Rig Veda 10.129 — The Nasadiya Sukta (Hymn of Creation)
“Nāsad āsīn no sad āsīt tadānīṃ, nāsīd rajo no vyomā paro yat | Kim āvarīvaḥ kuha kasya śarmann, ambhaḥ kim āsīd gambhīraṃ gabhīram”
“Then even non-existence was not, nor existence. There was no air, nor sky beyond it. What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping? Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?”
— Rig Veda 10.129.1 (Nasadiya Sukta)
The Full Six Verses
10.129.1
Neither existence nor non-existence. No air, no sky. What covered it? In whose keeping?
10.129.2
Death was not, nor immortality. No sign of night, nor day. The ONE breathed breathlessly by itself.
10.129.3
Darkness was hidden by darkness. All was indiscriminate fluid. A creative impulse arose through heat (tapas).
10.129.4
Desire arose in the beginning — the primal seed of mind.
10.129.5
Sages searching with their intellect found the bond between existence and non-existence.
10.129.6
Who really knows? Who will proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Perhaps even He does not know.
Scientific Parallels
Quantum Vacuum
State before existence/non-existence — neither matter nor void, but potential
Quantum vacuum is not empty but filled with virtual particles and zero-point energy
Primordial Heat (Tapas)
10.129.3: Creative impulse through heat
Big Bang: universe began at ~10³² K; plasma of pure energy
Pre-spacetime state
No sky, no air, no above/below
Planck era: spacetime itself did not exist; quantum gravity regime
Epistemic humility
10.129.6: Even the creator may not know
Cosmologists acknowledge that pre-Big Bang causation may be unknowable