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The Cosmogony of the Vedas. 
(By the Kev. MAURICE PHILLIPS, London Mission, Madras.) 
Section I. — Vedic Cosmogony not One 
Connected Narrative. 
The cosmogony of the Vedas is not one connected narrative 
like that of the Bible, but many narratives or hints given by 
different poets at different times extending over a period of 
many centuries. The Eishis in attempting to construct a 
cosmogony, or in reproducing the almost forgotten traditions 
of the creation handed down from the ancestral home, neces- 
sarily gave their own conceptions, more or less coloured, ac- 
cording to their individual idiosyncrasies and the exigency 
of poetic language, which, according to Hindu notion, con- 
sists not so much in truth as in rasa, flavour or sensation. 
It is too much therefore to expect harmony between the 
various narratives, or even always between all the statements 
of any one poet in the same narrative. All that we can do 
is to analyse the different accounts, and point out the fun- 
damental conceptions which underlie them, omitting what 
appears either too obscure for explanation or too puerile for 
remark. 
Section II. — The Creation, the Work of an 
Intelligent Being. 
All vedic cosmogonies recognise an omnipotent intelli- 
gent being as the author of the universe. That being is 
represented under names as various as the Hindu gods. For 
every god in the vedic pantheon was in his turn regarded as 
supreme, and, as such, the Author of the Universe. " All- 
seeing Visvakarman produced the earth and disclosed the 
sky by his might " (E.V., X. 81, 2). " He who produced 
heaven and earth must have been the most skilful artisan of 
