OF THE VEDAS. 
75 
So with the sun, moon and all tilings" (M.M.'s Hibbert 
Lectures, pp. 16, 17). 
The water and the darkness of this hymn correspond to 
the tholiu vabohu, "without form and void," of Grenesis and 
to the chaos of the Greeks. " This universe was undistin- 
guishable water enveloped in darkness." It was an "empty " 
" or shapeless mass " concealed by the " deep abyss " like 
grain in the " husk ;" but brought forth a beautiful world by 
" the power of austerity " or " contemplation" as Colebrooke 
translates it ; i.e., by the mighty will of " That One " who 
designed it. For, " there were productive energies, and 
mighty powers ;" svadlia, nature, beneath, and praycdi, 
energy, above. Yes, there was svadha or chaos beneath, 
and there was the mighty " energy " of the Spirit of God 
moving on the face of the waters above, bringing order 
from confusion, cosmos from chaos, and breathing forth light 
and life everywhere.' 
Max Miiller and Monier Williams see in svadha, beneath, 
and prayati, above, the first dim outline of the idea that 
the creator willed to produce the universe through the 
agency and co-operation of a female principle; an idea which 
afterwards acquired more shape in the supposed marriage of 
heaven and earth. It is more probable that this idea origi- 
nated in a 7nisunderstanding of this hymn, or of the tradition 
on which it is based. 
The poet closes his sublime narrative of the creation in an 
unexpectedly sad and disappointing tone. After the graphic 
description he has given of the origin of the universe, he 
finishes by intimating that he does not know after all " from 
' In the Taittirya Sanhita, VI. 4-8, we read : " This world had neither 
day nornight, but was (in that respect) undistinguished." The gods said 
to Mitra and Varuna, ' ' make a separation . . . Mitra produced the day and 
Varunathe night" (Muir's S.T.,Vol. 5, p. 59); and in the Aitareya Aryanaka 
we read : " Self -brooded over the water." From the water thus brooded on, 
matter (murti) was born. 
