Earliest mention of Brahman in Vedanta

[Guest guest]

I wish to ask the experts: when is the earliest reference to the

concept of Brahman in the Vedas or Vedantas?

 

Would this from the RV perhaps be the earliest to hint at the concept

of Brahman?

 

Rig-Veda, Book 10 Index (Tr. by Ralph T. H. Griffith, 1896)

 

HYMN 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.

 

Namaste,

Ram

[Guest guest]

advaitin , " varmha " <varmha wrote:

>

> I wish to ask the experts: when is the earliest reference to the

> concept of Brahman in the Vedas or Vedantas?

>

> Would this from the RV perhaps be the earliest to hint at the

concept

> of Brahman?

>

> Rig-Veda, Book 10 Index (Tr. by Ralph T. H. Griffith, 1896)

 

Namaste,

 

These may rank as the 'earliest':

 

Rig-Veda 1:164:46

 

ekaM sadviprA bahudhA vadanti |

 

To what is One, sages give many a title ........

 

 

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad I.iv.10

 

brahma vA idamagra AsIt tadAtmAnamevAved ahaM brahmAsmIti |

tasmAttatsarvamabhavat |

 

I-iv-10: This (self) was indeed Brahman in the beginning. It knew

only Itself as, `I am Brahman'. Therefore It became all.