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73 pages 2 hours read

Anonymous, Transl. Wendy Doniger

The Rig Veda: An Anthology

Nonfiction | Book | Adult

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Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “Creation”

The seven hymns in this chapter demonstrate the rich diversity of Vedic speculation about the origins of existence and the structure of the world. The earlier books of the Rig Veda allude to many ideas about cosmogony, but poems focusing solely on the creation of the cosmos only appear in the tenth book, a late addition to the text. A number of these hymns are riddles; others portray the origin of the cosmos as a sacrifice or the result of a sexual act between obscure primordial powers. Paradox and obscurity are hallmarks of these poems, as of the poetry of the Rig Veda in general.

 

In the “Creation Hymn” (10.129), the poet declares that before there was existence and nonexistence, a primal entity arose from the emptiness through the power of heat. Desire impelled it, creating consciousness, and a fertilizing power from above gave seed to an activating force below. The poet claims no one can know what really happened, however, since the creation predated the appearance of the gods. Even the supreme god overlooking the universe may be ignorant of its origin.

 

In another hymn (10.121), the lord of creation arises as a golden embryo, seed, or womb from an unknown matrix. He is the sole king who commands all the gods, orders the dimensions of the cosmos, forms and supports the earth and sky, creates the waters and is himself born from them. Each verse of the poem ends with the refrain “Who is the god whom we should worship with the oblation?” The concluding verse answers the question: The god is Prajapati, the Lord of Creatures, and the poet prays for his favor and the bestowal of riches.

 

In the third hymn, the “Purusa-Sukta” (10.90), the gods create the universe by dismembering a primordial cosmic giant. Purusa, the primeval Man, is the victim of a divine sacrifice that provides the materials of the world through the division of his body and establishes the form of Vedic ritual. Purusa has a thousand heads, eyes, and feet; and his body, extending beyond the limits of the earth, contains all mortal and immortal creatures. He fathers the feminine principle, which also gives birth to him. Purusa’s fat creates the animals; his eye and mind give birth to the sun and moon. The gods Indra and Agni emerge from his mouth, which also produces the verses, chants, and poetic meters used by the poet-priests. The four classes of human society similarly derive from Purusa’s dismemberment: His mouth becomes the priestly caste of Brahmins; his arms, the warrior class; his thighs, the common people; and his feet, the servants. In dismembering Purusa, the gods “sacrificed to the sacrifice,” establishing the ritual laws that become the model of Vedic religious practice (31).

 

In another hymn (10.130), the sacrifice of Purusa generates the poetic meters of Vedic religious poetry. The sacrifice of the primal man is imagined as a weaving in which the dimensions of the world are stretched out upon a loom that also fashions the melodies of praise-poetry. The gods’ original association with these meters establishes them as a model for human poets or sages (rishis) to follow when constructing their hymns of worship. These poets should be charioteers who pick up the reins of their divine forebears—the gods Agni, Soma, Indra, Mitra, Varuna, and others—in the sacred poetic art.

 

“Cosmic Heat” (10.190), a short hymn of three verses, presents a tightly condensed genealogy of cosmic elements. Heat gave birth to order and truth, as well as the primordial ocean and the night. From the ocean came calendrical time regulation that divides into days and nights and organizes all living things according to the seasons.

 

A pair of hymns to the “All-Maker” (10.81-2) identifies the creator as a sculptor, a smith, a carpenter, and father, as well as the primordial sacrificer and sacrificial victim. The poet imagines the creator with eyes, mouths, arms, and feet on all sides, fanning the sky and earth like a blacksmith working a bellows. The All-Maker, engorged with the offerings presented by his devotees, sacrifices himself, thereby engendering the world. In the second hymn, the poet visualizes the All-Maker forming worlds out of chaos as butter is churned from milk. The omniscient, omnipotent creator was the first embryo, lying upon “the navel of the Unborn” in the cosmic waters, “the One on whom all creatures rest” (36). After praising his power, the poet declares that the path to the primeval father is now obscured. Some unidentified god or thing blocks the seeker from the sole lord of creation, and the pleasures of life have corrupted the priests.

 

The final hymn in this section, “Aditi and the Birth of the Gods” (10.172), is an obscure compilation of paradoxical speculations on the mystery of origins. In the earliest age, existence was born from non-existence, and the lord of sacred speech fanned the worlds together, like a smith. The hymn abruptly shifts to an image of the feminine principle of creation, Aditi, which crouched with legs spread and gave birth to the earth. Aditi and Daksa, the female and male principles, each gave birth to the other, followed by the birth of the gods. A thick cloud of fertile mist arose from the gods; like magicians, they caused worlds to swell and drew the sun forth from the ocean. Aditi gave birth to eight sons; seven took their place with her among the gods, but the eighth was cast aside and became the first mortal.

Chapter 1 Analysis

The Rig Veda depicts the origin of the cosmos and the nature and identity of the creator in various ways. It embraces monistic and dualistic perspectives, and offers both anthropomorphic and impersonal views of the creative principle. The hymns in this chapter present creation as an autonomous process: the product of a primordial sexual union of cosmic elements or the result of a sacrifice. Aspects of these contrasting viewpoints sometimes coexist within the same hymn, resulting in the rich ambiguity characteristic of many Vedic poems.

 

The polytheism of ancient Hindu religion is compatible with monism, or the ascription of the totality of existence to a single metaphysical principle. In the first hymn, the unnamed Creator, hidden in the oceanic darkness, “breathed, windless, by its own impulse” (25), paradoxically implying that an impersonal, generating spirit existed before matter. Its desire, a self-generated heat, set into motion the fertilizing energy that inseminated what was below, giving birth to the cosmos. The gods, arising later in time, know nothing of this primordial act, but ancient poets attained this knowledge by looking into their hearts with wisdom. Inspired introspection may shed light on the metaphysical mystery of origins, the author suggests, but he quickly backtracks, stressing the uncertainty of any supposed knowledge about primordial matters. The hymn emphasizes the obscurity surrounding the origin of existence linguistically through its repeated use of negations and questions. The dominant tone of the poem is one of doubt and irresolution, which undercuts the doctrinal value of its account of creation.

 

The hymn of the “Golden Embryo” embraces the monistic perspective. Prajapati, the golden seed or child who fathers the earth, sky, and all living creatures, is “the one god among all the gods,” the lord and king of creation (28). Referred to by masculine pronouns, Prajapati is a more anthropomorphic god-image than the impersonal creator of hymn 10.129, even evoking an androgynous quality since the Sanskrit word translated as “embryo” can also mean “egg,” “womb,” “seed,” or “child.” He is born from the waters he creates, a causal paradox that occurs often in Vedic cosmological speculation. Vedic thought embraces the idea of primal masculine and feminine energies reciprocally giving birth to each other: Paired natural phenomena gendered as male and female, such as the ocean and sky, often follow this pattern of mutual generation. The compilers of the Rig Veda were comfortable with this plurality; the divine procreative force takes many names and forms that perform the same archetypal acts of creation.

 

The theme of creation as a cosmic sacrifice dominates the hymns concerning Purusa and the All-Maker. The gods’ dismemberment of Purusa, the cosmic giant, establishes and differentiates the material, human, and divine worlds. As in the previous hymn, male and female principles generate each other: Purusa fathers Viraj, the female creative force, who in turn gives birth to the primordial Man, Purusa, from whom the physical and social order of the cosmos derives. He contains the body politic as well as the material world: The corporeal hierarchy of his mouth, arms, thighs, and feet symbolizes the hierarchy of the four ancient Indian social classes. The sacrifice of Purusa also creates poetic meters and hymns of praise-poetry addressed to the gods, through which sacred knowledge is transmitted among humans. Purusa’s dismemberment also has profound religious significance. The cosmic sacrifice is the prototype for all future sacrifices—an authenticating model that establishes the ritual laws of the Vedic priesthood. By repeating the original sacrificial act, future sacrifice gain power to influence the divine realm.

 

Hymn 10.130 describes the cosmic sacrifice as the weaving of an enormous textile by the primordial giant, who stretches it across the worlds as on a loom. The cosmic sacrifice engenders the distinctive meters of praise poetry identified with individual gods—each poetic meter was once the personal province of a deity, used by the ancient sages or rishis in composing hymns to the gods. These poets were also seers who understood the cosmic beginning through introspection. Sacred poetry, which preserves and communicates this vision, is represented in the hymn as a chariot, a Vedic symbol that also signifies the sacrifice. Inheriting the reins of the charioteer from their divine patrons, their descendants who composed the hymns of the Rig Veda validate their claim to the divine vehicle of knowledge.

 

The hymns to the All-Maker also express monistic and anthropomorphic tendencies. Omniscient and omnipotent, he fathers the gods and dwells transcendently above his creation, following the laws he has established himself. The hymns suggest the competitive social context of Vedic poetry: The poet invokes the creator to attend and bless his sacrifice while denigrating rival poet-priests. Working for wealthy patrons, the authors of praise-poems conceived of their linguistic art as a competitive endeavor, spurring poetic innovation in verse forms and figurative technique as poets strove to outdo each other to please their patrons as well as the gods.

 

The evocative, obscure hymn on Aditi poses many challenges to interpretation. It combines the paradox of mutual creation (Aditi and Daksa, the male and female principles, engender each other), the philosophical enigma of nonexistence begetting existence, and anthropomorphic as well as impersonal images of creation. Further paradoxes abound in the description of Aditi’s eighth son, Martanda, who is both the sun and he who was “born of an egg.” Martanda is either stillborn or rejected by his mother and becomes the father of humankind, the first mortal. The hymn’s eclectic and seemingly incompatible imagery exemplifies a common characteristic of the Rig Veda: Its mythic narratives are rarely entire—instead, fragmentary details in individual poems suggest a larger mythical framework lying beneath the surface.

 

A network of complex symbols recurs throughout the Rig Veda. Images such as the chariot, the cow, the horse-race, milk, churning butter, flowing waters, the rising and setting of the sun, etc., lend themselves to a range of symbolic significations that, through the artistry of the poet, and in the context of a particular poem, generate multiple levels of meaning. Understanding a Vedic poem often depends on grasping the complex substitutions the poet employs. The chariot, for instance, can symbolize the poem, the hymn, and the sacrifice—all vehicles mediating man’s desires with the gods. The chariot is also associated with the sun, which in turn, is associated with Agni, the god of the sacrificial fire. The authors of the Rig Veda employ these multivalent associations as a kind of poetical grammar in constructing their hymns, substituting one image for another in a chain. More than mere poetic ornament, these identifications reveal the underlying conceptions of the world that shaped the “Vedic mind.”

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