Creation and Dissolution
The Sanskrit word for creation is sṛṣṭi, which means ‘pouring forth.’ In other words, it is not ‘creation’ but rather an outpouring, an expansion, an expression. In the Vedas, the concept of Creation is discussed in various ways. One hymn (Nāsadīya-sūkta[1]) proposes a brilliant conceptual model for creation while another (Hiraṇyagarbha-sūkta[2]) raises and answers many questions about the creator and creation. Yet another hymn (Puruṣa-sūkta[3]) describes in detail the process of creation. There are several creation hymns in the Vedas. Amidst all these varied views, there is a single underlying idea: ‘one became everything.’
In the Vedic songs of creation, we find attempts at establishing the connection between macrocosm and microcosm—how one came from the other as well as their various manifestations.[4]
Starting from our tiny individual selves to huge galaxies floating about in space, we see the cycle of creation, life, and dissolution. In our own body, cells are born and die every single day. In the life of an individual, there is physical birth and death. The same applies to dynasties, kingdoms, civilizations as it does to rivers, mountains, planets, and stars.
This process of coming into being, sustaining, and dissolving into non-existence (only to come back into being later on) is the eternal cycle of sṛṣṭi, sthiti, and laya.
Sṛṣṭi means ‘pouring forth,’ ‘expression,’ ‘existence of properties,’ ‘emergence,’ ‘expansion,’ ‘creation’ – this corresponds to birth.
Sthiti means ‘maintenance,’ ‘sustenance,’ ‘steadiness,’ ‘equilibrium,’ ‘balance’ – this corresponds to living.
Laya (or pralaya) means ‘dissolution,’ ‘annihilation,’ ‘disappearance,’ ‘destruction,’ ‘withdrawal’ – this corresponds to death.
Creation, therefore, is not a one-off activity. It is not absolute. It is not an end in itself. It is constant and ongoing, as are maintenance and dissolution. Without beginning and without end, from an atom to the entire universe, from a microsecond to billions of millennia, everything is subject to the eternal cycle of sṛṣṭi-sthiti-laya.
To a jīvanmukta, this cycle of sṛṣṭi-sthiti-laya is a cosmic play[5], a divine dance, just to be enjoyed. In fact, many of our festivals, rituals, and arts revolve around re-enactment of this cosmic play.
Space and Time
We saw earlier that Sanātana-dharma is inspired by nature. While drawing from nature, the seers further refined it rather than artificially concocting a new system. We see this even in the Hindu conception of Time. Our ancient savants observed the world around them and realized that time is cyclical rather than linear – night follows day, the fortnightly phase of the waning moon is followed by that of the waxing moon, the seasons come one after another, and so on. The Hindu timeline spans trillions of years and we have eternal time cycles one after the other with no beginning or end.
The basic concept is that twelve months make a year; this equals a day and night of the devas.* 360 days and nights of the devas make a deva year. 12,000 deva years make one mahā-yuga (‘Great Age’). A day of Brahmā (deity of creation) spans 1,000 mahā-yugas; a night of Brahmā also spans a thousand mahā-yugas. Brahmā’s life span is 100 Brahmā years.[6]
A māha-yuga is made up of four yugas – Satya-yuga or Kṛta-yuga (17,28,000 years), Tretā-yuga (12,96,000 years), Dvāpara-yuga (8,64,000 years), and Kali-yuga (4,32,000 years).[7] In human terms, a māha-yuga spans 4.32 million years. A day of Brahmā across a thousand mahā-yugas and equals 4.32 billion human years, the time he is active and thus enables activity in the universe. This period is deemed a cosmic cycle. During the night of Brahmā, which also spans the same period, the whole of creation is dissolved only to be brought forth again at the beginning of the next day (i.e. the next cosmic cycle).[8]
The notion of space is similarly superlative in Hinduism. The universe is traditionally divided into three realms[9] – earth, sky, and heavens, but there are other kinds of divisions of space. Texts of ritual speak of fourteen worlds – seven above and seven below, with the middle one being the earth – in the ‘infinite egg-shaped cosmos.’[10] On earth, seven islands (dvīpas) are identified; each island is divided into nine subcontinents (varṣas); each subcontinent is divided into nine provinces (khaṇḍas). They mention ten forests, thirty-five rivers (seven main rivers with five tributaries each), and seven mighty mountain ranges found in Bhārata (belonging to Jambū-dvīpa, Bhārata-varṣa, Bharata-khaṇḍa).
This division of space and time is metaphorical and must not be taken literally. It merely serves to give us an image of the spatiotemporal vastness of the universe. This massive scale of space and time with all its staggering details is recited in a poetic format as a part of the mahā-saṅkalpa and is presented on many ceremonial occasions.
[1] Ṛg-veda-saṃhitā 10.129
[2] Ṛg-veda-saṃhitā 10.121
[3] Ṛg-veda-saṃhitā 10.90
[4] A common motif in the Vedic creation songs is the connection between the brahmāṇḍa (macrocosm) and the piṇḍāṇda (microcosm) – Aitareyopaniṣad 1.1.4, 1.2.4; Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa 6.1.1.3, 6.1.1.11; Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad 1.1.1; Chāndogyopaniṣad 3.19.2, etc.While the pañca-bhūtas (five elements – space, fire, earth, air, and water) pertain to the brahmāṇḍa, the pañca-tanmātras (five essences – sound, form, smell, touch, and taste) relate to the piṇḍāṇda. For more on creation as seen in the Vedas, see Srishti: Songs of Creation from the Vedas by Koti Sreekrishna and Hari Ravikumar (Mason: W.I.S.E. Words Inc., 2015).
[5] The cosmic play of the Supreme is called līlā (See Brahma-sūtra 2.1.33 – “lokavat-tu līlā-kaivalyam”).
[6] Sūrya-siddhānta 1.13–21
[7] From an anthropological perspective, Kṛta-yuga represents the age of travelling nomads and hunter-gatherers; a time when man owned little; a time of complete dependence on nature and therefore no need for human law.
Tretā-yuga represents the age of the settlers; a time when man started agriculture and began habitation in communities. The Upavedas must have developed during this era – health, law and order (as well as politics, economics), art (for entertainment), and architecture (temples, houses) became important.
Dvāpara-yuga represents the age of kingdoms; a time when man could traverse greater distances and conduct trade in a far more expansive geography; a period during which wars became more and more common.
Kali-yuga represents the age of urbanization; a time when all aspects of life attain greater sophistication and simultaneously, greater corruption and degradation.
Since each successive age is tending more towards adharma, the corresponding length of the era is also lesser.
There is also a conception of realising the four yugas in our own lives – Kali-yuga is equated with sleep, Dvāpara with sitting down, Tretā with standing up, and Kṛta with moving about (“…kaliḥ śayāno bhavati saṃjihānastu dvāparaḥ, uttiṣṭhaṃstretā bhavati kṛtaṃ saṃpadyate caran” —Aitareya-brāhmaṇa 7.15.4).
[8] One cosmic cycle (known as ‘kalpa’) accommodates fourteen manvantaras, each of which is governed by a Manu. The term ‘manu’ refers to ‘a progenitor of humanity’ in general, and to the fourteen rulers of one kalpa in specific.
[9] The earth (pṛthivī) is called bhūḥ, the sky (antarikṣa) is called bhuvaḥ, and the heavens (dyauḥ) are called svaḥ or suvaḥ.
[10] ‘ananta-koṭi brahmāṇḍa.’
To be continued.
