Stella Kramrisch - The Triple Structure of Creation in The G Veda (1962)

The Triple Structure of Creation in the Ṛg Veda
Author(s): Stella Kramrisch

Source: History of Religions, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Summer, 1962), pp. 140-175
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062040 .
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Stella Kramrisch THE TRIPLE
STRUCTURE OF
CREATION
IN THE RG VEDA*
I. THE CREATION OF THE COSMOS, THE WORLD OF INDRA

In the beginning Heaven and Earth were lying in close embrace.
Nothing divided them. Their duality formed a monad (cf. RV.
1. 159. 4), the principal possibility of existence. No stress, no friction,
no activity binds or separates the pair who are the monad.
They were separated by a god. He put his power between their
recumbent shapes and dislodged them. Henceforward they are sepa-
rate. Heaven is above and earth below. Between them is the midspace.
The god who separated the monad heaven-and-earth made them two
and kept them distinct. He placed space between them. He introduced
this "midspace" (antari-ksa) from the limitless reservoir in the beyond.
It snorted like a horse when it entered between heaven and earth, by
the impulsion of god Savitr, the Impeller (10. 149. 1), the primus
motor.
The act of separating the monad and making two who had been
one is the work of a third. He is the creator god of this world. He
* [Because of its length Professor Kramrisch's article will be published in two
instalments. The second instalment will appear in the succeeding number.-
EDITORS.]
140

is the demiurge who destroys for the purpose of creation; he disrupts
the wholeness of the undifferentiated, separates its constituent parts,
and defines their position in the new world, where men will breathe,
move, and think. God Indra, in particular, is the creator of this world.
He separated heaven and earth, made them two, assuming himself the
part of the One and First as creator, and of the "third" in his creative
operation. As creator-destroyer, he prefiguresintellect in its discerning,
separating, discriminating function. The selfsame act of violence, of
forcefully wedging wholeness apart, is the creative deed of Indra
(5. 31. 6, 10. 113. 5)-in particular-as it is that of Varuna (7. 86. 1)
who prefigures Indra's lordship over the gods and the world. It is the
deed of the Fire as Agni Vaisvanara, the fire that is in the sun and
sunders heaven from earth by light (6. 8. 3), and of Hiranyagarbha,
the Child of Fire, the Golden Germ (10. 121. 5), as it is the deed of
Savitr who separates the two by the space or air between them; it
is the deed of Soma (9. 101. 15), the Elixir of Life, and also of Brhas-
pati (4. 50. 1), the Lord of the inner upsurge in hymnal, mantic
inspiration. Each of these gods or aspects of creativeness brings about
this triple world (tridhdtu--/dha, "to place"; 1. 34. 7; 1. 154. 4;
7. 5. 4); or the Angirases, the first sacrificers and seers, propped apart
heaven and earth by a pillar (viskabhnantahskambhanena;3. 31. 12).
Heaven and earth, as dyadic monad, are a closed unit. It must be
violated, split into its components, and these must be separated lest
they fall together and the world-to-be collapses. The act of creative
violation and the power of keeping apart the pair so that they become
Father Heaven and Mother Earth between whom all life is engendered
is the test by which a creator god establishes his supremacy. He makes
the Dyad into Two. He is the One and at the same time the Third,
who plays the leading part in the cosmic drama. He is hero and artist
in one. While he performs the feat of separation he pillars apart the
two halves. They are, moreover, the substance in which he works, the
form which is to hold air and light. In his dual role of hero and artist
the creator god is the first in his cosmos. By the air which he, Savitr,
the Impeller, made rush into the midspace, all his creatures will
breathe and speak, each in its own language. Man will be able to say
what he sees in the new, radiant light of Agni Vaisvanara. Air, the
substratum of breath, sound, and speech; and light, the substratum
of vision, the creator provided for man's creativity between Heaven
and Earth.
The myth of the creator god who makes the two, Father Heaven
and Mother Earth, by disrupting the monad, who thus is the third
in the drama of creation and at the same time the first in his creation-
141

The Triple Structureof Creationin the Rg Veda
this myth of separation and violent action is the pervasive creation

myth of this our world in the 1jg Veda.l
It lacks the self-sufficiency of spontaneous generation of "That
One" (tad ekam; 10. 129. 2) or of Hiraniyagarbha,the "Golden Germ,"
or "Child of Fire" (10. 121. 1). Creation is within "That One" by the
immanent self-fertilizing urge of Desire (kdma) arising in That One.
Self-inflamed, the incandescent state of the world-to-be shoots up in
the water as the golden germ and rod of creation. "That One," the
first and only existent, starts the series of all that can be numbered
and it inheres in everything to be. Creation by self-fertilization of the
One, origin of all that will come to be, is an unfolding. Its phases are
expressed in numbers. That One within itself, in its urge (tapas),
engenders the two, Mind and Desire. In the cosmogony of self-
generation which is the ontology of creation, there is unfolding without
strife, a flowing and germinating from the source into existence.
Self-generation, perpetual regeneration, has its image in Agni, the
Fire. Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Germ, the Child of Fire, is one of
his names. Agni, the Fire, is bodily his own son (tanunapat). Like
"That One," the Golden Germ, the Child of Fire, son of himself, is
in the waters, in the flowing waves of possibilities, where life ignites
its spark. There, Agni, the Fire, is called Apam Napat, Son of the
Waters.
Self-generation within one and the same body, the issue of flame
from flame, in direct and uninterrupted identity of succession where
the Father and Son are one, is the straight, immaculate, and fiery path
of the myth of creation.
Another creation myth follows the Seed of the Father at its fall to
earth at the moment when he embraced his daughter and when Rudra,
the skilled archer (Sudhanvan;5.42. 11), born at the selfsame moment,
hit his aim and wounded the Father. Rudra infringes the intimacy of
the near-monadic embrace of Father and Daughter at the moment of
union. The seed fell to earth. From it arose the seers, the archetypal
1 Other creation
myths of the cosmos are by sacrifice or by art. Each of these
presupposes a materia prima: the Puruea, or cosmic Man, whom the gods sacrifice
into creation (10.90), or a sculptor's clay or metal which Vigvakarman molds or
welds together into the shapes of heaven and earth (10. 81. 2, 3), or else wood
out of which the gods made heaven and earth (10. 81. 4). The wood is Brahman
(Taittiriya Brahmana, 2. 8. 9. 6).
The creation of this world by Indra is part of his creative operation. It begins
in the Uncreate which was closed in by Vrtra, the Serpent. Indra split the Serpent
(2. 19. 2) and opened up the inclosure so that the imprisoned waters could flow into
the cosmos. This opening up of the metacosmic source is another of the four feats
(cf. 10. 54. 4) by which Indra established this world. It was done by force, similar
to the propping apart of heaven and earth. W. Norman Brown ("The Creation
Myth of the Rig Veda," JAOS, LXII, 98) says: "Indra splits the covering with-
in which lay the waters."
142

poets, and priests. They are third by cosmogonic lineage. But Rudra,
the skilled archer, born at the same moment (as Vasto.pati; 10. 61. 7),
by cosmogonic ordinance is the third, the Lord of the Existent
(vdstospati;cf. Taittiriya Brahmana, 3. 4. 10. 4).
The role of the third is played by the creator god, by Indra, Varuna,
Agni, Soma, and Brhaspati. He violates the monadic embrace and
makes them, in their distance and polarity, embrace his creation as
Father and Mother.2 He interposes himself between their perpetual
separation by propping them apart and filling their distance with air
and light. He traverses the midspace as the cosmic pillar (cf. askambha
... kambhanenaskabhTydn;10. 111. 5) that upholds the sky and the
order of heaven on earth. In the image of the pillar, the demiurge
resembles Aja Ekapad (1. 164. 6), the One Uncreate who "without
proceeding" (acarat; 3. 56. 2) prefigures the creative act. This One
Uncreate has its image in Aja Ekapad, the Uncreate One-Foot or Goat
One-Foot. It is the prefigurement, prior to creation, of the structure
creation will have as the work of, and supported by, the creator, whose
sacred numbers, in the hierarchy of manifestation are simultaneously
one and three.
The created world has for its sign the three: Heaven and Earth
(dydvd-prthivi)and the midspace (antariksa) are the ternary by which
the structure of the outer and inner world of man is ruled.
Cosmogonically, the three is the intermediary, active principle be-
tween the primary pair. It is the link and messenger between the
opposites. It establishes the middle between the contraries which
makes possible the movement of thought and the seeing of images,
both of the ascent and descent, between the two poles. The several
deities who prop apart heaven and earth are at one in performing this
feat while each expresses his own mode of creativeness. Varuna, the
ancient and first King of gods, pillared apart heaven and earth (6. 70.
1). By this epiphany of his, wisdom came to the creatures (dhfrd; 7.
86. 1). But it is by his will and strength that Indra separates heaven
and earth and establishes the order of his cosmos, the world in
which man lives. Agni, Fire, the spark and flame of life, and Soma,
the elixir of life, descend from heaven to earth and ascend from earth
to heaven. Their track of liquid fire extends from here to there and
from the beyond down to the earth with the systole and diastole as
it were of inspiration and aspiration. The place where each of these
gods comes to earth and whence he ascends is the place of the sacrifice,
2 The
supportingfunction in itself, without the precedingact of separation, is
particularly that of Visnu. He supports Heaven and Earth and all beings of this
triple world (tridhatu;1. 154. 4).
143

The Triple Structure of Creation in the Rg Veda
the sacrificial altar, the navel of the world (1. 164. 34, 35). The rites
of the sacrifice confirm and celebrate the tracks of these two gods
which traverse the cosmos and the inner world of man. The station
of Agni's descent in the cosmos is the sun in the sky (10. 88. 11, 12)
and his garb is the lightning (2. 35. 9) in antarik6a, the midspace. It
is Savitr, the Impeller, who drove the midspace between the earth
which he had steadied and the sky which he had fixed (10. 149. 1).
Roaring in his might, Brhaspati propped apart the limits of this world
(4. 50. 1). Born in the beyond, in the highest space of the great light,
he drove away the darkness that was in the beginning (4. 50. 4) and
liberated the cows, the radiant life-giving waters, the rays-the songs
-from the dark cave where they had been imprisoned (4. 50. 5).
Brhaspati, Lord of inner transport and its expression, the hymn, liber-
ates, like Agni, the light-to-be between heaven and earth, on the stage
of man's illumination.
The "Third" is in the midst of the two whose places he assigned
to them. He is the link between heaven and earth, mediator, mes-
senger, and creator of this our world. He gives it firmness, discrimina-
tion, and the power of expression.
The leading myth of the heroic feat of separating heaven and earth
is that of Indra. Indra is the creator of this universe; "by his might
and strength he spread out both the worlds, heaven and earth, and
he let shine the sun" (8. 3. 6). He who performed this masterwork is
asked to grant mastery (suvTryam)and the creative, magic word, the
Brahman (8. 3. 9). He is invoked by the Ayus, the living beings,
mortal men; he is invoked by the I~bhus, creative masters of their
craft who by their work have become gods; and he is invoked by the
Rudras (8. 3. 7). He is the creator of this manifest cosmos. Its three
worlds of heaven, earth, and midspace are the triple counterweight of
Indra's strength, though he is greater than all of them together
(1. 102. 8). For "he makes the non-existent at once and the existent"
(asac ca san muhur dcakrir;6.24.5). He makes them come about simul-
taneously by separating existence from non-existence. Before that, they
were conjoined in the highest heaven, the uttermost Empyrean (asac
ca sac ca parame vyoman; 10. 5. 7). Before that, neither was, neither
Asat nor Sat (ndsad dsfn no sad dsit; 10. 129. 1) in the indistinc-
tion of precosmic darkness and the void of the flood.3 In the on-
tological hierarchy of the existent and the non-existent, below the
3 The gods are "this side of creation" (10. 129. 6), that is, in the Sat, the exist-
ent, when they are viewed not as cosmogonic powers but as expressions and pro-
tectors of the three parts of the manifest world. The three classes of gods are the
Vasus, Rudras, and Adityas (2. 31. 1; 10. 66. 12; cf. 7. 10. 4; 7. 35. 6). Indra is
invoked with the Vasus, Rudra with the Rudras, Aditi with the Adityas (7. 10. 4).
144

highest heaven, creation brings about a negative valuation of the
non-existent. This has its symbol in Indra's world-the Sat, the exist-
ent, which he divides from the non-existent. Both the existent and the
non-existent are in the highest heaven, in monadic wholeness. As for
existence-to-be, Indra divides the monad of heaven and earth, so for
the cosmos-to-be he divides the monad of the existent-non-existent as
it is in the highest heaven. Now the cosmos, the existent, emerges.
The Asat, non-existence, sinks below the existent where it continues
as the "Rg Vedic equivalent of hell." This asat, non-existence in itself,
separated from existence, that is, from the cosmos, lies on the opposite
pole of the Uncreate which is beyond, and was before, creation. In the
Uncreate there is neither existence nor non-existence.
Indra's deed of making at once the non-existent and the existent
(asac ca san muhur dcakrir;6. 24. 5) is generally, though neither literal-
ly nor correctly, taken in the sense that non-existence was converted
by him into existence. The deed of Indra, the creator, however, is not
the conversion but the co-ordination of the Sat and the Asat in their
separate distinctness. The Sat, existence, henceforward comprises the
cosmos, its heaven, earth, and mid-air. The asat, the non-existent, like
a dark cover, has fallen from it and lies below it, the dark place of the
damned.
In creation the accent is on the Sat, on existence. Below it is dark-
ness where all the values of existence are non-existent. This infernal
accompaniment of existence is outside creation. It is a residual element
of the indistinguishable darkness before creation when there was nei-
ther existence nor non-existence.
Before and beyond creation, in the darkness of the flood (10. 129. 1),
ante principium, the relation of Sat and Asat, of existence and non-
existence, is a "neither-nor." At the beginning of creation, in principio,
Sat as well as Asat are viewed in the light of the dawn of creation.
Their neither-nor ante-principium now appears as a "together" in prin-
cipio, in the highest heaven (10. 5. 7). In creation, apud principium,
Indra separates the existent and the non-existent (6. 24. 5). These
three phases are part of one vision. In the absolute beyond, nothing
can be predicated except a neither-nor; in the highest heaven, that is,
in the sphere of prefigurement, the "neither-nor" is converted into an
"as well as." This prefigured state is given actuality by the creator
who makes come about the existent and the non-existent in their
separate distinctness.
Existence being the purpose of creation, non-existence is outside it.
In one creation myth, however, of the lRg Veda, the existent was
generated from the non-existent (asatah sad ajdyata; 10. 72. 2, 3) in
145

the dawn of creation when existence emerges from the neither-nor.4

In relation to existence emerging, whatever indistinguishable preceded
it, is non-existent, or not yet existent, on the threshold from the Un-
create into creation. The emerging of existence from non-existence is
posterior to, or lies below, the transcendence of the neither-nor. It is
posterior to, by an instant though, and is on one level, in the highest
heaven-which is one with the first age of the gods-with the as-yet-
undifferentiated "togetherness" of Sat and Asat.
The emerging of the Sat from the Asat is from non-existence be-
cause it is not as yet existence (10. 72. 2, 3). It is thence that "the
sages searching in their heart found in deep thought (manasd)the kin
of existence in the non-existent" (10. 129. 4). Seen, however, in their
cosmogonic and ontological stratification, the first and topmost posi-
tion is that of neither existence nor non-existence in the dark Uncreate.
In the next position, at the dawn of the world, in the highest heaven
of light, existence together with non-existence form an indistinguish-
able whole. The "neither-nor" shines forth in the relation of "as well
as." At this moment the seer sees becoming existent what as yet had
not come into existence. In their third position, the "neither-nor" of
the Uncreate, which is the "as well as" at the dawn of creation, is
separated. Now each of them is; the one the cosmos, existence itself,
the other non-existence, outside, that is, below creation. The three
ontological moments in the relation of Sat and Asat correspond to
different levels in the structure of creation. The dark Uncreate on high
has for its lower limit the first streak of the dawn of creation in the
highest heaven. It is the uppermost limit of creation, or the cosmos,
4 10. 129. 1 sets the
pre-creationstage farthest back in the unpredicated,where
neither existence (sat) or non-existence (asat) is. 10. 72. 2 brings the scene hither-
ward. It plays in the first age of the gods when the existent (sat) is born from the
non-existent (asat), the not-yet existent.
10. 90 sets up the stage for creation, that is, for the sacrificeof the Purusa here
on this earth. Hence, he arises in three parts of himself into the immortal, while
the fourth part of himself is sacrificedand transmutedinto the universe. In 10.90
the symbolic numbersare three and four, the perspective of the vision is opposite
that of the other creation hymns. They see creation from the beyond, 10.90 sees
creation from here below, from this created world.
The Upanisads, however, say that "existence alone was this in the beginning,
one only without a second" (Chandogya Up. 6. 2. 1; cf. 2. 2. 1; Br. Up. 1. 4. 1;
5. 2. 1). They stress the non-duality "in the beginning"and the non-reality of the
world. The non-duality of the sat, the only Real, replacedthe potentiality of the
asat, the not-yet existent and divested existence of its reality.
In the R1gVeda, Sat, Asat, neither Sat nor Asat, Sat as well as Asat are not four
modes of predication. They do not form the logical quadruped (catuskoti).Each
of them is, the existent is; the non-existent is. Asat and Sat arecorrelated.They are
always spoke of together except in 4. 5. 14 where the inept are threatened with
falling defenselessly into asat, non-existence or annihilation. The paradox of the
existence of non-existence, Asat, is an ontological postulate. Apud principium,
non-existence, asat, is a prejorative term. Its place is deep below creation, it is
just hell.
146

with its heaven, earth, and mid-air. They are the Sat, the existent,
separated from the asat whose exiled darkness lies below, outside
cosmic order (rta), outside creative power. Into the asat, the non-
existent, "the nearest equivalent of hell," fall those defenselessly
whose speech is sapless and ineffectual (4. 5. 14).
Sunk below creation, the non-existent is negativity; the existent is
the cosmos, the ordered world, the world of rta, a work of art. The
non-existent is chaos, decomposition, the absence of rta, the domain
of Nir-rti (7.104.9). It is the counterpart, apud principium, by the act
of creation and separation, of the Darkness that was-and is-before
the beginning of things.
This created world, the Sat, the existent, upheld by the demiurge
is above the residual, absymal darkness of the non-existent, below, at
the bottom, where the dark waters of chaos flow over Vrtra, the arch-
enemy, the Serpent, and his mother, Danu, both slain by Indra
(1. 32. 9-10). Vrtra sinks into long darkness (dirghamtama). His body
is buried in the midst of the never-resting waters (1. 32. 10). This
darkness (tamas) is as it was before the beginning of things, with the
difference that creation lies between them.
Indra created the tridhdtu, the triple cosmos of heaven, earth, and
midspace, which is the Sat, the existent. It has the asat, non-existence,
below its lowest level, while on the highest level indistinguishable
darkness of which nothing can be predicated, neither existence nor
non-existence, turns into the indistinguishable union of existence as
well as non-existence in the incandescence of the transcendental realm,
at the dawn of creation.
This threefold world (tridhdtu)in which man lives is safe for him
if the powers who rule over its three parts protect him. "May Siirya
(the Sun god) protect us from the sky, Vata (the Wind) from the mid-
space, Agni (the Fire) from the earth" (10. 158. 1). These three gods
are the divine exponents of the powers active in the three spheres.
Altogether, the numbers of these powers in each sphere is said to be
eleven. Eleven in heaven (1. 139. 11; 10. 65.9; also 3. 6. 8; 6. 52. 13, 15;
7. 35. 14), eleven on earth, eleven in the waters of the atmosphere,
the ocean of air. The number of the gods is thirty-three, three times
eleven.6 In each of their spheres, the power of the gods is active in
6 The thirty-three gods are by no means all the gods. The A?vins (1. 34. 11;
8. 35. 3) or Agni (1. 45. 2; 8. 39. 9) bringthem to the sacrifice.Later texts distribute
the gods not as eleven in each group but as eight Vasus, eleven Rudras, and
twelve Adityas.
The number thirty-three has no symbolical significance of its own. It is a
reiteration of three. The numerical expressionfor the gods in their completeness
is three times three, figured twice, first by a triple repetition of three to which
is added 3 X 3 = 9, so that the number is 3339 (3. 9. 9. and 10. 52. 6) making
explicit the triple structure on each level of creation.
147

all the ten directions, above and below, in the cardinal and intermediate
directions, and they are led by one protecting protagonist of each
sphere who exceeds them in rank, so that they are ten plus one in each
of the three spheres. But the number thirty-three is also an emphatic
form of the number three. This three-tiered world picture, however,
is but a prelude that indicates the theme and adumbrates the possi-
bilities of its transposition to further and higher levels.
II. THE SUPERSTRUCTURE AND THE PREFIGUREMENT OF THE TRIPLE

CREATION: AJA EKAPAD
The two strata on and in which man moves are earth and the air space.
Heaven, which has the sky for its figure, is seen in this, its lower limit.
The worlds above this limit are light spaces. They are not seen by the
eye of man.
God Visnu is the support of this triple world (tridhdtu), but, unlike
the other gods who keep the vault of heaven high above this earth,
though he too did pillar asunder heaven and earth (7. 99. 3), this
operation, in a mode particular to Visnu only, unites the triple world.
With three strides (1. 154. 34) from here below he traverses and per-
vades this cosmos. Where his third footfall is, none can reach, not
even the birds in their flight (1. 155. 5). It is in the light space of heav-
en (1. 155. 3) where the source of the honey (madhvautsah; 1. 154. 5)
wells forth.
Visnu is not primarily a demiurge. Stepping out widely he pene-
trates and traverses the space which Indra creates (1. 154. 1; 8. 100.
12). He is both the pillar and the movement that links and fills the
triple world. The three strides of Vignu lead from this Tridhdtu, the
known and visible cosmos which he has penetrated, into a realm
beyond it, in the celestial worlds where the source of honey is hidden,
the celestial Soma and Agni Vai?vanara, the Fire, in the light worlds
whence the drink and spark of life descend to earth.
Above and beyond the triple world of the senses are the light worlds.
In the third and highest is the source of Soma. Each of these light
worlds (rocana) are light worlds throughout, though by homology
with the world here below they are similarly structured. Together
with this Tridhdtu they form the great ternary of the total creation.
In the beginning, in principio, they are "the six burdens" or three
dyadic monads which the One carries (3. 56. 2), each burden a monad
of two horizontally joined bowls, each monad (cf. 1. 164. 33) destined
to be divided and by the act of division to be separated. The separa-
tion, by which they will be kept apart, will make of each monad a
triple cosmos.
148

In this manifest world of earth, air, and heaven, heaven is the third
or highest part. This pattern is valid also in the other two worlds, the
light worlds. The third heaven is the highest part of the second light
world. It is thence that light irradiates the heavens. Whereas the two
light worlds are above the firmament, the three heavens vault over this
earth, the first, and over each of the two light worlds, the two other
heavens. The superstructure of the celestial light worlds rests on this
manifest Tridhdtu, the cosmos. Together with it, it forms the great
Ternary of Creation. The number three is transposed and includes the
transmundane superstructure (see Fig. 1, p. 155).
The third step of Visnu is the highest. Three is given a place value
in the vertical hierarchy. It is the celestial number. Lower down in the
edifice of which this world is the support, the number three denotes
the fact of creation. It is the creative number between Heaven and
Earth. The arena of its operation lies between them. But as creative
number, its value is higher than any of the two. This valuation assigns
to three the highest place in the light worlds of Heaven where the
light of Life and Inspiration wells forth. Three, the creative number,
is also the number of transcendence.
There is a heightening, vivifying, sanctifying quality to the number
three. Because it is the creative number, it is the place number of the
highest region in creation where the source is.
The creative act of Indra or any other demiurge is performed in
this world here, while the source of its creativity is in the transmun-
dane realm, in the flowing Light spaces beyond the sky.
Three as the number of creative action and source is the number
of the structure of creation of which the manifest cosmos is the base.
The Tridhdtuof the visible world with its heaven, earth, and midspace
is the paradigm for the trebling of this Tridhdtu; a towering cosmic
structure of three worlds, each with its Heaven, Earth, and Midspace,
is envisaged.
The transition from world to world has the pattern of a chain, or
triple guilloche. This pattern of creation has its symbol in the figure
of Aja Ekapad, "Goat One-Foot" or the "Uncreate One-Foot." "Aja"
means "a goat." It also means "uncreate." This figure is a symbol of
the One. It is asked: "What is the One in the shape of a goat (Aja)
or of the Uncreate (Aja) that has propped asunder the six spaces?"
(1. 164. 6). This One is further described as standing straight and
carrying three mothers and three fathers (1. 164. 10). The One carries
these six burdens without proceeding (acarat; 3. 56. 2). "Three earths
149

are below, one is visible."6 The three times two worlds of heaven and
earth are upheld and about to be propped apart by the non-proceeding
Goat One-Foot. It does not proceed into creation, while each world
is still a monad. The Aja stands firm as the axis of the pattern which
creation will have. It is a figure extending from the Uncreate which lies
beyond the third heaven, a flowing darkness of the Void (10. 129. 3).
The limit between the highest heaven of light and the restless waters
of the beyond is the point instant of creation, where "the One inheres
in the navel of the Uncreate" (10. 82. 6) or where the spark is lighted
in the creative heat (tapas) of That One in the darkness beyond and
before light. The source in the beyond, in the darkness of the limitless
flood, where That One is (10. 129), or the Golden Germ shoots up,
the Child of Fire, and Agni, the Fire, Son of the Waters, Apam
Napat, begets himself as his own son (tananapdt), is near to the source
of honey, the sweet secret, in the highest heaven. These two sources
are contiguous in their identity, on the threshold of creation; nothing
but the point instant of the creative act divides them. At the dawn
of creation, in the first age of the gods, in the highest heaven, the
Godhead reveals itself and proceeds into creation (carati; 3. 38. 4). Its
name is Tvatr-Savitr-Visvarupa, the Former, Impeller, All-form-to-
be (3. 55. 19; 10. 10. 5).
The scene plays at the moment of creation. Its light illumines the
darkness of the restless, indefatigable waters of the flood; their waves
now are waves of light in the third and highest heaven (parame
vyoman; 10. 5. 7). It is there that Agni is the First-Born of the world
order (rta), in the earliest aeon (purva dyuni), the age of the bull-cow
(10. 5. 7), of bisexual, monadic wholeness which is the mode of Agni
and of Visvaripa.
Hymn 3.56 sings of the cosmogonic stages in the triple structure
of creation. The One-who is Aja Ekapad-carries six burdens without
proceeding. Three earths are below, one is visible (3. 56. 2). These six
burdens are the three mothers and three fathers carried by the one
standing straight (1. 164. 10). Following the image of the original pair
of Heaven and Earth in the shape of two bowls (mah ... camvd
6A
hymn to Varuna (7.87) celebrates his creative operation. His breath roars
as wind into the space between the two worlds of heaven and earth (7. 87. 2).
Three heavens rest in him and three earths below, a group of six (7. 87. 5), the
six burdens of the non-proceeding One (3. 56. 2). It is at this vision that the singer
is given by Varuna the revelation of the thrice seven names of the cow, that is,
of the song itself: it holds the secret of creation.
The image of the non-proceeding One-Foot demarcates the position of this
Uncreate one. It is on the verge from and links ante principium to in principio.
The mythical figures ante principium are footless (apdd; 1. 32. 7; 4. 1. 11; see A. K.
Coomaraswamy, "Angel and Titan," JAOS, LV, 401). They are serpents, ophidian
powers.
150

sam?ckubhe, 3. 55. 20)-they were made by Tvaetr of equal size (ubhe
samwci,2. 27. 15)-the monad of Father Heaven and Mother Earth,
the six burdens are three such monads strung on the non-proceeding,
straight vertical of Goat One-Foot of the Uncreate One-Foot. For
creation which is to come about has not come as yet.
In the next stage, the bull Visvariipa is described having three bel-
lies, three udders, three faces (3. 56. 3). This vision arises at the entry
into creation where it will manifest as thrice three. For this to come
about a decisive action was taken. It was taken by Indra who "was
awakened in the decisive moment" as the path-maker of the celestial
rivers (3. 56. 4). He opened for them the paths into manifestation-
they had been held captive by Vrtra-and at the same time Indra
made manifestation itself by propping apart heaven and earth (5. 31.
6). These acts of creation are simultaneous; they do not take place
in time which has not come as yet to be. By the act of cosmic creation
Indra makes the monadic dual of the two bowls of Heaven and Earth
into a triple cosmos. The midspace is now between Heaven and Earth.
This creative act of Indra resounds in the triple creation which the
One carries. There are three earths below and three heavens. Only one
of these earths is visible. It is the lowest earth identical with Mother
Earth separated by Indra from Father Heaven when the midspace
or air came between them.
Each of the three earths lies below its heaven. The triple creation
has the pattern of this one triple cosmos of earth, air, and heaven, not
once only in this visible world, but also beyond it, in the light worlds
beyond this visible cosmos. Thus there are "thrice three homes
(sadhastha) of the seers" (3. 56. 5).
This pattern of creation has for its unit the bowls of heaven and
earth in their duality first and then in their separation with the mid-
space between them. The unit is trebled in the vertical direction.7
7 This pattern as reconstructed here differs from the generally accepted one
(A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology[Strassburg,1897], p. 9; also K. F. Geldner,
in the commentsof his translationof the 1RgVeda [Harvard,1951];and H. Liiders,
Varuna, Vol. I [Gottingen: Vandenhoech & Ruprecht], passim). According to
Macdonellthe figureof the triple creation does not result from a trebling but from
a subdivision of earth, air, and heaven, each of these being divided in three parts.
Thus three earths would lie below a triple heaven. Macdonellthinks that this triple
subdivision "arose from the loose use of the word 'prthivi' (earth) in the plural
to denote the three worlds."
In one hymn only (1. 108. 9, 10) does prthivistand for earth, air, and heaven,
being called the lowest, middle, and highest respectively (avama, madhyama,
parama). This appelation, however, refersto the three world strata superimposed.
Prthivi, earth, here is a synonym for "world" or region. It is difficult to see how
this use of the word could have brought about a triple subdivisionof Earth itself,
as well as of the midspace and Heaven. Besides, the triple subdivision of each of
151

The prefigurement of creation in the image of the Uncreate standing

straight and carrying six burdens, which he exceeds as the "seventh"
in this configuration has its sequel in later Indian cosmology with its
seven worlds. While the number symbolism is maintained, their verti-
cal arrangement is in two units of three, surmounted by the seventh
world, the "Satya loka." The three lowest worlds, Bhiuh, Bhuvah, and
Suvah, correspond to earth, air, heaven, the cosmos in its integrity.
This one cosmos, in its monadic state, ante principium as dyad of
heaven and earth, or its explicit ternary of earth, midspace, and
heaven, is the unit of the cosmological pattern.
The abstract diagram of the structure of creation ante principium
is the monadic dyad of heaven and earth as the unit of the six burdens
of the Uncreate:
Heaven
Earth
In principio, in the instant of creation the dyadic monad is split, the

midspace keeps heaven and earth apart:
Heaven
- Midspace --
This unit, transferred to the prefigurement of Aja Ekapad yields

the thrice three "homes of the seers."
The two light worlds beyond manifestation, though of light through-
out, are structured according to the pattern of the manifest cosmos.
Together with it they are the total creation. Three heavens rest in
him (Varuna) three earths below, forming an order of six" (7. 87. 5).
these three constituents of manifestation does not yield a meaningful pattern.

What is the cosmogonic or cosmological function of a three-partite earth under
its three-partite heaven?
Macdonell further remarks: "or when the universe is looked upon as consisting
of two halves we hear of six worlds." The six worlds and the thrice three worlds
are taken as alternatives. Their cosmogonic sequence is not seen.
152

"Three [are] the heavens, two [are] the lap of Savitr, one [is] in the
world of Yama, the ruler of men" (1. 35. 6). This one heaven is here
in this world ruled over by death, the other heavens are the light
worlds, the lap of Savitr, the Impeller who keeps this creation moving.
The highest heaven (9. 86. 15) is also the first (8. 13. 2) or most
ancient (9. 70. 1). It equals the "first age of the gods" (10. 72. 3), the
monadic entry into existence of which Agni the bull-cow is a symbol
and the bisexual Visvarupa. This first age of the gods is the state
of the bull-cow, the monad, the state also of Visvarupa the potential
of all forms to be. At this moment Tvastr made the two bowls of
Heaven-and-Earth.
Then heaven, midspace, earth form thrice a totality, each a triple
world. The second heaven, earth, midspace has no significance of its
own except to indicate the remoteness of the third, highest, or "first"
heaven.
The androgynous bull Visvaripa has "three bellies, three udders,
and multiple progeny. He, the three-faced, rules as the Mighty One.
He is the inseminating bull of all" (3. 56. 3). He has within himself
the triple cosmos which he inseminates and makes productive. Vis-
varfpa, All-form-to-be, has three faces for this triple aspect of the
Godhead: he carries also the faces of Tvastr and Savitr.8 Savitr impels
every activity, Tvastr shapes the forms which will give effect to it.
With his three faces, Visvaripa looks into the triple world-to-be and
he sees its becoming, which he, proceeding (3. 38. 4), has engendered.
At the moment when Visvarupa, proceeding into the cosmos, puts
on his splendors (3. 38. 4), Indra makes them manifest when he pillars
apart Heaven and Earth, introduces the midspace, air, and light so
that all forms which Visvaruipa carries within him become manifest
from the earth to the firmament in this visible triple cosmos. At this
moment, the act of the creator reverberates throughout creation, each
of the hitherto monadic worlds opens up its heaven and earth and
their two bowls hold each their midspace between them. At this mo-
ment, the six burdens which Aja Ekapad, Goat One-Foot, the Un-
create One-Foot, had carried, without proceeding, on its vertical axis
of the cosmos-to-be, are no longer in their stage of prefigurement. They
are the thrice three worlds in creation which Indra caused to exist and
where Agni dwells, the creative Fire.
But not all that was in the Uncreate, in the state of being "neither
existent nor non-existent," and became "existent as well as non-
existent" in the highest heaven, entered into the creative act. Obstruc-
8 The worlds rest in Varuna. They are set into motion by Savitr.
153

tion and recalcitrance assert themselves in the age of the bull-cow, at

the beginning of creation.
Visvarfipa has a son, also called Visvarfupa.Visvariipa, the son, also
has three heads. Visvarfupa, the son, did not let out the cows, the
"poetic"-creative powers. He was not "all forms to be." He was mere
form. He kept the cows to himself, within his comprehensive form.
Visvaruipa,the son, was a monster, a mis-creation. He had to be killed
by a god. Trita killed him. Indra cut off his heads and threw them
away (cf. 10. 8. 8-9; 10. 99. 6), into chaos. The three heads, over and
above their specific significance, mean mastery over the triple world
of the cosmos. Visvaruipa, the son, "mere form," had to forfeit it.
This world, the triple cosmos of Indra, is at the base of a super-
structure in which not this manifest cosmos only but creation itself
has its image. Its figures are the Goat One-Foot, the bull-cow Visva-
rupa and the Fire, Agni, as bull-cow. Goat One-Foot, or the Uncreate
One-Foot, is the prefigurement and scaffold of the edifice of creation.
Its traversing post extends from the Uncreate above and beyond cre-
ation into non-existence (asat) below creation. In creation its post
first traverses the highest heaven. There, in the first age of the gods
(10. 5. 7), on the perimeter and dividing point between the Uncreate
and creation, is the station of the Monad. The Monad is the wholeness
of the dyad, before dichotomy, on the threshold of creation, at the
moment when the "neither-nor" of existence and non-existence in the
Uncreate changes over into the simultaneity of existence and non-
existence. The monadic whole "existence-non-existence" is in the
highest heaven. There, too, is the bull-cow, a theriomorphic symbol
of the monadic wholeness of Agni or of Visvarupa. The stage of the
bull-cow or also of Visvarupa is coincident with the two closely fitting
bowls which Tvastr made (3. 55. 20). They are Heaven and Earth,
the bowl of Heaven lying above that of Earth. They form a closely
joined sphere, a monad. Indra terminates their intimacy which be-
longs to the first age of the gods. He props the two bowls apart, the
One Indra (3.30. 1), and upholds them. This pillaring apart is enacted
along the vertical axis of creation, prefigured by the One in the shape
of Aja, the Uncreate or the Goat.
Agni is a bull-cow at the beginning of things. Before that, in the
Uncreate, he is the Son of the Waters, Apam Napat. On the point
limit, in the highest heaven, Apam Napat changes over into Agni, the
bull-cow, which is the intermediate stage between Apam Napat, the
Son of the Waters, and Agni Vaisvanara, who "shines for all men."
These three phases in the cosmogonic entry of the Fire into creation
follow each other at once. Time begins only with Agni's form of Vais-
vanara whose visible symbol is the sun.
154

The three main forms of Agni, in the process of creation, are: Apam
Napat in the flood of the Uncreate, before and beyond creation; Vais-
vanara in Heaven, the light that shines for all men, and Jatavedas on
earth, the Knower of beings.
This great ternary of Agni in the process of creation is accompanied
by the triple manifestation of Fire in the visible cosmos, the sun in
heaven, lightning in the air, fire on earth. The great ternary of Agni
in creation is ontological and cosmogonic; his ternary in manifestation
AJA EKAPAD AGNI
Neither SAT nor ASAT TAD EKAM; HIRANYAGARBHA

APAMINAPAT
SAT as well as ASAT VISVARUPA

VAISVANARA
JATAVEDAS
asat
FIG. 1
is in the triple world of Indra. Indra and Agni are twin brothers
(6. 59. 2). They have the same father; he is Tvastr, Agni's father
(1. 95. 2). Agni is the elder of the twins. He dwelt in the Asura, the
Godhead, before Indra bade him to leave that ancient rule and join
him and the other gods (10. 124. 1-6). The prefigurement of the triple
structure of creation is carried by the One as Aja, the Uncreate or the
Goat. This is Aja Ekapad whose one foot is the vertical axis of the
cosmos-to-be. Unlike Agni, Aja does not proceed into creation. He
carries the three monads of the world-to-be.
These three times two which the non-proceeding One carries are his
six burdens. They are strung on his traversing rod. He is the One; in
155

The Triple Structure of Creationin the Rg Veda
the total constellation of the as-yet-undivided structure of creation,

he is the seventh. If this pervasive relation is realized in its potency
in each of the three worlds, three times seven, or twenty-one, is the
number for the total of cosmos and metacosmos, prior to manifesta-
tion.
It is therefore said that the cow (aghnyd;lit. "the inviolable"), that
is, sacred speech, has thrice seven names. They should be taught in
secret (7. 87. 4). They hold the mystery of creation.
In the manifest cosmos the space between heaven and earth is filled
with air and light. In the two transcendental worlds it is filled with
light. The light worlds are altogether luminous up to the ultimate be-
yond where Vi~nu's third step touches the "source of honey."
All these worlds are truly existent, factually or as inwardly beheld
realities. By the act of Indra, each now is ordered according to the
principle of creation, the principle of "three." "Three is the formula
of the created worlds. It is the spiritual sign of creation," Balzac
makes Louis Lambert say.
This created world, the Sat, the existent, upheld by the demiurge
and traversed by the "One-Foot," is above the residual, abysmal dark-
ness below in the non-existent, where the dark waters of chaos flow
over Vrtra, the arch-enemy, the Serpent, and his mother, Danu, both
slain by Indra (1. 32. 9-10). Vrtra sinks into long darkness (dirgham
tama). His body is buried in the midst of the never resting waters
(1. 32. 10). This darkness (tamas) is as it was before the beginning of
things, with the difference that creation lies between them. The dark
waters of the asat, of chaos, fill the lap of Nirrti. She is decomposition
(7. 57. 1), absence of order herself. Apud principium, when the cosmos
had come to exist, the abyss of non-existence lies below creation. The
ternary which comprises the state beyond creation, the cosmos, and
that below creation derives its structure from the process of creation
itself.
At the source, beyond creation, there is neither existence nor non-
existence. Asat as well as Sat, monadically conjoint, occupy in the
highest heaven the stage verging on creation, prior to existence, the
Sat. Sat, the existent, has its own polarity in the disintegration in the
dark, watery tomb, without rta or cosmic order, where Nirrti rules,
decomposition, disorder, decease (cf. 1. 164. 32). The polarity of the
One and the abysmal flood before creation give way, after creation,
to the polarity of the thrice triple cosmos, the Sat, the existent, upheld
and traversed by the One, and the abysmal darkness of chaos below
the existent.
The darkness of Nirrti is disintegration in the deepest pit, below
156

this earth. The darkness which was in the beginning is timelessly above
and beyond the entire creation. It borders on the light of the highest
heaven. It was and is the superluminous darkness which holds the
secret and the source of the light of creation.
The three triple worlds, the entire creation, are contained in God.
As the Impeller, God "Savitr in his greatness incloses the three mid-
spaces, the three extents, the three light spaces. He sets moving the
three heavens, the three earths. By three commitments he protects
us" (4. 53. 5). The three midspaces, the three light spaces, are the
three extents between heaven and earth of each world.9 They are the
realms of consciousness, of everything that moves between heaven and
earth of each world. Two of the three heavens are the "lap of Savitr,
the one is in the world of Yama who rules over men" (1. 35. 6).
Yama rules over mortal men. Their death in this, our world, is also
"impelled" by Savitr. If Savitr, the Impeller, sets the triple world in
motion, TvaStr-Visvarupa makes each being in its proper form.
The three heads of Visvariipa, the Father, mean rulership over the
triple creation. Visvarupa, the Son, forfeited it. His heads were cut off.
The three heads are not exclusive to the Visvarfpa family and their
mastery or loss of it over all forms to be in the triple creation.
Soma, the elixir of life and drink of inspiration, also has three heads.
Soma operates on all three levels within man which are the three
worlds which he commands with his three heads (9. 73. 1). He is a
bull, a power that has also three backs (7. 37. 1; 9. 71. 7; 9. 75. 3;
9. 90. 2; 9. 106. 11), for the Soma drink is prepared thrice a day for
the three sacrifices of morning, midday, and evening. Three lifts the
sacrifices from their position in time, into the three abiding realms.
The homology of cosmic space is with sacred time and not with the
passing hour of temporality.
Because the three worlds are in God, God is in each of them. Agni,
who, like Soma, has three heads (1. 146. 1), has three dwellings (5. 4. 8;
5. 11. 2; 6. 8. 7; 6. 12. 2; 8. 94. 5; 10. 61. 14) in the three worlds, whose
equivalents here below are the three daily sacrifices and the three
hearths of the sacrifice. Brhaspati (4. 50. 1), Lord of hymnal elation,
and Sarasvati, the goddess of hymnal expression (6. 61. 12), too, have
each three dwellings; they are realized and are active on all three levels
of consciousness.
Because there are three worlds, three glorious bulls are said to be
their inseminators (5. 69. 2). "Three seed the three worlds; three [are
the] loyal issues with their leading light" (7. 33. 7). Viewed from above,
9 This midspace here in this world is assimilated to that of the
light worlds.
157

the One traverses and carries the diversified creation in its triple
structure. Viewed from here below he is fully apprehended on each
level. The vertical, descending, and ascending perspectives show the
leading light in the highest heaven as one in its comprehensive gran-
deur and as three in its activity in the three worlds. The special ac-
tivity in each world manifests under a special name. It is Surya, the
Sun in the sky, Vata, the Gale-with the lightning-in the midspace,
and Agni, the Fire on earth. In each stratum the respective divinity
protects from the dangers, from the destructive possibilities particular
on that level (cf. 10. 158. 1). There are also three Nirrtis (10. 114. 2),
three awful goddesses or principles of disintegration, which seize the
cosmos and the faculties in man that are exercised on each of the three
levels. Against and in spite of them, there is the loyal triple progeny
(7. 33. 7) with their leading light. Theirs are the "three voices" (tisro
vdcah;7. 101. 1).10They are led by Agni, the illumination, who is the
charioteer of the chariot, which is the Sacrifice. The three voices express
the insight into cosmic and sacrificial law (rtasya dh7tim)and the wis-
dom of the sacred, magic word (brahma.o man.sdm; 9. 97. 34). They
are the voices of the priests, of the cows, and of Soma (9. 33. 4). The
cows are the hymns (9. 50. 2). The three voices are the audible voice
of the inspired priest, the form in which this voice is heard as song or
poem and the inner voice of Soma, the source of inspiration. The total
of these voices constitutes the three bodies (tanu) of Light (sukra;
10. 107. 6). They are the seed (sukra) of the three inseminating bulls.
At the beginning of things, by forces antagonistic to creation, the
cows were withheld by Visvariipa, the son, and primordial darkness
was made to stay on. The Panis, moreover, the misers and fiends, held
imprisoned in a cavern the dawn, the sun, and the song. The song
or hymn is a cow. From the dark waters of the cave, Brhaspati releases
10Tisra prajd dryd jyotiragrdh are generally taken to be three Aryan creatures
or three Aryan generations. Who are these Aryan exponents and their leading
light? Geldner doubts whether they are the three voices (op. cit., II, 212). Arya
is derived from ari, whose meaning ranges from "true" to "inimical," from ar or
r, to set into motion. (See 7. 33. 7.)
The three voices with their leading light (tisra vdcah jyotiragrdh; 7. 101. 1) are
the three voices specified in 9. 33. 4 and 9. 97. 34. They are those of the priest,
of the "cows" and of the Soma-stream preceded by illumination, that is, led by
Agni, the "light," who is their charioteer. They are also called the three Vidathani
or domains of knowledge of which Sfrya is cognizant (6. 51. 2). There are many
gods with the eye of Sirya and the tongue of Agni who govern the three Vidathani
with insight (7. 66. 10). On the terrestrial plane, the three Vidathani are the three
daily sacrifices (cf. 3. 56. 5) at sunrise, midday, and sunset (5. 76. 3; 8. 1. 29;
10. 151. 5).
In the cosmos, three Usases, three dawns of the three worlds (3. 17. 3; 8. 41. 3;
7. 33. 7), correspond to the three voices. In the beginning, song and the dawn
are liberated by Brhaspati (10. 67. 5).
158

the three, the dawn, the sun, and the song-cow. He opened the three
doors of the cave-fortress and let out, by the two doors below and one
above, the cows who had been fettered and hidden in the chaos of
lawlessness (anrta; 10. 67. 3-5). The two doors below let the sun shine
and the dawn arise for this world; the door above, the third, lets the
song soar to its destination. Indra then, by his roar, cuts up Vala, the
"incloser," the Pani, the guardian of the cows, and drives away his
cows.
Indra's strength is inexhaustible. He absorbs it by drinking from
three vessels (1. 32. 3; 2. 11. 17; 2. 15. 1; 2. 22. 1) Soma, the elixir
of life, which is pressed on earth, and grows on the mountain-top of
the world near the firmament1lin the air space; its inexhaustible well
is in the third Light space (9. 74. 6). Each of these three worlds is
impelled by Savitr and redeems the commitments (vrata) of Varuna
(4. 53. 5). They are binding for all, for Sunas~epa who, imprisoned,
was tied to three stakes (drupada; 1. 24. 13) and for the sacrificial
horse, the solar horse, whose three bonds are on the firmament and
in the ocean of light and the waters of the flood, at the source (cf.
1. 163. 1-4).12
Three, the number of creative connectedness, is also that of the
physical unit of three human generations (prajdh;8. 90. 14). This bond
is forged for mortal man by Varuna-its name is Time. From his
standpoint in time, man extends his perspective into the timelessness
of creation. He sees beyond the time when the gods were born, three
aeons before them when the herbs came to exist (10. 97. 1) under
Soma, their king (10. 97. 18).
Committed to the world of time, man ties the sacred number three
to the passing show of life, where three generations form a unit of
lived time below the sun and the light spaces of heaven. "Threefold
are the highest light spaces, difficult to reach" (3. 56. 8).
They are nearest to the darkness before creation. Its waters feed
the well of Soma (1. 154. 5) in the third and highest light space, while
Agni, the Fire, is born in their lap (10. 45. 3).
Indra, who creates the cosmos, is the "third." He divides the Sat
and the Asat; he makes into two the dyadic monad of heaven and
earth and keeps firm and separate these two bowls. He places this
cosmos, the Sat, the existent, in its threefold structure of earth,
1 Soma is the mountain-dwelling
bull; he is milked on the firmament of heaven
(9. 85. 10).
12 The sun-horse arises from
the ocean, on the firmament, and from the waters
of the source in the flowing light of heaven, where it is one with Trita ("the Third")
and not far removed from Soma (1. 163. 3). The source of this Pegasus is at the
beginning of things and time.
159

midspace, and heaven between the fathomless beyond which is prior

to the beginning of things and the asat, the abyss of non-existence.
With the four-edged Vajra as his weapon, god Indra consolidates his
rule over this world, in the four directions, with the course of the sun,
against the Asuras. This is the tremendous (rghavan) spell voiced by
the seers: "The terrible quadrilateral slays the trilateral. The god-
haters aged first" (1. 152.2). They are the Titans, the Asuras, who were
the Godhead. With the four-edged Vajra as his weapon (1. 152. 2;
4. 22. 2), Indra puts an end to the efficacy of the cosmogonic "three."
The new world which he brought about is ordered by the number
four.'3 In creating the world, Indra's sacred number is three, but he
establishes his rule by the number four. Four are his names under
which he performed his deeds (10. 54. 4; 8. 80. 9). He was helped by
Trita, whose name means "the Third."
III. THE GREAT TERNARY: THE THREE BIRTHS OF AGNI, THE FIRE
Three, the number of creation, separates the two who are heaven and
earth, makes them cognizant of each other and connects them by the
same distance which it has caused between them, and filled. Three in
its decisive value is the number of consciousness, confronting the
polarities which it makes manifest. It is the first number of action,
follows cosmogonically the being of One and the polarity of two. It
is the number of Indra creating this cosmos.14
Agni, the Fire, is not only the twin brother of Indra (6. 59. 2), he
forms a dual divinity with Indra; their duality shows them not only
complementary to each other in the distinctiveness of their nature or
mode of operation, but also conjoint in their function-the one sharing
in the potency of the other. Agni is beheld in the orbit of Indra's
activity (1. 109. 7, 8; 3. 12. 6; 5. 86. 2; 8. 38. 3), and Indra is beheld
in that of Agni (1. 21. 5; 8. 38. 1; 8. 40. 3). They are united in the
distinction of their conjoint nature. Their conjunction belongs to the
second act of the drama of creation. In the first act, in the highest
heaven, the dual divinity Heaven-and-Earth was a monadic dyad,
undifferentiated in its wholeness. The dual divinity Indragni is neither
18 The supercession of three by four seems to run contrary to the role of three
in Indra's operation and to the significance of three in the cosmic and metacosmic
structure. The shifting of emphasis from three to four focuses on this manifest
world under the sun, the tridhatu as it lies open to the eye. This tremendous truth
(satya mantra; 1. 52. 2) has a foreboding undertone, a prescience by the seer of
a lost home in the realm of the Asura.
14Cf. n. 13. While three is the number of Indra as
creator, bringing about crea-
tion, the number of Indra by which he has established his creation, this world,
is four (10. 54. 4). With all the jubilation about Indra a voice of doubt is raised:
"About whom they ask: Where is he, the awesome? and they say of him: he is
not" (2. 12. 5; cf. 8. 100. 3).
160

a monad nor a pair but a mixta persona in which these two great gods
operate.
Three in its cosmic and metacosmic pertinence is most essentially
the number of Agni. He has three birth places (1. 95. 3). He is "first
born from heaven, the second time from us, the Knower of beings
(jdtavedas), the third time the seer's mind (nrma.nd)l5has awakened
him with awe" (svddhTh;10. 45. 1). "Thee, dwelling in the ocean
(samudra), in the waters (apsu), the seer's mind (nrmacna)has kindled,
Thee, dwelling in the udder of the sky the seer's vision (nrcaksd)16has
lighted. Thee, dwelling in the third realm (rajas), in the lap of the
waters (apdm upasthe), the buffaloes brought up" (10. 45. 3).
Agni, the Fire, "clads himself in flames and in the vital force of the
waters" (ayur apdm; 3. 1. 5). He is the spark of life in the waters and
in the plants (10. 51. 3). The vision of the seer beholds the Fire in the
sun; the mind of the seer knows of the life-creating Fire in the water,
in the ocean. The ocean represents water in sea and air, water in its
totality in creation, under the sun. This ocean is the earthly corre-
spondence to the primeval flood as it was before and in the beginning
where it is the source of life to be. It is the maternal "lap of the
waters" where Agni was brought up by buffaloes. The buffaloes seize
Agni in the lap of the waters (6. 8. 4). It is a play of hide and seek
for Agni is hidden, as secret knowledge, in the lap of the waters, where
he, himself a buffalo, grew up (10. 8. 1). Buffaloes are large and
mighty; their name, mahi?a, has this meaning. The gods generally are
spoken of as bulls, but also as buffaloes; the latter designation the
godlike seers and singers also arrogate to themselves. It is their mind
which conceives Agni in the ocean and awakens him in the lap of the
waters where the gods, the seers, and sages rear him.
The lap of the waters, their womb, and origin none can see. It lies
beyond the heavens and the sky where the sun shines. It extends in
the darkness of the flood before creation whence everything was to
come forth. This is the home of Agni. In its boundless width he grows
15For nrmanas, the hero's mind, cf. nrmedha (10. 80. 3; 10. 132. 7). The hero
is the priest or singer or a god. Geldner, op. cit., III, 201, translates: "he who thinks
like a ruler." Nr means man but also god and frequently designates gods and men.
H. Grassmann (Worterbuch zum Rig Veda [Wiesbaden, 1955]), suggests hero as a
comprehensive term. Nrmanas is one with the mind of a hero.
16
Nrcaksd here similarly means the glance of a seer and refers to the vision
of the seer. Applied to a god, nrcaksd means "illuminating man." "Agni, in thy
strength... is the scintillating, flowing, shining light, illuminating man" (nrcak-
sdh; 3. 22. 2). Geldner translates: "Which has the eyes of a ruler," following the
commentary's explanation "looking at man as spectator." In 10. 87. 10, Agni is
invoked to defeat with his lordly eye (nrcaksd) the dark fiend (raksas). The transi-
tive meaning only is given by Grassmann, op. cit.; L. Renou, Etudes vediques et
padzinennes, IV, (Paris 1958), p. 46, calls the word equivocal, perhaps intentionally,
161

up in secret (3. 1. 14), sitting in the lap of the waters, wrapped in

endless darkness (4. 1. 7) and generated by the singer (10. 46. 1);
"the pure light, the radiant Lord" (4. 1. 7). The dark buffaloes, semi-
aquatic animals, sport in the flood of the cosmic night. There Agni
was born firstl7 (jayata prathamah). "He was born first in the rivers
on the ground (budhne) of the great, in the lap (yonau) of this dark
space (rajaso),l8 without feet, without head, hiding both his ends, in
the nest of the bull" (4. 1. 11).19As deus absconditusAgni is hidden,
17 In 10. 45. 1
Agni is born first from heaven, i.e., in the cosmos; he manifests
first as sun. His highest birth, however, is his first birth in the Uncreate. Beheld
from here below it is his highest or "third" birth. Whereas Agni is born first in
the darkness before creation, ante principium, in cosmic darkness, Piusan arises
in the pit, in man's dark hour. These two darknesses lie on the same line, opposed
to each other. The darkness in the pit is apud principium in creation, in man, the
creature, the microcosm; see Kramrisch, "Pfiuan," JAOS, LXXXI, 107.
The dark color is that of cosmic night, thence of the enemy of light. The shape
of the buffalo (mahisa), a powerful semi-aquatic animal of dark color, is in Hindu-
ism the Vahana of Yama whose meaning in post-Vedic times is "Death." The
buffalo as embodiment of the world evil is Mahisasura, the antagonist of the Great
Goddess. He is defeated by her, the Mahisasuramardani, and this conquest is
celebrated each year in the Dfurgapuja, one of the greatest Hindu festivals.
18 The dark
space (krsnam rajas) is that of cosmic night, before creation and
thus above the light worlds to be created. It is the same dark space whence Savitr
moves hither (1. 35. 2) to this cosmos, to this heaven of ours (1. 35. 9) in his might
(1. 35. 4), [which is that of] the dark (fathomless) spaces (krsnd rajdisi tavis.m
dadhdnah). To these dark superluminous spaces lies "opposite" the darkness on
earth, at the feet of Agni Jatavedas (8. 43. 6), which he leaves behind in his course.
They are both designated by the same words (krsnd rajdinsi). This has led Geldner,
following Sayan.a, to locate in the "waters" on the ground of the air space on earth,
the ground of the great dark space (maho budhne rajaso asya yonau; 4. 1. 11); and
note by Geldner, I, 414. This fundamental misunderstanding of the situation is
inexplicable, for Geldner refers to the "first birth" of Agni in his notes to 4. 1. 11.
This first birth is hymned in 2.35 and its place is pade parame; in the highest realm
(2. 35. 14).
The misunderstanding of the cosmogonic myth and its ontological structure has
a very long history. It is established by Yaska, Nirukta, 7. 26 who explains Agni
"seated in the lap of the waters" as "in the mighty world of the atmosphere."
He assigns the beyond to the midspace or air of this our world. Grassmann, op.
cit., "tanfnapat", equates Apam Napat with lightning. Apam Napat, the trans-
cendental Fire is "clad in lightning" (vidyutam vasdnah; 2. 35. 9). This is his self-
assumed, visible raiment.
If Agni as Apam Napat would be the lightning in the midspace or atmosphere,
the lap of rta, the source of cosmic order (3. 1. 11) would also be situated in mid-
space.
The three births of Agni exceed this tridhdtu, this manifest world of heaven,
air, and midspace.
From the darkness where Agni has his highest birth stems also the darkness
by which are impregnated those whom Indra destroys (1. 101. 1; 2. 20. 7). Dark-
ness, as the color of chaos, belongs to those who, as its embodiments, are the enemies
of the light of creation. They are part of the dark, inimical side of the Asura. The
downward direction hitherward from the heights where Agni is first born, has its
counter-movement in Agni Jatavedas ascending as flame from t he burnt, dark fuel
and smoke which Agni leaves behind as his "black track" (krsa jaihas; 1. 141. 7;
cf. 2. 4. 7; 8. 23. 19; 8. 43. 6; 1. 141. 7; 7. 8. 2; 1. 140. 3; 1. 140. 5; 6. 6. 1).
19The "nest of the bull" is also the "lap of Rta" (4. 1. 12; rtasya yoni) or the
source of cosmic order. The homology with the Fire altar (rtasya ndbhi; 10. 13. 3)
rings through these words.
162

withdrawn into himself, inactive. In this third and highest birth
which is not manifest, he is his own embryo in the "nest of the bull,"
the transcendental realm. He neither sees-he has no head-nor brings
the light-he has no feet. He is hidden and withdrawn, seed and
embryo of the waters (apdm garbha; 3. 1. 12),2?realized in his trans-
cendental origin and birthplace. It is there that the seer's mind has
awakened him with awe (10. 45. 1). The place of birth indicates the
level on which the nature of a god is realized. The highest birth place
is transcendent or beyond creation. And he is born again in creation,
not far from his first birthplace. He is born in the highest heaven
(6. 8. 2) at the crest of the noumenal cosmos (see Fig. 1).
In creation Agni is born in the highest heaven (parame vyoman) as
Vaisvanara, "belonging to all men." He drove apart heaven and earth
(rodasz; 6. 8. 2-3) as Indra did; he also measured out the air space
which lay in darkness (tamas) between heaven and earth. He separated
this darkness by light. He is the light that shines in and around the
sun, a flood of sun (10. 8. 3), and he is the light of inspiration (bhargah).
"His name is Bhargah... his name is Agni and Jatavedas" (10. 61.
14). In creation, Agni, the Fire, is Vaisvanara whose light fills the
heavens. From heaven it shines and enlightens men. His glory is the
sparkling, flowing light, by which he illumines man (3. 22. 2).
And he is Jatavedas, of many births (3. 1. 20), the knower of births
(1. 70. 1), the knower of all that lives, where the mind of the seer
kindles him in the ocean, in the waters (10. 45. 3), for he is in the plants
and in the waters (3. 22. 2), the spark of life, the vital force of the
waters (cf. 3. 1. 5) that sustains all living beings. As Vaisvanara, he
illumines them. As Jatavedas, he knows them from the inside, from
within their sap; he is the knower of beings, Jatavedas, who knows
all beings (visvd veda janimd jatavedas; 6. 15. 13). Him, who knows
them all (visvavedasam),the Bhrgus, the "effulgent", the seers, had
found (10. 46. 2) on his flight. They put him who is in the wood of
the tree (vanaspati; 6. 15. 2) in the "navel of the earth" (1. 143. 4),
the place of sacrifice. So he was "born" on earth from the seers (10.
45. 1). He is in plants and trees, in their sap, which is part of the water
on earth. Agni's domain is in the waters. It is there that Varuna, who
placed the sun in the sky and the milk in the cows, had placed him
(5. 85. 2). Agni, the vegetative fire, sustains all living beings; as Jata-
vedas he knows them in their substance, he is their living, burning
fire which also burns them up, extinguishes them and is born again
20 To this
day in India, the age of a person is not counted from his birth, but
from his conception, the first coming into existence-corresponding to the first
birth of Agni.
163

in new wombs and fresh shoots (cf. 8.43. 7, 9). In his ageless knowledge
he sings of himself: "I am Agni, by birth Jatavedas-ageless, glowing
Fire; sacrifice I am" (3. 26. 7). As sacrifice he flames up on "the navel
of the earth," the sacrificial altar, leaving below him what has been
burned up, a darkness reminiscent of that at the bottom of the "great
space," the lap of darkness (4. 1. 11), where he was born first, in the
flood. The sacrificial Fire on earth has its archetype before creation,
when Agni, the seed of life, glowed in the restless waters, full of
potentiality in the darkness of the flood. There Agni has his "highest
name" which is secret (ndma paramam guha), known only to the seers
and poets-as is the source (utsa) whence he came (10. 45. 2). The
"dear (cdru) name" of Agni at the source (purisya; cf. 3. 22. 4), his
person, grows in secret (ndmdpicyam; 2. 35. 11) as son of the waters
(apdm napat). He shines in the water (of the flood) without kindling
(10. 30. 4). This son of the waters born in the beginning, is "ancient,"
precedes all ages, is the origin of any fire that ever was to burn on
earth. From even existing, the child of the waters is the "hoary king"
(pratna rajan; 10. 4. 1) of all the fires that burn on earth. Each one
of them, as it is kindled by man is the youngest (yavi.tha; 10. 4. 2;
3. 9. 6). Agni, the Fire, the ever ancient, and ever youngest, as
knower of beings (Jatavedas) is a triple radiance (cf. 3. 26. 7), out of
chaos, in the cosmos, with its light worlds on high and this earth
below. These are his three domains. The wavy dark flood of chaos
before and beyond creation; the flowing light of heaven; and this
earth, with its plants and trees and stones even whence the spark
springs forth, their child (garbha; 1. 70. 4; 2. 1. 1) and life (ayu;
10. 20. 7), this earth where the sacrificer fathers Agni on the altar of
the sacrifice (1, 27. 2; 2. 1. 9; 2. 13. 4; 5. 3. 9, 10).21Here, too, on earth,
Agni, who is "One Fire only that is kindled manifold" (1027. 2), is
born as Yama, the god who chose to become mortal (10. 13. 4), the
lover of maidens, the husband of women. As Yama he causes the
coming generations (1. 66. 8), transmits the spark of life to men in
whom the flame of desire will lead to life and death. This is how
Jatavedas, the knower of generation, is known to living beings. He
is known to them in the flame of the sacrifice whence he ascends to
heaven. His birth here below on the sacrificial altar is prefigured by
21 The
ground here on earth, the altar, is the "ground of the buffalo" (1. 95. 9;
1. 141. 3). Here Agni is freed from the shape of the buffalo, his shape in the Un-
create, by the SQri on whose behalf the sacrifice is performed by Matari?van, the
priest who kindles the fire. It is here, on the ground of this space (budhne rajasah)
that the gods appointed Agni as ordainer of heaven and earth (2. 2. 3), an eternal
avatarana and sarvajnana" A. K. Coomaraswamy, Recollection, Indian and Pla-
tonic, JAOS, Supplement 3 (1944), p. 33.
164

his birth in the waves of the flood. This is ontologically Agni's first
birth, the third and ultimate in his hierarchy, before creation, in
transcendental darkness. The transcendental Agni, the causal Fire
hidden in its source, secret in its name, is Apam Napat, Son of the
Waters. The celestial Agni, "born in the highest heaven" (6. 8. 2; cf.
7. 13. 3) is Vaisvanara, who belongs to and enlightens all beings, from
the flood (arnam) of the light of heaven (cf. 3. 22. 3) where he was
born and, incandescent in his might, his flame illumined heaven and
earth" (1. 143. 2).
Agni, born in the highest heaven, revealed himself to Matarisvan
(1. 143. 2). He is said to be first born from heaven (10. 45. 1). This
does not contradict his highest birth in the flood, in the Uncreate
(4. 1. 11). In creation, he is first born from heaven. His highest birth
is the one before creation, the hidden birth of mystery. It is there that
he has been "awakened with awe" (10. 45. 1) by the mind of the seer.
This, his highest birth, in cosmic night, beyond and before any light
of heaven, is also called the third (10. 45. 1), the highest attainable
to the mind of the seer, the most remote, most secret and sacred (1.
95. 3,4).
IV. AGNI AS SON OF THE WATERS, APAM NAPAT, IN THE GREAT
DARK SPACE ("RAJAS")
Agni "was first born in the rivers, at the bottom (budhne)of the great,
in the lap of this space (rajas), without feet, without head, hiding both
his ends, in the nest of the bull" (4. 1. 11). "In the rivers established,
Trita [Agni] sat ensconced in the lap" (10. 46. 6).22
The rivers at the bottom of the great, in the lap of this space (maho
budhnerajaso) are situated in the ominous dark space beyond creation,
in the ground of being, the cause of existence, the realm of the Asura,
beyond, before, and where he became Light.23This is the "great space"
or transcendental space. In the ground of this space (budhne rajaso;
2. 2. 3) arises he "who shines in the waters without fuel, whom the
deeply moved seers (vipra) invoke as Apam Napat (10. 30. 4), the
22
Agni is here called Trita, for not only was he found by Trita, which means
"the Third," but this number has its special reference to the hidden Agni, his
birth, the "third."
23
Rajas means originally "dark space" (Grassmann, op. cit.). Its darkness is
deepened by the adjective kr.nam (1. 35. 2, 4, 9). The dark, dark space of cosmic
night, before and beyond creation, in the above passages designates the transcen-
dental space whence Savitr descends into the world of man. This transcendental
space has its symbol on earth in the darkness from which the flame of the sacrificial
fire arises (8. 43. 6).
Budhna means the ground. Yaska, (Nirukta, 10. 44), refers it to the air space
(rajas), the waters or vapors of the air. Sayana similarly thinks of the bottom of
the air space, on earth, or in the waters, respectively, in 7. 34. 16.
165

Son of the Waters.24He is asked to "give the sweet water" (10. 30. 4),
the drink of immortality, the drink of life. This son and germ of the
waters (apam garbha; 3. 1. 12), in the lap of the waters (10. 45. 3;
apdm upasthe), "has grown, as it were, secretly in his home, in the
midst of the sea (urva) that has no yonder shore" (3. 1. 14). The lap
of the waters is the lap of .Rta,cosmic order and the norm of existence.
The lap of Rta is a secret place, in the ground of the limitless flood.
This secret place is also known as the nest of the bull (rtasya yond
vrsabhasya n7de; 4. 1. 12; cf. 4. 1. 11). It is the place where life is
hatched and sprouts, the place of mystery or creation. As germ of the
waters (apdm garbha), he who is their son, Apam Napat, enters the
plants (7. 9. 3). The plants are known to have come into existence
three ages before the gods (10. 97. 1). Their sap ascends near to the
waters of the flood; they hold the vital spark which will be coaxed
from the dry wood and flame up as fire on earth. He who is the "germ
of the waters, germ of the trees, germ of what stands and moves
(1. 70. 3) is Apam Napat, son of the waters," who fecundates the
waters (7. 35. 13) who surround him, the seven voices or melodies
(sapta vdZaih; 3. 1. 6).25 The fecund streams, the voices or melodies are
sisters, seven in number (3. 1. 6; 1. 164. 24). The seven flowing currents
in transcendency are the shape of the seven voices of the I.sis, the
seers, (9. 103. 3), their melodies flow in their meters. They carry the
sevenfold sacred concentration (dhzti) of the seven officiating priests
of the sacrifice.2 As their expression, they are the seven concentrations
(dhFtayah;9. 8. 4; 9. 15. 8). They are the seven sisters of the Hotr,
the main priest, the sacrificer (9. 10. 7). The seven sisters sing (asvaran
sapta jdmayah; 9. 66. 8), their harmony is that of the musical scale
24 Apam
Napat, from the Nirukta of the fifth century B.C. to recent Western
interpretation(A. A. Macdonell, VedicMythology,p. 40), is classifiedas an "atmos-
pheric god" and "appearsto representthe lightning form of Agni," or he is con-
sideredan ancient water god (L. Renou, L'lnde classique[Paris, 1947],I, 326). The
triple abode of fire is seen in the flame on the (sacrificial)hearth, the lightning,
and the sun. As shown, Agni appears clothed in lightning. Lightning is to him as
a raiment of manifestation;it is not his third station in creation. The three stations
of Agni are not contained within this physical world. Even A. Bergaigne (La
Religionvedique,II [Paris, 1882], 17), speaks of the celestial ocean and the clouds
by which Apam Napat is enveloped, for he is lightning itself (p. 19). Although
Bergaigne distinguishes the station of Apam Napat as the supreme station as
opposed to his birth in heaven and that on the altar, the supreme station neces-
sarily is above heaven and earth and not between them. It is before and above the
dawn of this world, at the source, in the waters of the flood, which precede the
waters in creation whether in heaven, in the air, or in the ocean.
25 The
identity is establishedof the waters (rivers,streams,or currents) (3. 1. 11;
2. 35. 4, 5) with the seven restless streams (3. 1. 4) and the seven voices (vanZh;
3. 1. 6).
26 The seven
priests are the Hotr, Potr, Nestr, Agnidh, Prasastr,Adhvaryu,and
Brahman (cf. Satapatha Brahmana, 6. 3. 7. 11).
166

made of seven notes27 (svara). These sounding streams or currents of
sacred concentration flow around the Son of the Waters, Apam Napat.
They flow in the beyond, steeped in their resonance in undefined
space. Their vibrations are those of the golden light in which Apam
Napat begins to glow, whom they surround (cf. 2. 35. 3). Now they
are themselves fiery golden (2. 35. 9), the restless currents, the seven
melodies. They are made of the "inexhaustible" (aksaren^amimate
sapta vd.nth; 1. 164. 24).28 Waves of the music of the spheres-to-be
encircle the Son of the Waters, the Light of illumination. His relation
to these mermaids of the flood of transcendency is sung in hymn 2.35:29
2. Apam Napat, the Son of the Waters,the gracious,in his Asura-might30
has generatedall the beings.
3. Whilesome riversflowtogether,othersflow into the ocean;the riversfill
the commonpool. This shining,radiantSon of the Waterssurroundthe
shiningwaters.
4. Without a smile the maidens,the waters, surroundhim and adornthe
youth....
5. Threewomeneagerlygive nourishmentto him, the goddessesto the god,
that he may not falter.31He reachedout in the watersas for his mothers
he suckedtheir first milk who had bornefor the first time.
6. There is the birthplace of the horse and of this sun....32
7. The Son of the Waters,full of the sap in the waters,glowsto give treas-
ures to the devotee.
8. He whoshinesfarin lucent,godly[glory],trueandinextinguishable, propa-
gates as his branchesthe other beingsand the plants,with their progeny.
9. For the Son of the Waters,clad in the light of lightning[vidyat],has
mountedtheir lap, standing erect while they lie. Carryinghis greatest
majesty, the golden-glowing,restlessmaidensencirclehim.
27These bring to mind the seven planets and the harmony of the spheres.
28
Ak?ara,a-ksarameans inexhaustibleas the water of a spring. It also signifies
syllable and speech. Geldner, I, p. 232, translates: mit der Silbe bildetensie die
sieben Stimmen. This translation takes the seven voices literally as those of the
priests. The physical reality of the seven voices is the audible symbol of the
flowing splendor of the transcendentalwaters. This meaning is not onilyimplied.
It is expressed in the following verse (1. 164. 25) where it is said that the priest
fixed the stream in heaven with the Jagat song-or verse of twelve syllables-and
discovered the sun with the Rathantara verse or melody.
29Verses and parts of verses which in this
hymn refer to the sacrificialfire on
earth only are not translated.
30The might or power of the Asura is maya, from
/ima, "to measure," the
magic act of measuringor of creating all measurablethings.
31 The three river goddesses are Ila, Sarasvati, and Bharati
(Say), the goddess
Libation (I.a), the goddess of forth-pouringabsorptionin god (Bharati), and the
goddess Speech or Song.
32 The horse as solar animal and as the sun are one. Their origin or birthplace
is near the waters of the flood beyond the heavens, at the source, in the highest
heaven.
167

10. Goldenin his beauty, of fiery appearanceis the Son of the Watersalso
when he has taken his stand here below,from the goldenlap.
11. This, his countenanceas also the dear name of the "Sonof the Waters"
grow in secret; him the maidenshere inflame. Gold-coloredghee is his
food.33
13. As bull he generatedin them the embryo.As child he sucks them; they
lick him. The Son of the Waters,of unfadingcolor, acts here as if with
another'sbody.
14. Havinghis station in this most remoterealm,shiningunobscuredforever,
in raimentsself-assumed,the restlesswatersflowaroundthe Son, offering
him their creamas nourishment.34
The Son of the Waters, of songs, melodies, and contemplations,
mounts their lap and generates the germ and embryo in them. He
generates himself, brings about his own nativity in the self-sufficiency
of autonomous creation, the spark of illumination in a substance
cognate with him (cf. 3. 1. 10-12). It sustains him while the "maidens"
caress him who is their lover and son, in the waters of the flood whose
currents they are. He is clad in their life force (dyus; 3. 1. 5). In the
miraculous moment of his self-begetting he spreads his wings which
had been folded and hidden (3. 1. 5, 7; 4. 1. 11). When Agni is born,
the living spirit (asu) of all the gods condenses into being (sam avartat;
10. 121. 7). Agni, the germ of the waters (apam garbha)-and son of
himself-is a fiery golden germ (hira.nyagarbha;10. 121. 7). Born in
white heat and fiery radiance, he assumes all colors (visvaripa). He
has entered the stage of Visvariipa, in the highest heaven, one degree
nearer to created beings-to-be around whom, in the sun, he will draw
his circles. As creator and generator he is the Bull, the Father whose
germ he carries (3. 1. 10). Being Visvarupa in whom all forms are,
before discrimination and dichotomy, he is bull and cow, the "First,
born of RIta,"in the first age (10. 5. 7). "Glorious, sapient (pitumat)35
Agni sleeps with the bringers of nurture as their lawful spouse. Second,
he is in the seven gracious ones, his mothers. Third, the young women
generated him for his, the bull's, milking" (1. 141. 2). Agni, the Bull,
33 In verses 10 and
11, the equivalence of the flaming countenanceof the sacri-
ficial fire and of Agni's secret name and nature as Son of the Waters is expressed
by the "maidens"who inflamehim. They are not the waters. They are the fingers
of the sacrificingpriest.
34 "In the most remote realm"
(pade parame)means "in transcendency."The
self-assumedraimentsare the flashesof lightning (2. 35. 9) in which Agni manifests,
at the moment of impregnation.To this day the couplingpairs, or Mithun sculp-
tures, on the walls of temples in Orissa are believed to ward off lightning. This
apotropaiceffect would be due to the presenceof the act itself, akin as it is to the
stroke of lightning. The lightning is thus incorporatedin the walls of the temple
and leaves no room for their being struck from out of the sky.
36As pitumatmeans provided with nourishmentor sap, it has here been trans-
lated as "sapient."
168

fathers himself as the child of the seven gracious ones. They are
closely related to him, and he is born from them bisexual, monadic,
bull and cow in one. "In accord with divine law (rta), Agni, the Bull,
the male, has been anointed with the milk of heaven. Un-
wavering he proceeded, strength-bestowing. He, the Bull, the (mot-
tled) Prsni-cow, has milked his bright udder" (4. 3. 10).36Agni, the
male, the fiery bull, milks himself, the mottled cow, beginning and end
of a self-fertilization and gestation of self. The streams of milk with
which he is anointed and which he yields are the flowing words
(dhenah) of R.ta, the divine Law, the Norm of the cosmos to be. Fire
generates fire; Agni is son and grandson of himself. He sleeps with the
singing mermaids, his mothers, and is born from them, whom he
generates. "The calf, according to its will (svadhdbhih)generated his
own mothers" (1. 95. 4). This self-conditioning productiveness of the
Fire is a ceaseless flame. Agni, the great sage (1. 95. 4) "having grown
old, is born again as a youth" (2. 4. 5). This is the miracle of the
hidden (ninya; 1. 95. 4) Agni. "The sublime one was generated in awe
and contemplation (dhiya); he received the germ of all beings"
(3. 27. 9), himself the germ of all beings. In one continuous, fiery,
self-generated body, Agni, the Fire, Son of the Waters, Apam Napat,
is the son of himself, Tanunapat.
"The seven restless streams brought up the lovely one, of white
and fiery hue, born in majesty" (3. 1. 4). "Pervading the dark space
with his shining limbs, clarifying his will (kratu) with the filters of
wisdom of the seers, clothing himself in incandescence and the life
force of the waters, he manifests his exalted, perfect glory" (3. 1. 5).
"He entered them who do not eat and are not deceived, the restless
daughters of heaven, who do not dress and are not naked. There the
primeval ones, eternally young and having one lap in common, the
seven melodies (sapta vdanh),received the one germ" (3. 1. 6). "Spread
out are his folded wings, of all colors (visvaripa), in the lap of oint-
ment,"37 in the stream of sweet. There stood the cows, swelled with
milk. The parents of the Wonder-working one are the great pair
Heaven and Earth" (3. 1. 7). Now Agni, the Firebird, the winged bull,
enters creation and becomes the Son of Heaven and Earth (Fig. 1,
p. 155).
36
Prsthya suggests milk of the peak of heaven rather than the top or cream of
the milk.
37Literally of ghee (ghrta) or clarified
butter; the reference is both to the
transcendental source and to the actual flame of the sacrifice.
Visvaripa (Fig. 1) denotes the stage from potentiality to act. It is an attribute
of Agni at the same ontological juncture at which it is a name of the Asura putting
on his splendors (3. 38. 4) and of his son forfeiting the lordship over the cosmos
(10. 8. 9).
169

Beheld in his vital splendor, in animal shape, Agni, in his bisexual

potency is bull and cow (10. 5. 7). In his manifest form as sun in heaven
and fire on earth he is a bull. In his causal, unmanifest, or transcen-
dental form, before creation, in the waters, he is a buffalo. "The bull
roars at both the worlds. He extended up to the furthermost ends of
heaven. In the lap of the waters the buffalo grew up" (10. 8. 1). He
is a winged bull who spreads his wings (3. 1. 7), when he wings into
creation. Inasmuch as he is born in the nest of the bull (4. 1. 11), the
godhead, he is a calf (1. 95. 4).
"Gestated, thou, Son of Might, radiatest far, assuming shining,
vivid, wondrous appearances" (3. 1. 8). "As soon as born, he found
the Father's udder, he discharged its streams, its voices"38 (3. 1. 9).
"He carried the germ of the Father and generator, he, the unique one,
sucked the many swelled with milk. The two related ones, Heaven and
Earth, are wives in common to the shining bull" (3. 1. 10). "The Great
One has grown up in the vast, uncoerced space. The waters reared
Agni. The glorious has many wives together. The lord reclined in the
lap of R.ta (rtasya yonau), Agni amidst the activity of the sisters,
closely related to him" (3. 1. 11). "He who as generator brought forth
the cows, the Germ of the Waters, the most virile, the youngest
Agni" (3. 1. 12). "The beauteous Germ of the Waters, of the plants,
has been born in another shape of the blessed firewood" (3. 1. 13).
"High rays like bright lightning accompany Agni, resplendent in his
fulgor. Him who grew up, as if in secret, in his home in the shoreless
ocean, accompany the cows milking Amrta" (3. 1. 14), the drink of
life.
Anointed and strong by their substance which he has imbibed and
whom he has engendered, he is "in the womb of the mother," "father
of his father," (6. 16. 35) and, being himself bull and cow, "he carried
the embryo of the Father and generator" (3. 1. 10).
As he was before and is in the beginning, before the dawn of the
world, so he is in heaven and on earth. Agni, though their son, became
the father of the gods (1. 69. 2). And he is the child of heaven and
earth, "germ (garbha) of the waters, of the trees, of what stands still
and what moves (1. 70. 3). He is the child of the world (10. 45. 6)
and he puts the germ into all the beings (3. 2. 10). Germ and child
of the waters, ApramGarbha, son of the waters, Apam Napat, son of
38 Agni manifest is seen in the lightning, a garb which he first assumed when
he mounted the lap of the waves of the flood (2. 35. 9). Cf. also 1. 128. 3. Neither
in 3. 1. 9 nor in 1. 128. 3 does the word for lightning (vidyut) appear. If the udder
of the sky is the cloud, its streams and voices (thunder) are discharged by Agni,
or Agni as Bull, roaring, discharges his seed.
170

himself, Taninapat, is the transcendental Agni, in his highest domain.
Thus he was before the beginning of things and is in all things.
The descent to earth of Agni, the Fire, is from his home hidden
in secret. The Son of the Waters, germ and child of all beings-to-be,
becomes Jatavedas, the knower of all beings. From his secret station
in the wholeness of creative innocence Agni is brought down to the
level of toil and responsibility. The son of the waters becomes the
knower of beings (cf. 10. 8. 5). The third and highest level of inner
realization of creative fire is in direct contact with the level of life
on earth. At the same time, Agni reveals himself from his secret abode,
his highest station when he unfolds his wings. "The celestial eagle, the
great bird, the visible Apam Garbha, child and germ of the waters, of
the plants who from beyond the clouds refreshes with rain, Sarasvat"
(1. 164. 52), traces its course on the firmament as sun.39 There Agni
is Vaisvanara, Agni revealed to all men and gods.
V. VAISVANARA
As soon as Apam Napat, the Light in cosmic darkness, stretched out
"his shining limbs in the dark space (rajas), clarifying his will through
the filters of the seers and robing himself in flame and the vitality
of the waters, he unfolded his exalted, perfect splendor" (3. 1. 5). His
limbs had been folded up and hidden (4. 1. 11) in his embryonic stage,
but now "his folded [limbs] are extended, the many-hued ones
(visvarupa).... The parents of this wondrous one are the great pair"
([Heaven and Earth]; 3. 1. 7)40 for now Agni is born in creation. As
soon as born, he overcame darkness (6. 9. 1) by his light. When the
gods "generated" Agni in heaven, they [then] made him divide three-
fold (10. 88. 10-13).41 Now Agni guards the peak of the earth,42the
track of the bird, the path of the sun and the udder of nurture, full of
ghee (3. 5. 5-6). These are the three stations (6. 8. 7) of Agni manifest-
39 Rain comes from the sun accordingto Khila 3. 9. 3 (the A?vinsmade the sun
shed water from the sky); Manu 3. 76 "adityaj jdyate vrstih"; Mahabharata,
12. 264. 11. The sun as rain-maker is the bird Sarasvat, "full of water." The
vapors rise toward the sun whence they are precipitatedback to this earth. Saras-
vat is the visible Son of the Waters; as their child he is full of their sap. When
the hidden Son of the Waters unfolds his wings he becomes visible as the sun, the
firebird.
40
Visvarupa,whether meaning "All-Form,"the shape of every thing to be, or
"many-hued,"designates the threshold and entry into creation.
e Here Yaska, Nirukta (7. 28) correctly sees the triple division of Agni Vai?-
vanara on earth, in the air, and in heaven.
42 Ripo agram, cf. rupo
agram (4. 5. 8). Rup designates a cow. The cow is the
Earth. The peak of the cow is the head of the cow or the altar where Trita found
Agni.
171

ing.43In heaven, Agni is the guardian of Soma (10. 45. 12), the elixir of
life. "Born in the highest heaven, Agni watches over the divine com-
mitments (vrata), the guardian of commitments" (vratapd;6.8. 2). The
divine commitments will be regulated by the flight of the bird, the sun,
whose track Agni guards. The highest heaven is Agni's station as
guardian of Soma (10, 45. 12) and of the divine vows. As he is the
guardian in heaven, so he is the guardian on earth. There, at its peak,
which is also the head of the cow, or "in the navel of the world," he
guards the seven-headed one, that is, the sacrifice (3. 5. 5). In mid-air
he guards the udder of nurture, full of ghee, the rain-charged cloud.
As triple guardian, Agni watches over the triad of his manifestations
as sun, lightning, and fire. This is his lower ternary, his triple function
in manifestation. It is an unfolding of his triple nature which man
sees with his eyes here on earth. In this lesser triad44Vaisvanara shines
forth, himself the middle in Agni's Great Triad, which is Apam Napat
at the source, the causal Fire; Vaisvanara in heaven, the archetypal
Fire, and Jatavedas on earth (Fig. 1, p. 155).
Vaisvanara is the guardian of the sun, of the lightning in the cloud,
and of the sacrificial fire. Matarisvan brought him from heaven to
earth (6. 8. 4).45 Vaisv&nara, who shines for each and every living
being, is the guardian not only of the visible light and fire. He is the
"guardian of immortality, who, moving here below, yet sees beyond
any other" (6. 9. 3). God Vaisvanara "has taken to himself the treas-
ures of the deep (budhnydvasani) from the ocean here below and from
the ocean beyond. Agni has taken them, from heaven and earth"
(7. 6. 7). That was at the beginning of creation. Gathering within
himself the treasures, the power of illumination, at the source of crea-
tion, and all that in creation is of the nature of light and flame, he
is the immortal Light among mortals and he is for seeing (6. 9. 4).
"He is the Light sent here below abidingly for beholding, Mind, the
fleetest of the flying" (6. 9. 5). The light of Vaisvanara is seen here
in this world and it is the inner light of the seers. It passes through
their filters, the "three filters of the song," in the heart, on the road
of meditation (mati), on the road of illumination (3. 26. 8). Fire says
43 The three stations are, however, also the three altars, the Garhapatyain the
West, the householder'sfire symbolizing the earth, the Ahavaniya in the East,
where the gods are invoked, symbolizingheaven, and the Daksinagni, the southern
altar where the Fathers are invoked.
44The three Agnis of the lower triad are called Agni Suci, Agni Vanaspati, and
Agni Pavamana in heaven, midspace, and on earth (Brhad Devata 1. 66).
45The same verse (6. 8. 4) sings of the waters in whose lap the "buffaloes"
seized Agni. This is a recounting of the total hierarchy of the Fire and does not
refer to the ocean of air.
172

of itself "I am the threefold (tridhdtu) song that traverses space, the
inextinguishable flame" (3. 26. 7). The flame on the altar, lambent
toward heaven, carries the sacrifice, heart, and mind to Agni Vais-
vanara. He is the head of heaven (1. 59. 2; 6. 7. 1; 8. 44. 16), leader
of the earth (6. 7. 1), seer, priest, and universal king (7. 8. 1), guest
of men, charioteer of the sacrifice (7. 7. 4), and guardian of immortali-
ty (cf. 6. 9. 1-3). Vaisvanara set up the banner of light in the fabric
of days and nights, the banner of mornings and days (7. 5. 5). He is
the guardian of light that the eye can see and the guardian of the inner
light of man. He is the charioteer of the sacrifice whose chariot he
conducts heavenward. His is the driving power of the flame and the
radiance of the sun. "He unites with the sun" (1. 98. 1).
Vaisvanara unites with the sun and identifies himself with the sun.
"Vaisvanara as of old has mounted the firmament" (3. 2. 12). This
is how he is seen from here below. "The gods put him in the sky, the
sun" (10. 88. 11), and in a grandiose exclamation "the seers, the gods
generated Agni Vaisvanara-the moving luminary" (10. 88. 13). By
his visible movement, Vaisvanara as sun is the banner of days and
nights, the sign of Time. The guardian of immortality wanders around
this time-world of his making. Night and day are his domains (3. 55.
15). He brings forward to the east the dawns who rejoice in western
darkness (7. 6. 4). He gives the sign of polarity in time and space.
He is the Lord of Time (rtupati; 10. 2. 1). With his entry into mani-
festation, on being seen, his is the shape and movement of the sun,that
great face of the great gods (4. 5. 9). The ambivalent nature of the
Fire, creative and consuming, spark of life and measure of its days
and nights, is beheld in the sun, seen from the world of time on which
it shines. It is seen by mortal man who looks up to this great face and
cannot see further with his physical eye. But the singer found this
great visage "at the place of l.ta, the radiant face in secrecy, the
speedily moving, the speeding" (4. 5. 9). There it was prefigured before
it appeared on the firmament, where Agni Vaisvanara, who shines for
all, guards the light of this world.
Vaisvanara guards the sun and he is seen in the sun. The reality
Vaisvanara has its appearance in the sun. Similarly, "the high light
of Vaisvanara, the bright thunder of heaven" (9. 61. 16) is his mani-
festation in mid-air, in the storm, roaring, rushing in the lap of the
parents (3. 27. 9), thunderous light of the storm between heaven and
earth. "A gale he became" (3. 29. 11). From the udder of Father
Heaven he spurted forth its streams and voices (3. 1. 9). The ancient,
ever young ones-heaven and earth (3. 1. 6)-who had received Agni
in their lap, the germ and child of the waters, see him when he, as
173

soon as born, finds the udder of the Father (3. 1. 9). High rays accom-
pany Agni, bright like lightning (cf. 3. 1. 14). Agni is like lightning,
he is robed in lightning (2. 35. 9, 14), he manifests in the light of the
storm in mid-air. "Golden-haired when space cleaves open, a rushing
serpent (ahi), roaring like a gale, sparkling light" (Sucibhrdjd;1. 79. 1),46
the bull, the Pr~ni-cow, has milked his bright udder (4. 3. 10; 6. 66. 1;
cf. 1. 79. 2). Pr~ni means the sun.47 Agni, who is bull and cow, acts
bisexually and has himself for his object complete in his nature and
in his operation; he milks himself just as he begets himself.
Sun, lightning, and the fire on hearth and altar are the trust which
he guards and the forms in which Agni manifests as Vaisvanara from
heaven. Sun, lightning, and fire are the three epiphanies of Agni Vais-
vanara. As fire, "Agni is the head of the earth at night. Of him is born,
in the morning, the rising sun" (10. 88. 6). Vaisvanara is the head of
heaven, the navel of the earth; like a pillar (sthauZa)he is the support
of men and his greatness reaches beyond heaven (1. 59. 1, 2, 5). Agni
manifest coincides with Aja Ekapad, the Goat One-Foot, the non-
proceeding, directing ray of creation. Agni raises his head on earth and
he is the head of heaven; on earth he is Jatavedas, the Knower of all
beings-their consciousness. In heaven he is Vaisvanara. He shines for
and illumines all men. Thus he is invoked as Javatedas Vaisvanara
(1. 59. 5; 7. 5. 8). He is Jatavedas by birth here on earth, the sacrificial
fire, the sacrifice (cf. 3. 26. 7). Agni VaiSvanara has entered all the
plants (1 .98. 2). Born in the highest heaven (parame vyoman), he has
generated the beings, the Knower of beings, Jatavedas (7. 5. 7).
He places his germ (garbha)in the beings here on earth (cf. 3. 2. 10),
he propagates himself in manifold wombs (3. 2. 11). He implants the
Germ of Fire, the spark of life, in all living beings. He fills both the
worlds, he filled the great sun (3. 2. 7.)48 This is his work when he
moves down from heaven, where the gods generated him (3. 2. 3), to
earth, where the mortals have generated the immortal Fire (3. 29. 13).
Thence, he ascends to heaven. Always on the move, intensely active,
the wondrous one goes upward and downward (3. 2. 10), the messenger
between both the worlds, appointed as sacrificer (hotr), as priest
(purohita) of man (3. 3. 2). This office, essential to man, is irksome
to the god. Agni flees and is found. He carries over into creation the
46 The t1g Veda has no specific name for the middle of the lower ternary of
Agni (cf. n. 38).
47Yaska, Nirukta, 2.14; whereas Grassmann,op. cit., gives the meaning "mot-
tled, scintillating" and assigns this quality to the cloud.
48 This refers to
Agni manifestingand not to the inner nature of Agni by which
he renews or engendershimself. It is the gods who placed Agni in the sky, the sun
(10. 88. 11), for they are the celestial intelligence operatingin the cosmos.
174

reluctance of the Asura to spend himself. Unlike the serpent Visva-
ripa, the Son of Tvastr, and Vrtra-who had engulfed Agni-he does
not obstruct creation, but brings to it hazard, uncertainty, and relief,
for he allows himself to be found, not once but manifold, by many,
so that again (dvita) the sacrificers achieve him in awe (3. 2. 1).
He is the sacrifice (3. 26. 7) and he sacrifices himself, letting himself
be found, in the sacrifice here on earth, just as the gods had "created
Agni by sacrificing all the world" (10. 88. 9).
Vaisvanara-Jatavedas are the reciprocal aspects of Fire, the mes-
senger between heaven and earth. The Knower of beings-conscious-
ness-arises from the altar on earth toward heaven, whence he, as
Vaisvanara, shines for and illumines men. This is how he descends to,
and dwells in, them.
[To be concluded]
175


Stella Kramrisch - The Triple Structure of Creation in The G Veda (1962)

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The Triple Structure of Creation in the Ṛg Veda

Author(s): Stella Kramrisch

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I. THE CREATION OF THE COSMOS, THE WORLD OF INDRA

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this myth of separation and violent action is the pervasive creation

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the dawn of creation when existence emerges from the neither-nor.4

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II. THE SUPERSTRUCTURE AND THE PREFIGUREMENT OF THE TRIPLE

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The prefigurement of creation in the image of the Uncreate standing

In principio, in the instant of creation the dyadic monad is split, the

This unit, transferred to the prefigurement of Aja Ekapad yields

these three constituents of manifestation does not yield a meaningful pattern.

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tion and recalcitrance assert themselves in the age of the bull-cow, at

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AJA EKAPAD AGNI

Neither SAT nor ASAT TAD EKAM; HIRANYAGARBHA

SAT as well as ASAT VISVARUPA

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the total constellation of the as-yet-undivided structure of creation,

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midspace, and heaven between the fathomless beyond which is prior

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up in secret (3. 1. 14), sitting in the lap of the waters, wrapped in

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Beheld in his vital splendor, in animal shape, Agni, in his bisexual

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