to the self-diremption of the Absolute into subject and object, Puruṣa and Prakṛti. Only the idea is rather crudely allegorised. The supreme reality becomes the active Puruṣa, for it is said: “From the Puruṣa Virāt was born, and from Virāt again Puruṣa.” Puruṣa is thus the begetter as well as the begotten. He is the Absolute as well as the self-conscious I.