has been and shall be; he is the lord of immortality who has become
diffused everywhere among things animate and inanimate, and
all beings came out of him; from his navel came the atmosphere;
from his head arose the sky; from his feet came the earth; from
his ear the four quarters. Again there are other hymns in which
the Sun is called the soul (_âtman_) of all that is movable and
all that is immovable [Footnote ref 6]. There are also statements to the
effect that the Being is one, though it is called by many names by the
sages [Footnote ref 7]. The supreme being is sometimes extolled as the
supreme Lord of the world called the golden egg (Hira@nyagarbha [Footnote
ref 8]). In some passages it is said "Brahma@naspati blew forth these
births like a blacksmith. In the earliest age of the gods, the existent
sprang from the non-existent. In the first age of the gods, the
existent sprang from the non-existent: thereafter the regions
sprang, thereafter, from Uttânapada [Footnote ref 9]." The most remarkable
and sublime hymn in which the first germs of philosophic speculation

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[Footnote 1: Macdonell's _Vedic Mythology_, p. 11.]

[Footnote 2: R.V.x. 81. 4.]

[Footnote 3: Taitt. Br. II. 8. 9. 6.]

[Footnote 4: Macdonell's _Vedic Mythology_, p. 11; also R.V. II. 15 and IV.
56.]

[Footnote 5: R.V.x. 90.]