OF THE VEDAS. 
79 
■will make us hesitate before we deny to the Aryan nations an 
instinctive monotheism ;" and Monier "Williams remarks, 
that " it furnishes a good argument for those who maintain 
that the purer faith of the EQndus is properly monotheistic " 
(Hist. Anc. Sans. Lit., p. 568. Indian Wisdom, p. 23). 
" The whole of this hymn is found repeated in the 
Yajasaneyi-Sanhita, and most of the verses recur in the 
Athai-va-Yeda " (Muir's Sans. Texts, Vol. IV, p. 15). The 
last verse is rejected by most critics as being the production 
of a later age. 
According to this hymn the creator, Hiranyagarbha, 
arose in the beginning from the great waters which pervaded 
the universe, the " undistinguishable water" of R.V., X. 
129, 3, or chaos, and so became " the one born lord of things 
existing." The idea is that the primeval waters generated a 
" golden embryo," and that from this " embryo " the creator 
was born, or took bodily form, in order to transform chaos 
into cosmos ; and hence is denominated, Hiranyagarbha, the 
" golden embryo," which also may be translated " the golden 
or the bright child." And hence it is said in the Atharva- 
qt ^I'^fR ^ ^THTr^^q f mi m^ w < w 
ITT ^ ^' ji^^] ^\ M ^^^^\ ^^\^ I 
q^TO^i m^^R f mi II ^ II 
'Tf^iJTM f ^rm ^qlori n \ « ii 
