Śruti / The four Vedas / Ṛgveda · 3 of 10
3. The Nāsadīya
Ṛgveda (ऋग्वेद)
The Nāsadīya (नासदीय) is Ṛgveda (ऋग्वेद) 10.129. Seven verses. It is the creation hymn that will not pretend the beginning is a story with a confident author. The name is the first word of the first verse: it was not the non-existent, and it was not the existent. Later philosophy will argue for a long time about sat (सत्) and asat (असत्). This hymn puts both words down and then takes the ground out from under them.
There was no death, and there was no deathlessness. There was no sign by which night and day could be told apart. That one breathed, without wind, by its own power. Darkness was hidden by darkness. Desire came, the first seed of mind. The poets, searching in the heart, found the bond of the existent in the non-existent.
A cord was stretched across. What was below, and what was above. Seed-placers, and powers. There was impulse. There was giving-forth. Who really knows whence this creation came? The gods are later than this creation, so they cannot be the witnesses of its beginning. He who is its overseer in the highest heaven, he knows. Or perhaps he does not know.
That last turn is the hymn's own courage. It has asked for a knower, and then it allows that the knower may not know. A reader who wants a doctrine of a creator who speaks the world into being will find that doctrine in other books. A reader who wants the Ṛgveda's most famous thought about the beginning finds a question left open, and a breath without wind, and desire as the first seed of mind.
Sāṅkhya, Vedānta, and the purāṇas will each take hold of pieces of this language. This sitting reports the hymn. It does not award the hymn to a school.
नासदासीन्नो सदासीत्तदानीं नासीद्रजो नो व्योमा परो यत् ।
किमावरीवः कुह कस्य शर्मन्नम्भः किमासीद्गहनं गभीरम् ॥ nāsad āsīn no sad āsīt tadānīṃ nāsīd rajo no vyomā paro yat |
kim āvarīvaḥ kuha kasya śarmann ambhaḥ kim āsīd gahanaṃ gabhīram ||
Then there was neither the non-existent nor the existent. There was no airy realm, nor the sky beyond it. What covered it? Where? In whose keeping? Was there water, deep and unfathomable? This is Ṛgveda (ऋग्वेद) 10.129.1. The other six verses are told in the prose of this sitting. Their Sanskrit is not sat on this page.
| Word | Grammar | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| na (न) | particle | Not. |
| asat (असत्) | nominative singular | The non-existent. Heard nāsad before the vowel of āsīt. |
| āsīt (आसीत्) | imperfect, third person singular, of as (अस्) | There was. |
| no (नो) | particle | na plus u. And not. |
| sat (सत्) | nominative singular | The existent. |
| tadānīm (तदानीम्) | indeclinable | Then. At that time. Heard tadānīṃ. |
| rajas (रजस्) | nominative singular | The airy realm, the midspace. Heard rajo before a voiced sound. |
| vyoman (व्योमन्) | nominative singular | The sky. Heard vyomā. |
| paras (परस्) | indeclinable | Beyond. Heard paro before yat. |
| yat (यत्) | relative | Which. The sky which is beyond. |
| kim (किम्) | interrogative | What. Heard kim. |
| āvarīvaḥ (आवरीवः) | intensive of √vṛ (वृ), third person singular | Did it cover, did it keep covering. |
| kuha (कुह) | indeclinable | Where. |
| kasya (कस्य) | genitive singular | Whose. In whose. |
| śarman (शर्मन्) | locative singular | Keeping, shelter. Heard śarmann before ambhaḥ. |
| ambhas (अम्भस्) | nominative singular | Water. |
| gahana (गहन) | nominative singular | Deep, dense. Heard gahanam. |
| gabhīra (गभीर) | nominative singular | Profound. Heard gabhīram. |
नेपालीमा
नासदीय ऋग्वेद १०.१२९ हो। सात ऋचा। पहिलो ऋचा प्रस्तुत गरिएको छ। त्यसबेला असत् थिएन, सत् पनि थिएन। न मृत्यु थियो न अमृत। त्यो एक आफ्नै शक्तिले सास फेर्थ्यो, हावा बिना। मनको पहिलो बीज कामना थियो। कविहरूले हृदयमा खोजेर सत्को बन्धन असत्मा फेला पारे।
कसले साँच्चै जान्छ, यो सृष्टि कहाँबाट आयो? देवताहरू यो सृष्टिभन्दा पछिका हुन्। सर्वोच्च स्वर्गमा हेर्नेले जान्छ, अथवा सायद जान्दैन। भजनले प्रश्न खोलै राख्छ।
Where it sits
The next hymn of this book is the Puruṣa Sūkta. Both sit in the tenth maṇḍala. The family books and the gods are the previous sitting.