A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

THREE VEDIC HYMNS

Then brought-ye-to-birth in the Sea (samudra) the hidden (git/ha) Sun (surya). 7.

Eight are the sons of the In-finite (Aditi) of embodied birth (7atah tanvah) :

With seven She went upward to the Angels, the Sun-bird (Martanda) She left here. 8.

With seven Sons the In-finite (Aditi) fared upward to the primordial aeon (parvyam yugam),

The Sun-bird She bore-hither (abhavat) unto repeated birth and death (prajayat mrtyave). 9.

As pointed out by Charpentier, from whose version (Suparnasage, pp. 386-388) the foregoing differs only in minor details, this hymn describes creation as primarily from the ““ Recumbent,” and secondarily the terms of the stirring of the Waters by the feet of angelic dancers in a ring. That is a figure closely related to, though not identical with that of the Churning of the Ocean, the Epic samudva manthana. And as in some other accounts of the beginning, the dust or spray arising from the troubled Waters becomes the Earth, the support of living beings amidst the possibilities of existence.

The ‘“‘ Recumbent 1% is originally Varuna, “ great Yaksa supported on the back of the Waters,” Atharva Veda, X, 7, 38, from whose navel rises the Tree of Life, and therein are the Angelic Host (viSve devah) ; later, Brahma, finally Narayana-Visnu. That he reclines supported in the Waters corresponds to the reflection of his image in the Waters, as described in Paficavimsa Brahmana, VII, 8, 1, cited above, p.8. In that reciprocal sense, he as Daksa is “ born ” of Aditi, that isasa reflected image, and Aditi of Daksa inasmuch as the Waters antecedent to his shining, his- knowledge, are but an unrevealed possibility. Daksa, “‘ Operation,” “ Skill,” the

61