A Reader's Edition
Two Hymns of the Rig Veda
The Hymn of Creation and the Hymn of Man · Anonymous (Vedic tradition)
What this document is. Two hymns of the Rig
Veda — the Nasadiya Sukta ("Hymn of Creation," RV 10.129) and the
Purusha Sukta ("Hymn of Man," RV 10.90) — in Ralph T.H.
Griffith's 1896 translation, long out of copyright. A
deliberately bounded selection out of roughly a thousand hymns: these
two are among the most-cited in the whole collection, and speak most
directly to this library's own recurring motifs. The text is
reproduced verbatim from the The Hymns of the Rig Veda (1896), via sacred-texts.com; a fidelity check
(
fidelity_rigveda.py) diffs this edition against that
source on every build. One probable transcription slip is kept as
printed rather than corrected: Hymn XC's fourth verse reads "what
cats not and what cats," almost certainly a scanning error for
"eats," but uncorrected on the source itself and not verified against
an independent edition, so it stands as found. Nothing here is
endorsed; as with every work in the Records, it is set down so it
can be read on its own terms.
How to read this. Two independent hymns, each a
self-contained question about origins — one asking what came before
being and non-being, the other describing the world's making as a
primordial being's own sacrifice. Read either on its own. Use the
sidebar to jump to a hymn, the search box to find a phrase, and the
motif chips to spotlight a theme. Terms with a dotted underline
have a hover definition.
Part I
Two Hymns of the Rig Veda
RV 10.129, RV 10.90
The Nasadiya Sukta asks what preceded being and non-being alike, when only "That One Thing" breathed by its own nature; the Purusha Sukta answers a different question -- how the world and its social orders came to be -- by describing the cosmos and the four varnas as the dismembered body of a single primordial being, offered in sacrifice by the gods.
1HYMN CXXIX. Creation.
1
THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
2
Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
3
Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
4
Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
5
Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
6
Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
7
He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.
2HYMN XC. Puruṣa.
1
A THOUSAND heads hath Puruṣa, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet.On every side pervading earth he fills a space ten fingers wide.
2
This Puruṣa is all that yet hath been and all that is to be;The Lord of Immortality which waxes greater still by food.
3
So mighty is his greatness; yea, greater than this is Puruṣa.All creatures are one-fourth of him, three-fourths eternal life in heaven.
4
With three-fourths Puruṣa went up: one-fourth of him again was here.Thence he strode out to every side over what cats not and what cats.
5
From him Virāj was born; again Puruṣa from Virāj was born.As soon as he was born he spread eastward and westward o’er the earth.
6
When Gods prepared the sacrifice with Puruṣa as their offering,Its oil was spring, the holy gift was autumn; summer was the wood.
7
They balmed as victim on the grass Puruṣa born in earliest time.With him the Deities and all Sādhyas and Ṛṣis sacrificed.
8
From that great general sacrifice the dripping fat was gathered up.He formed the creatures of-the air, and animals both wild and tame.
9
From that great general sacrifice Ṛcas and Sāma-hymns were born:Therefrom were spells and charms produced; the Yajus had its birth from it.
10
From it were horses born, from it all cattle with two rows of teeth:From it were generated kine, from it the goats and sheep were born.
11
When they divided Puruṣa how many portions did they make?What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet?
12
The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rājanya made.His thighs became the Vaiśya, from his feet the Śūdra was produced.
13
The Moon was gendered from his mind, and from his eye the Sun had birth;Indra and Agni from his mouth were born, and Vāyu from his breath.
14
Forth from his navel came mid-air the sky was fashioned from his headEarth from his feet, and from his car the regions. Thus they formed the worlds.
15
Seven fencing-sticks had he, thrice seven layers of fuel were prepared,When the Gods, offering sacrifice, bound, as their victim, Puruṣa.
16
Gods, sacrificing, sacrificed the victim these were the earliest holy ordinances.The Mighty Ones attained the height of heaven, there where the Sādhyas, Gods of old, are dwelling.
Glossary
Terms of the text, and of Legge's 1891 English. Each entry links to a chapter where the term is used.
- Puruṣa
- The primordial being of Hymn XC, a thousand-headed figure the gods dismember in sacrifice to build the cosmos and the four social orders from his body. ch-2
- Virāj
- Born from Puruṣa, and Puruṣa born again from Virāj — a single reciprocal birth this hymn states without resolving which came first. ch-2
- Nasadiya Sukta
- The traditional name for Hymn CXXIX ("not the non-existent"), from its opening words — the Rig Veda's most-cited hymn on what preceded being and non-being alike. ch-1