On Oct 30, 2007, at 6:07 PM, Rick Archer wrote:
A friend wants to know:
Do you have a copy of the 10th Mandala? I'm looking for a hymn that
describes creation there, how from nothing came something "that one
unbreathed upon breathed of his own strength" or something like
that. Is there anyway you could help me locate that hymn?
I apologize for interjecting your direct question, but this is a
favorite of mine. Years ago, I corresponded briefly with Jean Le Mee,
then a prof. at Cooper Union in NYC. It's one of those verses, esp. in
the original Sanskrit, that you could read every day, for a lifetime.
Here's what he says--and what inspired me to call him in the first
place, his translation of the Nasadiya Sukta, the "Hymn of Creation",
the connection between later advaita vedanta and an imagined Vedic
pedigree (RV X.129):
"Perhaps no other Vedic hymn equals in depth and majesty this famous
Hymn of Creation known to tradition as the Nasadiya Sukta, from its
opening words. Its seer, Prajäpati Parameshthin, Supreme Lord of
Creatures, chants in the "triplepraise" meter his knowledge and his
wonder as he recalls his vision and in these seven immortal mantras
seven like the days of creation plants the seeds of Vedic metaphysics
and mathematics. For this hymn, besides being a cosmogony, is also a
beautiful meditation on the properties of numbers from one to nine and
zero. As the Vedanta philosophy was to develop it later in great
detail, and as other traditions also record, the process of creation
can be seen as ninefold, each step, each state of consciousness, being
characterized by the properties of a particular number. Thus, creation
begins in the Absolute, the one without a second, "where neither
nonbeing nor being was as yet." Then duality creeps in, darkness
conceals darkness. And so it all begins. In the fifth stanza is a
brilliant example of the mathematical and structural symbolism alluded
to in the introduction. The vertical and crosswise directions
indicated give in words the substance of a sutra yielding a general
and elegant method of multiplication and division while keeping the
orders separate the very mechanism of creation itself. It reveals the
inner properties of five, the number for man, but also for the
manifestation of creation in the major traditions. Was it not on the
fifth day that, according to Genesis, "God created great whales ...
and blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply. . ."? Pure
coincidence? Hardly, when we know with what care the Vedic poets con
structed their hymns. And then, what of this other coincidence that we
find with Dante's Paradiso In virtually the same words as Prajapati
Parameshthin, the Prince of Poets sings:
Order was created and together with it Were woven the substances;
Those formed the summit of the world In which pure act was produced.
Pure potency held the lowest place, In the midst, potency twisted such
a mighty bond With act, as shall never be severed.
That line, that ray of glory that the wise stretched between the Will
on high and the Potency beneath, that mighty bond, scales all the
states of being, uniting in its reach the whole creation.
Yet, from where does it all spring? Who truly knows?"
Jean Le Mée "Hymns From the Rig-Veda".
If you guys like I can post the translation. It's quite beautiful. The
earlier work I understand, has been re-issued.
-Vaj
