Introduction	The Universe	Crowning	Origin	Sacrifice	Death	Crown
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THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

Indra and Varuna are frequently referred to as the creators of the universe, but from very early times an attempt was made to go beyond the concept of the world having been created after the model of a carpenter constructing a building. The origin of the visible and invisible universe was sought in some primary principle, rather than in the action of a deity. One of the most interesting examples of this is seen in the Atharva Veda in a hymn to Kala, or Time. Kala is an intellectual abstraction, not a god, and is more correctly thought of as the source of the universe, rather than as creator. Another abstract deity, Prajapati, "Lord of Offspring," seems to be a designation for the same principle. A hymn to Kala is given in the first selection below.

A very different kind of speculation concerning the origin of the universe is given in one of the most famous hymns of the Rig Veda, the Purusha Sukta, or Hymn of Man. Here the emphasis is on the creation of animate life and society, rather than the physical world. A Primal Man, whose origin is unexplained in the text, is sacrificed by the gods, and all of life, including the orders of society, comes into existence. This concept had an important place in the development of the sacrificial ritual, for, through analogical reasoning, each ritual performance was seen as a repetition of the primeval sacrifice. Each succeeding ritual act was understood to sustain the universe, just as did the first great sacrifice.

Another very fascinating speculation concerning creation is given in the great Creation Hymn of the Rig Veda. After a complex statement of the origin of the world, the poet concludes by saying that only the First Principle knows how the earth was created; and then suddenly adds, "or perhaps he knows it not." This phrase is often quoted as evidence of the skeptical mind of the ancient poet, but more probably it indicates the willingness within the Indian tradition to push inquiry to an extreme in the search for some ultimate principle that can be accepted as final and unchanging.

TIME AS CREATOR

Time carries [us] forward, a steed, with seven rays, a thousand eyes, undecaying, full of fecundity. On him intelligent sages mount; his wheels are all the worlds. This Time moves on seven wheels; he has seven naves; immortality is his axle. He is at present all these worlds. Time hastens onward, the first god. A full jar is contained in Time. We behold him existing in many forms. He is all these worlds in the future. They call him Time in the highest heaven. It is he who drew forth the worlds, and encompassed them. Being the father, he became their sone. There is no other power superior to him. Time generated the sky and these earths. Set in motion by Time, the past and the future subsist. Time created the earth; by Time the sun burns; through Time all beings [exist]; through Time the eye sees. Mind, breath, name, are embraced in Time. All these creatures rejoice when Time arrives. In Time rigorous abstraction, in Time the highest, in Time divine knowledge, is comprehended. Time is lord of all things, he who was the father of Prajapati. That [universe] has been set in motion by him, produced by him, and is supported on him.

(from Atharva Veda XIX:531-38)

SACRIFICE AS CREATOR

Thousand-headed Purusha, thousand-eyed, thousand-footed - he having pervaded the earth on all sides, still extends ten fingers beyond it.

Purusha alone is all this - whatever has been and whatever is going to be. Further, he is the lord of immortality and also of what grows for food.

Such is his greatness; greater, indeed, than this is Purusha. All creatures constitute but one quarter of him, his three quarters are the immortal in heaven.....Being born, he projected himself behind the earth as also before it.

When the gods performed the sacrifice with Purusha as the oblation, then the spring was its clarified butter, the summer the sacrificial fuel, and the autumn the oblation.

The sacrificial victim, namely Purusha, was born at the very beginning, they sprinkled with sacred water upon the sacrificial grass. With him as oblation the gods performed the sacrifice, and also the Sadhyas [a class of semidivine beings] and the rishis [ancient seers].

From that wholly offered sacrificial oblation were born the verses and the sacred chants; from it were born the meters; the sacrificial formula was born from it.

From it horses were born and also those animals who have double rows of teeth; cows were born from it, from it were born goats and sheep.

When they divided Purusha, in how many different portions did they arrange him? What became of his mouth, what of his two arms? What were his two thighs and his two feet called?

His mouth became the brahman; his two arms were made into the rajanya; his two thighs the vaishyas; from his two feet the shudra was born.

The moon was born from the mind, from the eye the sun was born; from the mouth Indra and Agni, from the breath the wind was born.

From the navel was the atmosphere created, from the head the heavens issued forth; from the two feet was born the earth and the quarters (the cardinal directions) from the ears. Thus did they fashion the worlds.

Seven were the enclosing sticks in the sacrifice, thrice seven were the fire-sticks made, when the gods, performing the sacrifice, bound down Purusha, the sacrificial victim.

With this sacrificial oblation did the gods offer the sacrifice. These were the first norms (dharma) of the sacrifice. These greatness reached to the sky wherein live the ancient Sadhyas and gods.

(from Rig Veda X:90)

THE ONE AS CREATOR

Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.

What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.

That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.

Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was undifferentiated chaos.

All that existed then was void and formless: by the great power of Warmth was born that One.

Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.

Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.

Transverly was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?

There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder.

Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?

The Gods are later than this world's creation. Who knows then whence it first came into being?

He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,

Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

(from Rig Veda X:129)