English
Did the piercing ray of light come from below, or from above ? This is the question which the poet asks, but to which he returns no answer, for he proceeds at once to describe the presence of male and female powers, nor is it likely that what follows, " svadhd, avast &t, prayatih parast&t," is meant as an answer to the preceding inquiry. The figure which represents the creation as a ray entering the realm of darkness from the realm of light, occurs agai^ at a much later time in the system of Manichaeism^, but like all attempts at clothing transcendental ideas in the imagery of human thought, it fails to convey any tangible or in- telligible impression. This our poet also seems to have felt, for he exclaims " Who indeed knows ? Who proclaimed it here, whence, whence this creation was produced ? The gods were later than its production, therefore who knows whence it came ? " And now a ^ Lassen, Indische Alterthamskande, ill. p. 409. THB PHILOSOPHY OF CREATION. 563 new thought dawns in the mind of the Rishi, a thought for which we were not prepared, and which ap- parently contradicts the whole train of argu- ment or meditation that preceded. Whereas hitherto the problem of existence was conceived as a mere evolution of one substance, postulated by human reasoning, the poet now speaks of an Adhyaksha, an overseer, a contemplator, who resides in the highest heavens. He, he says, knows it. And why ? Because this creation came from him, whether he made it or not. The poet asserts the fact that this overseer is the source of creation, though he shrinks from deter- mining the exact process, whether he created from himself, or from nothing, or from matter existing by itself. Here the poet might have stopped ; but there are yet four more words of extreme perplexity which close the poem. They may be interpreted in two ways. They either mean " Or does he not know ? " and this would be a question of defiance ad- dressed to all who might doubt his former assertion ; or they mean " Or he knows not," and this would be a confession of doubt on the part of the poet, startling perhaps after the firm assertion of his belief in this one overseer and creator, yet not irreconcilable with that spirit of timidity displayed in the words, " whe- ther he made it himself or not," which shrinks from asserting anything on a point where human reason, left to herself, can only guess and hope, and, if it ven- ture on words, say in last resort, " Behold, we know not anything." I subjoin a metrical translation of this hymn, which I owe to the kindness of a friend : — o o 2 564 ANTiQunr of fuilosofht. "Nor aught nor naught existed ; yon bright akj Was noty nor heaven's broad woof oatstretehed above. What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? Was it the water's fathomless abjss? There was not death — hence was there naught immortal. There was no confine betwixt day and night; The only One breathed breathless in itself. Other than it there nothing since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound, — an ocean without light. — The germ that still lay covered in the husk Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. Then first came Love upon it, the new spring Of mind — yea, poets in their hearts discerned, Pondering, this bond between created things And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth. Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven ? Then seeds were sown, and mighty power arose — Nature below, and Power and Will above. Who knows the secret ? who proclaimed it here. Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang ? — The gods themselves came later into being. — Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? — He from whom all this great creation came. Whether his will created or was mute. The Most High seer that is in highest heaven. He knows it,— or perchance e'en He knows not Many of the thoughts expressed in this hymn will, to most readers, appear to proceed rather from a school of mystic philosophers than from a simple and primitive clan of shepherds and colonists. Medita< tions on the mysteries of creation are generally considered a luxury which no society can indulge in before ample provision has been made for the lower cravings of human nature; such is no doubt the case in modern times. Philosophers arise after the se- curity of a state has been established, after wealth has been acquired and accumulated in certain families, ANTIQUITY OF PHILOSOPHY, 565 after schools and universities have been founded, and a taste created for those literary pursuits which, even in the most advanced state of civilisation, must neces- sarily be confined to but a small portion of our ever- toiling community. Metaphysics, whether in the form of poetry or prose, are, and always have been, the privilege of a limited number of independent thinkers, and thoughts like those which we find in this ancient hymn, though clothed in a form of ar- gument more in accordance with the requirements of our age, would fail to excite any interest except among the few who have learnt to delight in the speculations of a Plato, a Tauler, or a Coleridge. But it would be false to transfer our ideas to the early periods of oriental life. First of all, the merely physical wants of a people living in the rich plains of India were satisfied without great exertions, Second<- ly, such was the simplicity of their life, that nothing existed which could absorb the energies of the most highly gifted among them. Neither war, nor politics, nor arts, opened a field for the exercise of genius, and for the satisfaction of a le^timate ambition. Nor should it be forgotten that, in the natural course of human life, there is after all nothing that appeals with greater force to our deepest interests than the problem of our existence, of our beginning and our end, of our dependence on a Higher Power, and of our yearnings for a better life. With us these key-notes of human thought are drowned in the din of our busy society. Artificial interests have supplanted the natural desires of the human heart* Nor less should we forget how in these later ages most of us have learnt from the history of the past that our reason, in spite of her unextinguishable aspirations, consumes this life in a i 566 ANTIQUITY OF PHILOSOPHY. prison the walls of which she cannot pierce, and where we only see light by lifting our eyes on high. All this was different in ancient times, and particularly among a people so remarkably gifted for philosophical abstraction as the Hindus. Long before they began to care for the laws of nature, the return of the seasons, the course of the stars, or any other scien- tific or practical subject, their thoughts were fixed on the one great and ever recurring question. What am I? What does all this world around me mean ? Is there a cause, is there a creator — a God ? or is it all illusion, chance, and fate ? Again and again the Rishis ex- press their doubts, and the one knowledge which they value as wonderful and excellent is the knowledge of TOL liiyitrra. It cannot be right to class every poem and every verse in which mystic or metaphysical specu- lations occur as modem, simply because they resemble the language of the Upanishads. These Upanishads did not spring into existence on a sudden: like a stream which has received many a mountain torrent, and is fed by many a rivulet, the literature of the Upanishads proves, better than anything else, that the elements of their philosophical poetry came from a more distant fountain. The evidence of lan- guage is the most decisive for settling the relative age of Vedic hymns; and the occurrence of such a word as taddninij then, is more calculated to rouse doubts as to the early date of this hymn than the most abstruse metaphysical ideas which may be discovered in it. Hymns like that ascribed to Dirghatamas (i. 164.) contain, no doubt, many verses full of the most artificial conceptions, the lucu- brations rather of conceited dreamers than of simple and original thinkers. But even in those large coUec- ANTIQUITY OF PHILOSOPHY. 567 tive poems there are lines which look likd relics of a better age, and bear the stamp of true and genuine feeling. Thus we read in the 37th verse : — ** I know not what this is that I am like ; turned inward I walk, chained in my mind. When the first-born of time comes near me, then I obtain the portion of this speech.