An Analysis of Nasadiya Sukta of Rigveda
Posted on 09 Aug 2024; 11:30 PM IST. Last Updated 09 Aug 2024; 11:30 PM IST.Summary: This article attempts to provide an analysis of Nasadiya Sukta, of Rig Veda.
Nasadiya Sukta of Rigveda, is popularly known as, the Hymn of creation, in Hinduism. It describes in Sanskrit, the events that took place at genesis or creation of the Universe. Many English language translations of this Hymn, are available on the internet.
The author of this article, used Nasadiya Sukta (partially), and composed an English language poem, called “Legend of the Supreme God”. The poem is available at this weblink.
This article attempts to perform a rigorous analysis of Nasadiya Sukta, and the analysis was performed largely, with respect to the English language poem, cited above, rather than with the original Sanskrit version.
The background knowledge, that could prove helpful, in understanding the concepts discussed, are given below.
- The first quartet of the poem describes "Energies" as dark, fierce, and raw, and the Sanskrit term for these qualities is "Kali" or Kalika Devi.
- The third quartet of the poem describes "Energies" as bright radiance, and the Sanskrit term for these qualities is "Gauri".
Goddess of Energy is described as both "Kali", and "Gauri", in Hinduism, and is symbolically depicted as a woman. It may be noted that she is formless, and not a real physical woman.
- The Lord of first quartet, is called "God of Gods", in third quartet, because he bound the free, raw energies to matter; and together they became essence or matter of all entities.
When they are separated, the energies become dark, and we go back to the state described, in the first quartet, of the sonnet.
- The separation of Supreme God and Goddess, should not be confused with individual death, but should be recognized as dissolution of all existence (all universes).
- As per Rig Veda, the creator did not create matter; it was made available to him, and he used it like clay in pottery. Purusha Suktam of Rig Veda, describes this process, in great detail.
Analysis of Nasadiya Sukta:
At the end of the hymn, Nasadiya sukta raises a question, on whether the Supreme God is aware, when the existence arose?
The Nasadiya sukta itself explains, how the creation arose from void, so we could/should rephrase the question as -
whether the Supreme God is aware, when and how the existence would be recycled?
It may be noted that the Nasadiya sukta by itself, does not offer any clues, on how the creation could end or be recycled.
The author of this article, added in the fourth stanza of the poem, that "Time and Space are bound to the state of Almighty". This was poetic euphoria, that arose during English translation, and was not described in the Sanskrit version of Nasadiya sukta.
The fourth stanza allows us to reframe the query of Nasadiya sukta as follows:
Is the Almighty deterministic like a Car, or phone or non-deterministic like a human being?
If the Almighty is deterministic, then is he self aware?
The above two questions, lead to three possible cases, which are detailed below.
Case-1: Almighty is deterministic, but not self aware
If the Almighty is deterministic, but not self aware like a simple machine, then it implies that someone created him; which contradicts the claim of the first quartet of the poem "None but One persisted .....".
Case-2: Almighty is deterministic, but self aware
This case affirmatively answers the query raised by Nasadiya sukta of Rigveda, that the Almighty is indeed aware of how the creation could End, and therefore how it arises again.
This case adds a new constraint, that the Almighty is aware of the possible states his creation could reach, at each and every action step.
The resulting model of the Universe, could still please some religious zealots, but it could leave an important side effect, that the Lord has not given any independence or "free will" to his creation.
Case-3: Almighty is non deterministic
Even though "desires are at his servitude", as described in the second quartet of the poem, the Almighty could be kind, and grant "free will" to his creation. This makes the creation nondeterministic, like a human being.
If the creation has free will, then the Almighty cannot be deterministic, since the Almighty must allow the creation, to exercise its free will. If the Almighty is nondeterministic, then the Almighty may not be aware of, when the Worlds will be dissolved.
The Almighty not knowing about a future event, may sound paradoxical, but we could assume that the Almighty may know in advance, the following -
i) the starting state
ii) a prominent intermediate state, that could be reached from the starting state
iii) all possible paths, from a prominent intermediate state, including the result of actions.
In other words, the Almighty could establish apriori, the result of following a particular path; The creation chooses its path (and fate) by virtue of the free will, without knowing the result apriori; whereas, the Almighty knows the fate, as soon as the creation chooses a path.
The above model, does not appear to violate any scientific and religious beliefs, but still has a caveat.
If the creation is made up of random processes, then a specific time line for ending the creation, cannot be established apriori, by the above model. There is also a danger that the creation could randomly choose a path of dissolution, merely by chance.
In the Hindu religious beliefs, there is a strict time line for various Yuga’s (or eras). It is also believed, that the quality of the creation changes, across Yugas (or eras), and does not remain as a constant.
We could import Hindu beliefs into the model, and impose the notions, that the Almighty may be necessarily forced to alter the nature of the creation, or its qualities, after each era or Yuga. The Lord may even choose shorter periods or sub cycles of an era or Yuga, for intervention.
It may be noted that we rejected case-2, because Almighty predefined or intervened in every step, and we aspired for a model, with free will. In this case (i.e case-3), we could easily observe that the freedom granted is undoubtedly partial, as the Almighty may be forced to intervene, to prevent random dissolution, and for continued existence, with an ultimate dissolution.
The last line of the poem, elucidates this as -
"All of existence, is bound to laws of conformity".
The disbelief expressed by Nasadiya sukta, that the Almighty may not know, when the creation will end, and restart, takes an interesting twist, in the model built from the above considerations, which may now be paraphrased as:
At any given time, the Almighty may know, the state the creation could reach, at the end of its current path; but may not know (or does he know?), where the creation would go, after many such cycles and/or sub cycles, without his active intervention.