Hymn of the Origins

Vedic seers of ancient India are on record for considering this question in their life long search using incisive methods of contemplation, meditation and discourse. A verse in Rigveda (Book 10, Hymn 129) commonly known in English as the ‘Song of Creation’ but aptly termed as the ‘Hymn of the Origins’ by Raimundo Panikkar, poetically expresses the revolutionary conclusion of their meticulous and painstaking search.

The Sanskrit name for this hymn is Nasadiya Sukta which literally means the hymn of ‘not the untrue’, ‘not the unreal’ or ‘not the nonexistent’. The use of the double negative in naming the hymn is apt in describing That One which is the object of the inquiry that has kept humanity obsessed with it from times immemorial.

The hymn consists of seven verses. We will look at the hymn verse by verse focusing attention on the subject matter of each by looking at the Sanskrit original and six different English tanslations by eminent scholars.