That One Verse-2

Raimundo Panikkar’s translation[i]:

There was no death then, nor yet deathlessness;
Of night or day there was not any sign.
The One breathed without breath, by its own impulse.
Other than that was nothing else at all.

John Muir’s translation[ii]:

Nor death was then, nor deathlessness,
nor change of night and day.
That One breathed calmly, self-sustained;
naught else beyond it lay.

A. L. Basham’s translation[iii]:

Then there was neither death nor immortality
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.

Max Muller’s translation:

There was not death - hence was there naught immortal,
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless in itself,
Other than it there nothing since has been.

Ralph T.H. Griffith’s translation:

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal:
no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature:
apart from it was nothing whatsoever.

Putting It Together:

This verse focuses on the oneness of the reality underlying the existence of the cosmos.

There was neither death nor immortality. How can there be death or immortality if nothing was born. There was no differentiation of night and day. Time did not exist. Whatever it was, That One existed with its own inner resources. There was nothing else besides That One.