Question on the Hymn of Creation

[Guest guest]

Fellow Devotees:

Hare Krishna! Om Namo Naraayanaaya!

 

I have been wondering about this for quite some time, but all my

searches online and in book form resulted in texts that were

speculative, blasphemous, incomplete, evasive, or simply ambiguous

and vague.

 

In Book 10 of the Rg Veda, Hymn CXXIX declares [last 4 verses]:

 

ko addhA veda ka iha pra vocat kuta AjAtA kuta iyaMvisRSTiH

arvAg devA asya visarjanenAthA ko veda yataAbabhUva

iyaM visRSTiryata AbabhUva yadi vA dadhe yadi vA na

yo asyAdhyakSaH parame vyoman so aN^ga veda yadi vA naveda

 

translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith as:

 

LINK: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10129.htm

 

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.

 

The Hymn of Creation is also known as the Nasadiya Suktam.

 

My question has been - Why would the learned ones [incl. Paila, who

compiled the Rg Veda under the supervision of Vyasa] 'doubt' the

Supreme? Why "veda yadi Va naveda"? How could the Supreme not be

aware of the creation right from His anAdi-form, to that of Viraat

Purushaa [Purusha Suktam], to the various forms of Vishnu

[GarbhoDakshayee and KshiroDakshayee]?

 

Does the last line refer indirectly to the Yoga-Nidra aspect of Mahaa

Vishnu?

The following verse from the Vishnu Sahasranaamam indicates something

to the effect:

Gurur gurutamo dhama

satyah satya-akramah

nimiso animisah sragvi

vacaspatir-udara-dhih

 

nimiso - who eyelids are closed in Yoga Nidra

animisah - one who's ever awake

 

Thanks for indulging me.

Adiyen,

Seshadri Veeraraghavan

[Guest guest]

Greetings Seshadri! Welcome to the group.

 

In response to your query, let me first point out that any answer I

offer is necessarily speculative, as I am not a Rig Veda scholar.

With that in mind, let me point out a few things:

 

achintya, "S" <sveerara22@h...> wrote:

> 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.

 

The point of this last mantra, I think, is to emphasize the Lord's

majesty. Creation is such a monumental undertaking, and yet it goes

on effortlessly by the Lord. In fact, it is so effortless on the part

of the Lord that He need not even be directly aware of it!

 

Bhaagavatam 1.1.1 (http://vedabase.net/sb/1/1/1/en) says something

similar:

 

oM namo bhagavate vAsudevAya

janmAdyasya yato'nvayAd itaratash chArtheShvabhij~naH svarAT |

 

O my Lord, Shrii Krishna, son of Vasudeva, O all-pervading

Personality of Godhead, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You. I

meditate upon Lord Shrii Krishna because He is the Absolute Truth and

the primeval cause of all causes of the creation, sustenance and

destruction of the manifested universes. He is directly and

indirectly conscious of all manifestations, and He is independent

because there is no other cause beyond Him. (bhAgavata purANa 1.1.1)

 

It's the "directly and indirectly conscious" part that I wanted to

call your attention to (anvayAd itaratash chArtheShvabhij~naH). In

his purport, Srila Prabhupada writes, "The chief engineer of a

complicated construction does not personally take part in the

construction, but he knows every nook and corner because everything

is done under his direction." Like that, the Lord is aware of

everything at one level, but as He can delegate the management of the

creation to specific devatas, He need not be directly aware/involved.

 

A similar principle in a slightly different context is found in the

10th Canto in the prayers of the personified Vedas

(http://vedabase.net/sb/10/87/41/en).

 

dyupataya eva te na yayur antam anantatayA

tvam api yadantarANDanichayA nanu sAvaraNAH ||

kha iva rajAMsi vAnti vayasA saha yach chhrutayas

tvayi hi phalanty atannirasanena bhavannidhanAH || bhA 10.87.41 ||

 

Because You are unlimited, neither the lords of heaven nor even You

Yourself can ever reach the end of Your glories. The countless

universes, each enveloped in its shell, are compelled by the wheel of

time to wander within You, like particles of dust blowing about in

the sky. The shrutis, following their method of eliminating

everything separate from the Supreme, become successful by revealing

You as their final conclusion. (bhAgavata purANa 10.87.41)

 

Again, the sentiment here seems to be, "You are so glorious that even

You do not know the end of Your glories." It is again a statement of

the Lord's majesty, even though it seems self-contradictory.

Paraphrasing this, Srila Prabhupada writes in the Krishna Book:

 

"No one, including the mental speculators and the demigods in higher

planetary systems, is actually able to estimate the length and

breadth of Your form and characteristics. We think that even Your

Lordship does not have complete knowledge of Your transcendental

qualities. The reason is that You are unlimited. Although it is not

befitting in Your case to say that You do not know Yourself, it is

nevertheless practical to understand that because You have unlimited

qualities and energies and because Your knowledge is also unlimited,

there is unlimited competition between Your knowledge and Your

expansion of energies"

 

And commenting on this, he writes:

 

"The idea is that because God and His knowledge are both unlimited,

as soon as God is cognizant of some of His energies, He perceives

that He has still more energies. In this way, both His energies and

His knowledge increase. Because both of them are unlimited, there is

no end to the energies and no end to the knowledge with which to

understand the energies. God is undoubtedly omniscient, but the

personified Vedas say that even God Himself does not know the full

extent of His energies. This does not mean that God is not

omniscient. When an actual fact is unknown to a certain person, this

is called ignorance or lack of knowledge. This is not applicable to

God, however, because He knows Himself perfectly, but still His

energies and activities increase. Therefore He also increases His

knowledge to understand them. Both are increasing unlimitedly, and

there is no end to it. In that sense it can be said that even God

Himself does not know the limit of His energies and qualities."

 

My impression then, is that the Rig Veda is to be understood as per

SB 1.1.1: the Lord is omnipotent and omniscient, and He so effortless

creates the Universe even though He is not actively "creating" or

even troubled enough to be directly "aware" of His creation. That

this seems self-contradictory is obvious, but the same, seemingly

contradictory description of the Lord is attributed to Him by the

personified Vedas, who assert that His unlimitedly expanding energies

and knowledge of His energies constantly compete, making Him at times

even unaware of His ever expanding glories!

 

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to glorify our Lord.

 

- K

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna!

 

<Intro>

I read the FAQs, and realized I needed to introduce myself to the

Group. I'm Seshadri Veeraraghavan - 29 yo, Sr Software Engineer at

BMC Software in Houston, Texas. Been in the US since '97. From a

deeply religious Vadakalai Iyengar family, but did not have the

inspiration/inclination to be as religious as Appa - although during

exams I could have bettered my father! Even now he says he can't

believe how sincere I've become in everything related to Him.

Year 2001 was a turning point, and certain events propelled me even

more towards God-Consciousness and by His mercy, found the company of

some wonderful devotees who brought me back ashore towards His feet.

</Intro>

 

Krishnaji,

Thanks for your reply - appreciate the trouble you took to clarify

the points raised.

I was aware of the "issue" of the Supreme not really "caring" about

what was going on re his energies and how they manifested [such as in

the creation of the many universes], because of the sheer

size/complexity/potential/power of the energies, but to have the Rg

Veda's most popular hymn stopping on an equivocal note bothered me a

little, as I could not divine the thoughts and ideas that flowed

beneath the surface of the verse. Quite obviously, I'm not at all

qualified to BEGIN to understand the depth of the Words, but maybe my

questions will get me within a few trillion light years of the answer!

 

I am thinking of starting a regular reading session of the Srimad

Bhagavatam [by myself, for now] next year, and I am sure when I

encounter the verse you'd kindly pointed out, I'd relate immediately.

Or I might just point the browser to VedaBase right now and not wait

15 days!

 

I was not previously aware of the fact that His energies are

constantly increasing and that His knowledge of them stretches itself

to match up, but was under the impression that His energies are

infinite but not "growing," as they don't need to - or do they? [deja

vu moment]

It's tough reconciling "normal" infinity with 'growing' infinity -

although in effect infinity simply cannot be static or it will be

measurable immediately and thus won't be so infinite anymore. I think

I can contradict myself better than most others! Again, applying

material knowledge of Theoretical Physics etc. will get me nowhere,

but I can certainly disprove my known ideas and jump to the correct

way of perceiving, interpreting, understanding, and absorbing

transcendental and spiritual concepts of space, time, and distance.

 

Now, is it that He determines that His energies are much more than

He "realized" but in effect they are static and only "grow" when He

attempts to get close to the amount [infinite upon observation, but

not otherwise - kind of like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle],

or is it that His energies are truly growing all the time, and He

truly has to catch up of all the knowledge of the energies and

capabilities, all the time?

 

Thanks for your patience and help.

Hari Bol.

Adiyen,

Seshadri

[Guest guest]

"Quite obviously, I'm not at all

qualified to BEGIN to understand the depth of the Words, but maybe my

questions will get me within a few trillion light years of the answer!" - This

is a major step in spiritual practice, the conquest of ego.

 

Regarding verses from RigVeda and the Shruti, a direct, literalist

interpretation can be very misleading. At the same time, a metaphorical

interpretation is a crime. So a clever, semi-literal interpretation based on

evidence from "Smrithi like Bhagavatam", and one which maintains consistency

will lead to the correct interpretation. And in ancient times, when people had

ample respect for Smrithi, there was no doubt about the correct method. But, it

is because of people losing faith in Smrithi, and trying to take a shortcut of

directly interpreting the Shruti, that trouble arises.

 

Another point I would like to make is that one can go only so far in trying to

resolve apparent contradictions in our holy scriptures. These apparent

contradictions and our inability to resolve those, is a an effect of Vishnu's

powerful Maya and the finiteness of human mind. After all, a mind gets strongly

programmed from the moment it gets exposed to the environment. The best approach

is to take one of the great texts like Bhagavatham as the basis, and concentrate

on following it to the core i.e. giving primary importance to practice, and

giving the resolution of contradictions a secondary importance. Clearly, this

implies throwing off one's scientific cap at times (when you are outside your

profession), and becoming a servant of the holy scripture and God,. realizing

science is a small drop of water in MahaVishnu's infinite ocean of powers.

 

-"Sarvam Vishnu Mayam", "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama"

 

 

 

 

 

 

India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline.

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna!

Thank you - some really wonderful words of wisdom. I see the point

quite clearly now.

Attuned and conditioned as we are to getting direct answers without

contradiction in this world, it takes a different mindset to

understand the concept of the Spiritual and the Godly.

The Srimad Bhagavatam [the little that I've read] blows my mind away.

It is a stunning, majestic, and pristine scriptural creation of the

Lord. I think most of the illogical questions that I seem to have,

would find warm love in the SB in the form of an answer to modern

skepticism/outlook.

Hare Bol! On Namo Naaraayanaaya!

Adiyen,

Seshadri Veeraraghavan

 

achintya, subash r <rajaasub> wrote:

>

> "Quite obviously, I'm not at all

> qualified to BEGIN to understand the depth of the Words, but maybe

my

> questions will get me within a few trillion light years of the

answer!" - This is a major step in spiritual practice, the conquest

of ego.

>

> Regarding verses from RigVeda and the Shruti, a direct, literalist

interpretation can be very misleading. At the same time, a

metaphorical interpretation is a crime. So a clever, semi-literal

interpretation based on evidence from "Smrithi like Bhagavatam", and

one which maintains consistency will lead to the correct

interpretation. And in ancient times, when people had ample respect

for Smrithi, there was no doubt about the correct method. But, it is

because of people losing faith in Smrithi, and trying to take a

shortcut of directly interpreting the Shruti, that trouble arises.

>

> Another point I would like to make is that one can go only so far

in trying to resolve apparent contradictions in our holy scriptures.

These apparent contradictions and our inability to resolve those, is

a an effect of Vishnu's powerful Maya and the finiteness of human

mind. After all, a mind gets strongly programmed from the moment it

gets exposed to the environment. The best approach is to take one of

the great texts like Bhagavatham as the basis, and concentrate on

following it to the core i.e. giving primary importance to practice,

and giving the resolution of contradictions a secondary importance.

Clearly, this implies throwing off one's scientific cap at times

(when you are outside your profession), and becoming a servant of the

holy scripture and God,. realizing science is a small drop of water

in MahaVishnu's infinite ocean of powers.

>

> -"Sarvam Vishnu Mayam", "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama"

India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline.

>

>