The Song of Creation

There was Darkness: at first, concealed in darkness, all was indiscriminated chaos.
It was void and formless, emerging from heat.

Thereafter rose Desire, the primal seed and germ of spirit.
Sages who search deeply discover being's kinship in emptiness.

Their analysis extends sideways; what is above it then, and what below?
From divisions come copulation, mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder.

Who truly knows, who can declare, whence it was born and whence came this creation?
The gods are later than this world's production. Who witnessed as 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 knows, or perhaps he knows not.


Reference:
Rg-Veda (c. 1500 B.C.) 10.129., author's adaptation from a translation by Ralph J. H. Griffith in The Wisdom of China and India, Lin Yutang ed. (1942)

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All materials copyright by Robert Kovsky, 1997.