A Hindu account of creation

‘In the Beginning …’

Then neither Being nor Not-being was,

Nor atmosphere, nor firmament, nor what is beyond.

What did it encompass?  Where?  In whose protection?

What was water, the deep, unfathomable?

Neither death nor immortality was there then,

No sign of night or day.

That One breathed, windless, by its own energy:

Nought else existed then.

In the beginning was darkness swathed in darkness;

All this was but unmanifested water.

Whatever was, that One, coming into being,

Hidden by the Void,

Was generated by the power of heat.

In the beginning this One evolved,

Became desire, first seed of mind.

Wise seers, searching within their hearts,

Found the bond of Being in Not-being.

Their cord was extended athwart:

Was there a below?  Was there an above?

Casters of seed there were, and powers;

Beneath was energy, above was impulse.

Who knows truly?  Who can here declare it?

Whence it was born, whence is this emanation?

By the emanation of this the gods

Only later came to be.

Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this emanation hath arisen,

Whether God created it, or whether he did not,

Only he who is its overseer in highest heaven knows.

He only knows, or perhaps he does not know!

Hymn X, cxxix ‘In the beginning …’ taken from the Rig-Veda
Translated by R C Zaehner and published in ‘Hindu Scriptures’ (Everyman)