72 
THE COSMOGONY 
Here we are carried back to a time long before the first 
verse in Grenesis when there was neither " nonentity (asad, 
TO ixrj 6v) nor entity " (sad, to 6v). From the inability of the 
human mind to conceive a state that was neither nothing 
nor something,* the Atharva-Veda identifies this remote 
nonentity " with Skambha, a personification of the divine 
power which supports the universe ; and the Chandogya 
Upanishad doubts that there ever was a period without 
entity (Muir, Vol. 4^ p. 10). The vedantists explain sad as 
the supreme being manifesting himself by creation ; and asad 
as mere forms or illusions by which he deceives the senses. 
What then does the poet mean by the phrase " There was 
then neither nonentity nor entity" ? Does he mean to say 
that there was neither absolutely ? So evidently thought the 
aTRI^^ rT^^I^^ q^: T% II ^ II 
5-^^^F^T'^'trtq^I^lTr4^fcF4^Rr'T^ II ^ II 
q^iT^rf^ i%?;f^^?fr'^ p^m'^i iT^rri ii y ii 
m^\^\ ^^m\^\i t%^^r^ i 
arq't^r 3T^q i^^^^^y ^ w\ 3tr^^ ik ii 
^] 3T^p;q^: q^qr ^'ipr^^ ^ t'^ t'f ii ^ ii 
* We are utterly unable to realize in thought the possibility of the 
complement of existence being either increased or diminished. We are 
unable, on the one hand, to conceive nothing becoming something, or, 
on the other, something becoming nothing."— Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on 
Metaphysics, Vol. II, p. 377. 
