all? What sheltered? What concealed?
Was it the water's fathomless abyss?
There was not death--yet was there naught immortal;
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself;
OTHER than It 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 powers 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 creation came,
Whether his will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it--or perchance even He knows it not."

--The Rig-Veda, book 10, hymn 129. Translated from Max Mullers'
"Chips from a German Workshop."

This is Pantheistic throughout, and although it presents no absurd
combinations of matter and spirit, yet it puts the material creation
before the creation of the spiritual, and scarcely allows consciousness to
"the One," "the It," from which, somehow, the creation proceeded. The Book
of Menu, which is of equal value with the Veda among the Hindoos, gives
the following account of the creation:

"Menu sat reclined, with his attention fixed on one object, the supreme
God, when the divine sages approached him, and, after mutual salutations
in due form, delivered the following address: Deign, sovereign ruler, to
apprise us of the sacred laws in their order, as they must be followed by
all the four classes, and by each of them, in their several degrees,
together with the duties of every mixed class; for thou, Lord, and thou
only among mortals, knowest the true sense, the first principle, and the
prescribed ceremonies of this universal, supernatural Veda, unlimited in
extent and unequalled in authority.

"He whose powers were measureless, being thus requested by the great
sages, whose thoughts were profound, saluted them all with revere