Rigveda

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

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

The Rigveda or Rig Veda is a collection of over 1000 Vedic Sanskrit hymns to the Hindu gods, probably written between 1700 BC and 1100 BC.

Quotes

• I laud Agni the priest, the divine minister of sacrifice, who invokes the gods, and is most rich in gems.
  May Agni, the invoker, the sage, the true, the most renowned, a god, come hither with the gods!
  • Start of Hymn 1, as quoted in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Vol. 23 (1864), p. 267
  • Variant translations:
  • Agni I laud, the high priest, god, minister of sacrifice, The invoker, lavishest of wealth.
    • Hymn 1, verse 1

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.

• When they divided the Man, into how many parts did they apportion him? What do they call his mouth, his two arms and thighs and feet? His mouth became the Brahmin; his arms were made into the Warrior, his thighs the People, and from his feet the Servants were born. The moon was born from his mind; from his eye the sun was born. Indra and Agni came from his mouth, and from his vital breath the Wind was born. From his navel the middle realm of space arose; from his head the sky evolved. From his two feet came the earth, and the quarters of the sky from his ear. Thus they set the worlds in order.
  • Mandala 10, hymn 90, verses 11-14, as translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, in The Rig Veda : An Anthology (1981)

Creation Hymn

• 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 indiscriminated chaos.
  All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
  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.
  Transversely 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 production. 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.
  • Hymn 129 : Creation, as translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith, (1896)

• There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water, bottomlessly deep? There was neither death nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day. That one breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Other than that there was nothing beyond.
  • Mandala 10, hymn 129, verses 1-2, as translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, in The Rig Veda : An Anthology (1981)

• Whence this creation has arisen – perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not – the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows – or perhaps he does not know.
  • Mandala 10, hymn 129, verse 7, as translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, in The Rig Veda : An Anthology (1981)