Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/148

 The refrain receives its answer in a tenth stanza (added to the poem at a later time), which proclaims the unknown god to be Prajāpati.

Two other cosmogonic poems explain the origin of the world philosophically as the evolution of the existent (sat) from the non-existent (asat). In the somewhat confused account given in one of them (x. 72), three stages of creation may be distinguished: first the world is produced, then the gods, and lastly the sun. The theory of evolution is here still combined with that of creation:—


 * Even as a smith, the Lord of Prayer,
 * Together forged this universe:
 * In earliest ages of the gods
 * From what was not arose what is.

A far finer composition than this is the Song of Creation (x. 129):—


 * Non-being then existed not, nor being:
 * There was no air, nor heaven which is beyond it.
 * What motion was there? Where? By whom directed?
 * Was water there, and fathomless abysses?


 * Death then existed not, nor life immortal;
 * Of neither night nor day was any semblance.
 * The One breathed calm and windless by self-impulse:
 * There was not any other thing beyond it.


 * Darkness at first was covered up by darkness;
 * This universe was indistinct and fluid.
 * The empty space that by the void was hidden,
 * That One was by the force of heat engendered.


 * Desire then at the first arose within it,
 * Desire, which was the earliest seed of spirit.
 * The bond of being in non-being sages
 * Discovered searching in their hearts with wisdom.