OF THE VEDAS. 
83 
formerly his receptacle, he is therefore called Narayana. 
(11) Being formed by that first cause, undiscemible, eternal, 
which is both existent and non-existent, that male {punisha) 
is known in the world as Brahma. (12) That lord having 
continued a year in the egg, divided it into two parts by his 
mere thought. (13) With these two shells he formed the 
heavens and the earth ; and in the middle he placed the 
sky, the eight regions, and the eternal abode of the waters " 
(Manu). 
KuUuka, an old commentator, thus annotates on verse 9. 
" That (seed) became a golden egg, " &c. That seed by the 
will of the deity became a golden egg. Golden, i.e., as it were 
golden, from the quality of purity attaching to it, and not 
really golden, for since the author proceeds to describe the 
formation of the earth from one of the halves of its shell, 
and we know by ocular proof that the earth is not golden, we 
see that a mere figure of speech is here employed ... In 
that egg Hiranyagarbha was produced, i.e., entering into the 
soul — which was invested in a subtle body — of that person 
by whom in a former birth the deity was worshipped, with 
a contemplation on distinctness and identity expressed in the 
words " I am Hiranyagarbha, the supreme spirit himself 
became manifested in the form of Hiranyagarbha." 
There is a legend in the Satapatha Brahmana to the same 
effect, in which the gods are said to have made Prajapati, 
that he generated the waters ; and desiring to be reproduced 
from them, entered the waters, when an egg arose. " He 
pondered on it. He said ' Let there be, let there be ! ' 
again, ' Let there be ! ' and all things appeared." 
In the 9th hymn of the 10th book of the R.V., the 
gods are represented as having fashioned the imiverse from 
the dismembered limbs of Purusha, the primeval male whom 
they sacrificed. " The moon was produced from his mind 
(manas), the sun (Surya) from his eye, Indra and Agni 
from his mouth, and Yayu from his breath. From his navel 
