The rishis in asking themselves how all things began were not content with representing the world as coming from the hands of clever workmen, were they even invisible; it was no great labour to discover that; but at times they had profounder thoughts. The sacred literatures of many ancient peoples have reached us, in fragments more or less complete; but the meditations which can equal those in the hymn 129 are rare. “The One in the form of the Un-born was not--the luminous firmament existed not--nor the great vault of heaven--where was he hidden? Was it in the bottomless abyss? Death existed not--nor immortality. There was no distinction between day and night. The One breathed breathless by itself. Other than it there nothing since has been. There was darkness then; everything in the beginning was hidden in gloom--all was like the ocean, without a light. Then that germ which was covered by the husk--the One--was brought forth by the power of heat. On this germ was love--the springtime of the spirit--yes. And the poets whilst meditating upon it, discovered in their soul the link between created things and things not created. This spark, comes it from the earth--piercing all--penetrating through all--or comes it from the sky? There seeds were scattered, and powerful forces came into being; nature beneath, will and power above. Who knows the secret--who proclaimed whence this manifold creation sprang? The gods themselves came later into being; who knows whence this great creation sprang? He from whom all this great creation came--whether his will created or was mute. He, the most high seer, that is in highest heaven, he knows it--or perchance even he knows not.” “Who knows whence this great creation sprang?” the Hindoos asked themselves, thousands of years before our era; and again, “What was the forest, what was the tree, from which they cut out heaven and earth? What was there before anything existed?” These questions, differently expressed, are found in many places in the Veda; every kind of problem is presented to us under the form of enigmas. The Hindoos seem to have had an idea that the visible world was preceded by something invisible, yet much more real than the world of phenomena in which we live; and that before apparitions existed, there was that which appeared afterwards in time and space. These same questions will constantly be repeated in changing terms, through the coming centuries, whilst a heaven and earth remain.