ditions of the Aryans of
India supply us with myths so closely resembling the myths of Nootkas,
Maoris and Australians that we may provisionally explain them as
stories originally due to the invention of savages? This question may
be answered in the affirmative. The Vedas, the Epics and the Puranas
contain a large store of various cosmogonic traditions as inconsistent
as the parallel myths of savages. We have an Aryan Ilmarinen, Tvashtri,
who, like the Finnish smith, forged "the iron vault of hollow heaven"
and the ball of earth.(1) Again, the earth is said to have sprung, as
in some Mangaian fables, "from a being called Uttanapad".(2) Again,
Brahmanaspati, "blew the gods forth like a blacksmith," and the gods had
a hand in the making of things. In contrast with these childish pieces
of anthropomorphism, we have the famous and sublime speculations of an
often-quoted hymn.(3) It is thus that the poet dreams of the days before
being and non-being began:--

(1) Muir, v. 354.

(2) Rig-Veda, x. 72, 4.

(3) Ibid., x. 126.

"There was then neither non-entity nor entity; there was no atmosphere
nor sky above. What enveloped (all)?... Was it water, the profound
abyss? Death was not then, nor immortality: there was no distinction of
day or night. That One breathed calmly, self-supported; then was nothing
different from it, or above it. In the beginning darkness existed,
enveloped in darkness. All this was undistinguishable water. That One
which lay void and wrapped in nothingness was developed by the power
of fervour. Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind
(and which) sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered to be
the bond which connects entity with non-entity. The ray (or cord) which
stretched across these (worlds), was it below or was it above? There
were there impregnating powers and mighty forces, a self-supporting
principle beneath and energy aloft. Who knows? who here can declare
whence has sprung, whence this creation? The gods are subsequent to the
development of this (universe); who then knows whence it arose? From
what this creation arose, and whether (any one) made it or not, he who
in the highest heaven is its ruler, he verily knows, or (even) he does
not know."(1)

(1) Muir, Sanskrit Texts, 2nd edit., v. 357.

Here there is a Vedic hymn of the origin of things, from a book, it is
true, supposed to be late, which is almost, if not absolutely, free from
mythological id