The Religions of India Part 25

[Footnote 71: These (compare _afri_, 'blessing,' in the Avesta) are verses in the Rig Veda introducing the sacrifice. They are meant as propitiations, and appear to be an ancient part of the ritual.]

[Footnote 72: A group of hymns in the first book of the Rig Veda are attributed to Dogstail. At any rate, they do allude to him, and so prove a moderate antiquity (probably the middle period of the Rik) for the tale. The name, in Sanskrit cunascepa, has been ingeniously starred by Weber as Cynosoura; the last part of each compound having the same meaning, and the first part being even phonetically the same _cunas, [Greek: kunhos]_.]

[Footnote 73: _Ait. Br._ viii. 10, 15, 20.]

[Footnote 74: The epic has a later version. This earlier form is found in _cat. Br._ i. 8. 1. For the story of the flood among the American Indians compare Schoolcraft (_Historical and Statistical Information_), i. 17.]

CHAPTER X.

BRAHMANIC PANTHEISM.--THE UPANISHADS.

In the Vedic hymns man fears the G.o.ds, and imagines G.o.d. In the Br[=a]hmanas man subdues the G.o.ds, and fears G.o.d. In the Upanishads man ignores the G.o.ds, and becomes G.o.d.[1]

Such in a word is the theosophic relations between the three periods represented by the first Vedic Collection, the ritualistic Br[=a]hmanas, and the philosophical treatises called Upanishads. Yet if one took these three strata of thought to be quite independent of each other he would go amiss. Rather is it true that the Br[=a]hmanas logically continue what the hymns begin; that the Upanishads logically carry on the thought of the Br[=a]hmanas. And more, for in the oldest Upanishads are traits that connect this cla.s.s of writings (if they were written) directly, and even closely with the Vedic hymns themselves; so that one may safely a.s.sume that the time of the first Upanishads is not much posterior to that of the latest additions made to the Vedic collections, though this indicates only that these additions were composed at a much later period than is generally supposed.[2] In India no literary period subsides with the rise of its eventually 'succeeding' period. All the works overlap. Parts of the Br[=a]hmanas succeed, sometimes with the addition of whole books, their proper literary successors, the Upanishads. Vedic hymns are composed in the Brahmanic period.[3] The prose S[=u]tras, which, in general, are earlier, sometimes post-date metrical c[=a]stra-rules.

Thus it is highly probable that, whereas the Upanishads began before the time of Buddha, the catapatha Br[=a]hmana (if not others of this cla.s.s) continued to within two or three centuries of our era; that the legal S[=u]tras were, therefore, contemporary with part of the Br[=a]hmanic period;[4] and that, in short, the end of the Vedic period is so knit with the beginning of the Br[=a]hmanic, while the Br[=a]hmanic period is so knit with the rise of the Upanishads, S[=u]tras, epics, and Buddhism, that one cannot say of any one: 'this is later,' 'this is earlier'; but each must be taken only for a phase of indefinitely dated thought, exhibited on certain lines. It must also be remembered that by the same cla.s.s of works a wide geographical area may be represented; by the Br[=a]hmanas, west and east; by the S[=u]tras, north and south; by the Vedic poems, northwest and east to Benares (AV.); by the epics, all India, centred about the holy middle land near Delhi.

The meaning of Upanishad as used in the compositions themselves, is either, as it is used to-day, the t.i.tle of a philosophical work; that of knowledge derived from esoteric teaching; or the esoteric teaching itself. Thus _brahma upanishad_ is the secret doctrine of _brahma_, and 'whoever follows this _upanishad_' means whoever follows this doctrine. This seems, however, to be a meaning derived from the nature of the Upanishads themselves, and we are almost inclined to think that the true significance of the word was originally that in which alone occurs, in the early period, the combination _upa-ni-[s.]ad_, and this is purely external: "he makes the common people _upa-ni-s[=a]din,"

i.e_., 'sitting below' or 'subject,' it is said in _cat. Br_. ix. 4.

3. 3 (from the literal meaning of 'sitting below').[5] Instead, therefore, of seeing in _upan[=i]sad_, Upanishad, the idea of a session, of pupils sitting down to hear instruction (the prepositions and verb are never used in this sense), it may be that the Upanishads were at first _subsidiary_ works of the ritualistic Br[=a]hmanas contained in the [=A]ranyakas or Forest Books, that is, appendices to the Br[=a]hmana, ostensibly intended for the use of pious forest-hermits (who had pa.s.sed beyond the need of sacrifice); and this, in point of fact, is just what they were; till their growth resulted in their becoming an independent branch of literature. The usual explanation of 'Upanishad,' however, is that it represents the instruction given to the pupil 'sitting under' the teacher.

Although at present between two and three hundred Upanishads are known, at least by name, to exist, yet scarcely a dozen appear to be of great antiquity. Some of these are integral parts of Br[=a]hmanas, and apparently were added to the ritualistic works at an early period.[6]

While man's chief effort in the Brahmanic period seems to be by sacrifice and penance to attain happiness hereafter, and to get the upper hand of divine powers; while he recognizes a G.o.d, who, though supreme, has yet, like the priest himself, attained his supremacy by sacrifice and penance; while he dreams of a life hereafter in heavenly worlds, in the realm of light, though hardly seeking to avoid a continuation of earthly re-births; nevertheless he frees himself at times from ritualistic observances sufficiently to continue the questioning asked by his Vedic ancestors, and to wonder whither his immortal part is definitively going, and whether that spirit of his will live independently, or be united with some higher power, such as the sun or Brahm[=a].

The philosophical writings called Upanishads[7] take up this question in earnest, but the answer is already a.s.sured, and the philosophers, or poets, of this period seek less to prove the truth than to expound it. The soul of man will not only join a heavenly Power. It is part of that Power. Man's spirit (self) is the world-spirit. And what is this?

While all the Upanishads are at one in answering the first question, they are not at one in the method by which they arrive at the same result. There is no systematic philosophy; but a tentative, and more or less dogmatic, logic. In regard to the second question they are still less at one; but in general their answer is that the world-spirit is All, and everything is a part of It or Him. Yet, whether that All is personal or impersonal, and what is the relation between spirit and matter, this is still an unsettled point.

The methods and results of this half-philosophical literature will most easily be understood by a few examples. But, before these are given, it will be necessary to emphasize the colloquial and sc.r.a.ppy nature of the teaching. Legend, parable, ritualistic absurdities, belief in G.o.ds, denial of G.o.ds, belief in heaven, denial of heaven, are all mingled, and for a purpose. For some men are able, and some are unable, to receive the true light of knowledge. But man's fate depends on his knowledge. The wise man becomes hereafter what his knowledge has prepared him to be. Not every spirit is fitted for immortality, but only the spirit of them that have wisely desired it, or, rather, not desired it; for every desire must have been extinguished before one is fitted for this end. Hence, with advancing belief in absorption and pantheism, there still lingers, and not as a mere superfluity, the use of sacrifice and penance. Rites and the paraphernalia of religion are essential till one learns that they are unessential. Desire will be gratified till one learns that the most desirable thing is lack of desire. But so long as one desires even the lack of desire he is still in the fetters of desire. The way is long to the extinction of emotion, but its attainment results in happiness that is greater than delight; in peace that surpa.s.ses joy.

In the exposition of this doctrine the old G.o.ds are retained as figures. They are not real G.o.ds. But they are existent forms of G.o.d.

They are portions of the absolute, a form of the Eternal, even as man is a form of the same. Absolute being, again, is described as anthropomorphic. 'This is that' under a certain form. Incessantly made is the attempt to explain the ident.i.ty of the absolute with phenomena.

The power _brahma_, which is originally applied to prayer, is now taken as absolute being, and this, again, must be equated with the personal spirit (ego, self, _[=a]tm[=a]_). One finds himself back in the age of Vedic speculation when he reads of prayer (or penance) and power as one. For, as was shown above, the Rig Veda already recognizes that prayer is power. There the word for power, _brahma_, is used only as equivalent of prayer, and Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati is literally the 'G.o.d of power,' as he is interpreted by the priests. The significance of the other great word of this period, namely _[=a]tm[=a]_, is not at all uncertain, but to translate it is difficult. It is breath, spirit, self, soul. Yet, since in its original sense it corresponds to spiritus (comparable to athmen), the word spirit, which also signifies the real person, perhaps represents it best. We shall then render _brahma_ and _[=a]tm[=a]_ by the absolute and the ego or spirit, respectively; or leave them, which is perhaps the best way, in their native form. The physical breath, _pr[=a]na,_ is occasionally used just like _[=a]tm[=a]._ Thus it is said that all the G.o.ds are one G.o.d, and this is _pr[=a]na,_ identical with _brahma_ (Brihad [=A]ranyaka Upanishad, 3.9.9); or _pr[=a]na_ is so used as to be the same with spirit, though, on the other hand, 'breath is born of spirit' (Pracna Up. 3.3), just as in the Rig Veda (above) it is said that all comes from the breath of G.o.d.

One of the most instructive of the older Upanishads is the Ch[=a]ndogya. A sketch of its doctrines will give a clearer idea of Upanishad philosophy than a chapter of disconnected excerpts:

All this (universe) is _brahma_. Man has intelligent force (or will).

He, after death, will exist in accordance with his will in life. This spirit in (my) heart is that mind-making, breath-bodied, light-formed, truth-thoughted, ether-spirited One, of whom are all works, all desires, all smells, and all tastes; who comprehends the universe, who speaks not and is not moved; smaller than a rice-corn, smaller than a mustard-seed, ... greater than earth, greater than heaven. This (universal being) is my ego, spirit, and is _brahma,_ force (absolute being). After death I shall enter into him (3.14).[8] This all is breath (==spirit in 3.15.4).

After this epitome of pantheism follows a ritualistic bit:

Man is sacrifice. Four and twenty years are the morning libation; the next four and forty, the mid-day libation; the next eight and forty, the evening libation. The son of Itar[=a], knowing this, lived one hundred and sixteen years. He who knows this lives one hundred and sixteen years (3.16).

Then, for the abolition of all sacrifice, follows a chapter which explains that man may sacrifice symbolically, so that, for example, gifts to the priests (a necessary adjunct of a real sacrifice) here become penance, liberality, rect.i.tude, non-injury, truth-speaking (_ib._ 17. 4). There follows then the identification of _brahma_ with mind, sun, breath, cardinal points, ether, etc, even puns being brought into requisition, _Ka_ is _Kha_ and _Kha_ is _Ka_ (4. 10.

5);[9] earth, fire, food, sun, water, stars, man, are _brahma_, and _brahma_ is the man seen in the moon (4. 12. I). And now comes the ident.i.ty of the impersonal _brahma_ with the personal spirit. The man seen in the eye is the spirit; this is the immortal, unfearing _brahma_ (4. 15. I = 8. 7. 4). He that knows this goes after death to light, thence to day, thence to the light moon, thence to the season, thence to the year, thence to the sun, thence to the moon, thence to lightning; thus he becomes divine, and enters _brahma_. They that go on this path of the G.o.ds that conducts to _brahma_ do not return to human conditions _(ib._ 15. 6).

But the Father-G.o.d of the Br[=a]hmanas is still a temporary creator, and thus he appears now (_ib._ 17): The Father-G.o.d brooded over[10]

the worlds, and from them extracted essences, fire from earth, wind from air, sun from sky. These three divinities (the triad, fire, wind, and sun) he brooded over, and from them extracted essences, the Rig Veda from fire, the Yajur Veda from wind, the S[=a]ma Veda from sun.

In the preceding the northern path of them that know the absolute (_brahma_) has been described, and it was said that they return no more to earth. Now follows the southern path of them that only partly know _brahma_:

"He that knows the oldest, _jye[s.]tham_ and the best, _cre[s]tham,_ becomes the oldest and the best. Now breath is oldest and best" (then follows the famous parable of the senses and breath, 5. 1. I). This (found elsewhere) is evidently regarded as a new doctrine, for, after the deduction has been made that, because a creature can live without senses, and even without mind, but cannot live without breath, therefore the breath is the 'oldest and best,' the text continues, 'if one told this to a dry stick, branches would be produced and leaves put forth' (5. 2. 3).[11]] The path of him that partly knows the _brahma_ which is expressed in breath, etc, is as follows: He goes to the moon, and, when his good works are used up, he (ultimately mist) rains down, becoming seed, and begins life over again on earth, to become like the people who eat him (5. 10. 6); they that are good become priests, warriors, or members of the third estate; while the bad become dogs, hogs, or members of the low castes.[12] A story is now told, instructive as ill.u.s.trating the time. Five great doctors of the law came together to discuss what is Spirit, what is _brahma_. In the end they are taught by a king that the universal Spirit is one's own spirit (5. 18. 1).

It is interesting to see that, although the Rig Veda distinctly says that 'being was born of not-being' (_asatas sad aj[=a]yata_, X. 72.

3),[13] yet not-being is here derived quite as emphatically from being. For in the philosophical explanation of the universe given in 6. 2. 1 ff. one reads: "Being alone existed in the beginning, one, and without a second. Others say 'not-being alone' ... but how could being be born of not-being? Being alone existed in the beginning."[14] This being is then represented as sentient. "It saw (and desired), 'may I be many,' and sent forth fire (or heat); fire (or heat) desired and produced water; water, food (earth); with the living spirit the divinity entered fire, water, and earth" (6. 3). As mind comes from food, breath from water, and speech from fire, all that makes a man is thus derived from the (true) being (6. 7. 6); and when one dies his speech is absorbed into mind, his mind into breath, his breath into fire (heat), and heat into the highest G.o.dhead (6. 8. 7). This is the subtle spirit, that is the Spirit, that is the True, and this is the spirit of man. Now comes the grand conclusion of the Ch[=a]ndogya.

He who knows the ego escapes grief. What is the ego? The Vedas are names, and he that sees _brahma_ in the Vedas is indeed (partly) wise; but speech is better than a name; mind is better than speech; will is better than mind; meditation, better than will; reflection, than meditation; understanding, than reflection; power, than understanding; food, than power; water, than food; heat (fire), than water; ether, than heat; memory, than ether; hope, than memory; breath (=spirit), than hope. In each let one see _brahma_; ego in All. Who knows this is supreme in knowledge; but more supreme in knowledge is he that knows that in true (being) is the highest being. True being is happiness; true being is ego; ego is all; ego is the absolute.[15]

The relativity o divinity is the discovery of the Upanishads. And the relativity of happiness hereafter is the key-note of their religious philosophy. Pious men are of three cla.s.ses, according to the completed system. Some are good men, but they do not know enough to appreciate, intellectually or spiritually, the highest. Let this cla.s.s meditate on the Vedas. They desire wealth, not freedom. The second cla.s.s wish, indeed, to emanc.i.p.ate themselves; but to do so step by step; not to reach absolute _brahma_, but to live in bliss hereafter. Let these worship the Spirit as physical life. They will attain to the bliss of the realm of light, the realm of the personal creator. But the highest cla.s.s, they that wish to emanc.i.p.ate themselves at once, know that physical life is but a form of spiritual life; that the personal creator is but a form of the Spirit; that the Spirit is absolute _brahma_; and that in reaching this they attain to immortality. These, then, are to meditate on spirit as the highest Spirit, that is, the absolute. To fear heaven as much as h.e.l.l, to know that knowledge is, after all, the key to _brahma_; that _brahma_ is knowledge; this is the way to emanc.i.p.ation. The G.o.ds are; but they are forms of the ego, and their heaven is mortal. It is false to deny the G.o.ds. Indra and the Father-G.o.d exist, just as men exist, as transient forms of _brahma_. Therefore, according to the weakness or strength of a man's mind and heart (desire) is he fitted to ignore G.o.ds and sacrifice. To obtain _brahma_ his desires must be weak, his knowledge strong; but sacrifice is not to be put away as useless. The disciplinary teaching of the sacrifice is a necessary preparation for highest wisdom. It is here that the Upanishads, which otherwise are to a great extent on the highway to Buddhism, practically contrast with it. Buddhism ignores the sacrifice and the stadia in a priest's life.

The Upanishads retain them, but only to throw them over at the end when one has learned not to need them. Philosophically there is no place for the ritual in the Upanishad doctrine; but their teachers stood too much under the dominion of the Br[=a]hmanas to ignore the ritual. They kept it as a means of perfecting the knowledge of what was essential.

So 'by wisdom' it is said 'one gets immortality.' The Spirit develops gradually in man; by means of the mortal he desires the immortal; whereas other animals have only hunger and thirst as a kind of understanding, and they are reborn according to their knowledge as beasts again. Such is the teaching of another of the Upanishads, the [=A]itareya [=A]ranyaka.

This Upanishad contains some rather striking pa.s.sages: "Whatever man attains, he desires to go beyond it; if he should reach heaven itself he would desire to go beyond it" (2. 3. 3. 1). "_Brahma_ is the A, thither goes the ego" (2. 3. 8. 7). "A is the whole of Speech, and Speech is Truth, and Truth is Spirit" (2. 3. 6. 5-14).[16] "The Spirit brooded over the water, and form (matter) was born" (2. 4. 3. 1 ff.); so physically water is the origin of all things" (2. 1. 8. 1).[17]

"Whatever belongs to the father belongs to the son, whatever belongs to the son belongs to the father" (_ib_.). "Man has three births: he is born of his mother, reborn in the person of his son, and finds his highest birth in death" (2. 5).

In the exposition of these two Upanishads one gets at once the sum of them all. The methods, the ill.u.s.trations, even the doctrines, differ in detail; but in the chief end and object of the Upanishads, and in the principle of knowledge as a means of attaining _brahma_, they are united. This it is that causes the refutation of the Vedic 'being from not-being.' It is even said in the [=A]itareya that the G.o.ds worshipped breath (the spirit) as being and so became G.o.ds (great); while devils worshipped spirit as not-being, and hence became (inferior) devils (2. 1. 8. 6).

It was noticed above that a king instructed priests. This interchange of the roles of the two castes is not unique. In the K[=a]ush[=i]taki Upanishad (4. 19), occurs another instance of a warrior teaching a Brahman. This, with the familiar ill.u.s.tration of a Gandh[=a]ra (Kandahar) man, the song of the Kurus, and the absence of Brahmanic literature as such in the list of works, cited vii. 1, would indicate that the Ch[=a]ndogya was at least as old as the Br[=a]hmana literature.[18]

In their present form several differences remain to be pointed out between the Vedic period and that of the Upanishads. The goal of the soul, the two paths of G.o.ds and of _brahma_, have been indicated. As already explained, the road to the absolute _brahma_ lies beyond the path to the conditioned _brahma_. Opposed to this is the path that leads to the world of heaven, whence, when good works have been exhausted, the spirit descends to a new birth on earth. The course of this second path is conceived to be the dark half of the moon, and so back to man. Both roads lead first to the moon, then one goes on to _brahma_, the other returns to earth. It will be seen that good works are regarded as buoying a man up for a time, till, like gas in a balloon, they lose their force, and he sinks down again. What then becomes of the virtue of a man who enters the absolute _brahma,_ and descends no more? He himself goes to the world where there is "no sorrow and no snow," where he lives forever (_Brihad [=A]ran_. 5. 10); but "his beloved relations get his virtue, and the relations he does not love get his evil" (_K[=a]ush[=i]t. Up_. 1. 4). In this Upanishad fire, sun, moon, and lightning die out, and reappear as _brahma_. This is the doctrine of the _Gotterdammerung_, and succession of aeons with their divinities (2. 12). Here again is it distinctly stated that _pr[=a]na_, breath, is _brahma_; that is, spirit is the absolute (2.

13).

What becomes of them that die ignorant of the ego? They go either to the worlds of evil spirits, which are covered with darkness--the same ant.i.thesis of light and darkness, as good and evil, that was seen in the Br[=a]hmanas--or are reborn on earth again like the wicked (_[=I]c[=a]_, 3).

It is to be noted that at times all the parts of a man are said to become immortal. For just as different rivers enter the ocean and their names and forms are lost in it, so the sixteen parts of a man sink into the G.o.dhead and he becomes without parts and immortal (_Pracna Up_. 6. 5); a purely pantheistic view of absorption, in distinction from the Vedic view of heaven, which latter, in the form of immortal joy hereafter, still lingers in the earlier Upanishads.

It is further to be observed as the crowning point of these speculations that, just as the bliss of emanc.i.p.ation must not be desired, although it is desirable, so too, though knowledge is the fundamental condition of emanc.i.p.ation, yet is delight in the true a fatal error: "They that revere what is not knowledge enter into blind darkness; they that delight in knowledge come as it were into still greater darkness" (_Ic[=a]_, 9). Here, what is not real knowledge means good works, sacrifice, etc. But the sacrifice is not discarded.

To those people capable only of attaining to rect.i.tude, sacrifices, and belief in G.o.ds there is given some bliss hereafter; but to him that is risen above this, who knows the ego (Spirit) and real being, such bliss is no bliss. His bliss is union with the Spirit.

This is the completion of Upanishad philosophy. Before it is a stage where bliss alone, not absorption, is taught.[19] But what is the ego, spirit or self (_[=a]tm[=a]_)? First of all it is conscious; next it is not the Person, for the Person is produced by the _[=a]tm[=a]_.

Since this Person is the type of the personal G.o.d, it is evident that the ego is regarded as lying back of personality. Nevertheless, the teachers sometimes stop with the latter. The developed view is that the immortality of the personal creator is commensurate only with that of the world which he creates. It is for this reason that in the Mundaka (1. 2. 10) it is said that fools regard fulfillment of desire in heavenly happiness as the best thing; for although they have their 'reward in the top of heaven, yet, when the elevation caused by their good works ends, as it will end, when the buoyant power of good works is exhausted, then they drop down to earth again. Hence, to worship the creator as the _[=a]tm[=a]_ is indeed productive of temporary pleasure, but no more. "If a man worship another divinity, _devat[=a]_, with the idea that he and the G.o.d are different, he does not know" (_Brihad [=A]ran. Up_. 1. 4. 10). "Without pa.s.sion and without parts" is the _brahma (Mund_. 2. 2. 9). The further doctrine, therefore, that all except _brahma_ is delusion is implied here, and the "extinction of G.o.ds in _brahma_" is once or twice formulated.[20]

The fatal error of judgment is to imagine that there is in absolute being anything separate from man's being. When personified, this being appears as the supreme Person, identical with the ego, who is lord of what has been and what will be. By perceiving this controlling spirit in one's own spirit (or self) one obtains eternal bliss; "when desires cease, the mortal becomes immortal; he attains _brahma_ here"

in life (_Katha Up_. 2. 5. 12; 6. 14; _Br. [=A]ran. Up_. 4. 4. 7).

How inconsistent are the teachings of the Upanishads in regard to cosmogonic and eschatological matters will be evident if one contrast the statements of the different tracts not only with those of other writings of the same sort, but even with other statements in the same Upanishads. Thus the Mundaka teaches first that Brahm[=a], the personal creator, made the world and explained _brahma_ (1. 1. 1). It then defines _brahma_ as the Imperishable, which, like a spider, sends out a web of being and draws it in again (_ib_. 6, 7). It states with all distinctness that the (neuter) _brahma_ comes from The (masculine)

One who is all-wise, all-knowing (_ib_. 9). This heavenly Person is the imperishable ego; it is without form; higher than the imperishable (1. 2. 10 ff.; 2. 1. 2); greater than the great (3. 2. 8). Against this is then set (2. 2. 9) the great being _brahma_, without pa.s.sions or parts, _i.

e_., without intelligence such as was predicated of the _[=a]tm[=a]_; and (3. 1. 3) then follows the doctrine of the personal 'Lord, who is the maker, the Person, who has his birth in _brahma'

(purus...o...b..ahmayonis_). That this Upanishad is pantheistic is plain from 3. 2. 6, where Ved[=a]nta and Yoga are named. According to this tract the wise go to _brahma_ or to ego (3. 2. 9 and 1. 2. 11), while fools go to heaven and return again.

On the same plane stands the [=I]c[=a], where _[=a]tm[=a]_, ego, Spirit, is the True, the Lord, and is in the sun. Opposed to each other here are 'darkness' and 'immortality,' as fruit, respectively, of ignorance and wisdom.

In the K[=a]ush[=i]taki Upanishad, taken with the meaning put into it by the commentators, the wise man goes to a very different sort of _brahma_--one where he is met by nymphs, and rejoices in a kind of heaven. This _brahma_ is of two sorts, absolute and conditioned; but it is ultimately defined as 'breath.' Whenever it is convenient, 'breath' is regarded by the commentators as ego, 'spirit'; but one can scarcely escape the conviction that in many pa.s.sages 'breath' was meant by the speaker to be taken at its face value. It is the vital power. With this vital power (breath or spirit) one in dreamless sleep unites. Indra has nothing higher to say than that he is breath (spirit), conscious and immortal. Eventually the soul after death comes to Indra, or gains the bright heaven. But here too the doctrine of the dying out of the G.o.ds is known (as in _T[=a]tt_. 3. 10. 4).

Cosmogonically all here springs from water (1. 4, 6, 7; 2. 1, 12; 3.