Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/251

 The Beginnings of Hindu TheosoPhy 2 3 5

we may grant that the composition shows a good deal of rawness, unevenness, and inconsistency. Yet it is perhaps easier to undervalue such a performance than to exaggerate its importance. It occurs in one of the earliest Iitoratures of the world; it brushes aside all mythology, and it certainly exhibits philosophic depth and caution when it designates the fundamenn tsl cause of the universe not by a name, but as “ that ” (had), or “ the one thing ” (crime). But let my hearers judge for themselves:

FIRST STANZA.

“ Nor [Ming was were 720? stemming; Z/zere’ was no drowsy/MW and 720 My harmed. W/zm‘ covered (ZZZ, (I?er err/acre, 5y eel/mt protected .17 Was Mere a fat/207m [£33 adj/35 of 2%.? water: .9 ”

The poet describes as deftly as possible a pri— mordial chaos. There was not non-being, for that is unconceivable I; there was not being in the ordinary experience of the senses. What was there? The poet in the next stanza. carries on his negation and then abruptly presses forward to a positive con- clusion:

SECOND STANZA.

“ Naz‘mer dmz‘iz was mm nor immortality ; were

1 Cf. Chﬁndogys. Upsnished 6. 2. 2.