Page:The Indian Antiquary, Vol. 4-1875.djvu/135

 122 THE INDIA2T ANTTQTJAEY. [Aptul, 1875. describes the creation of the world, thus (p. 1, 5) :— " This universe existed only in darkness, imperceptible, undcfioable, nndiscoverable, un- discovered, as it were wholly immersed in sleep. " Then the self-existing power, himself un- disccrned but making this world discernible, with five elements and other principles appeared with undiminished glory, dispelling the gloom. "He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even He, the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person. "He, having willed to produce various be- ings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the waters, aud placed in them a prod active seed. " That seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary, with a thousand beams ; and in that egg he was born himself, Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits. u From that which is, the first cause, not the object of sense, existing, not existing, without beginning or end, was produced the divine male, famed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma." In these perhaps somewhat laboured passages Mann taught that God, the Author and Origin of all things, is to be conceived of as the great First Cause, a spiritual being, self-existent alone from eternity to eternity, without form or parts, incomprehensible and unknowable to man ; and that in him the universe mu involved as it were an idea, before it was caused by himself to be a discernible reality. According to the foregoing account the Cre- ator commenced Uic work of evolving or manifesting the world by willing the production of the waters from his own divine immaterial substance; upon them he developed himself, from the same substance, into the male form Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits, cognizable by man and famed in all worlds. fthma, after pansing a year on the waters * proceeded with the work of creation in a course which seems at first limited to the production of certain abstract principles, or perlaps germs of a metaphysical and moral kind. Manu's moving on tLo voton." narrative, however, at this stage, is far from being clear. As ha3 been already remarked, he makes Brahma assign (p. 4, 21) " to all creatures distinct names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations, as they had been revealed in the pre-existing Veda" without any previous mention of either tlio creatures themselves or the Vedas; for it is in the succeeding verses that he first says, " Brahma, the supreme ruler, created an assemblage of inferior deities with divine attributes and pure souls, and prescribed the sacrifice from the beginning." And '' from fire and from the Sun he milked out the three primordial Vedas, named Rig, Ydjjm, and Beman, for the dne performance of the sacrifice. 1 ' After this, again, he states that Brahma " gave being to time and the divisions of time, to the stars also, and to the planets, to rivers, oceans, and mountains, to level plains and to uneven valleys." Then follows the establishment by Brahma of certain other meta- physical principles and moral qualities. And lastly (p. 5, 31), " that the human race might bo multiplied, ho caused the Brahman, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his tbagx his foot," and this having been effected, he brought about the production from liiraself of Manu, or, to use Manu's own words, of "me the framer of all this world." Manu next goes on to say : — "It was I who, us of giving birth to a race of men, per- formed very difficult religions duties, and first produced ten lords of created beings, eminent in holiness, M a r i c h i, A t r i , &c. They, abun- dant in glory, produced seven other Manns, together with deities," great sages, genii, g savages, demons, serpent*, snakes, birds of prey, Separate companies of Pitris or progenitors of mankind, meteorological phenomena of all kinds, comets and luminaries, apes, fish, birds, cattle, deer, men, ravenous beasts, insects. "Thus," Mann proceeds, " was tin's wholo assemblage of stationary and moveable bodies framed by those high-minded beings, through the force of their own devotion, aud at my DOmmand, with separate actions allotted to each. Whatever act is ordained for each of those creatures here below, I will now declare to yon,' together with their order in respect to birth." i.e. according to KaUaka's glow " tae spirit of God
 * fat whiaL reason he ta Bometimes termed Ntjtyana,