Who is Hiraṇyagarbha Rigveda 10.121
In the beginning, evolved the Golden embryo,
Born of what has been, the Lord existed alone.
He has upheld the earth and the sky here…..
To the radiant “who”, do we offer worship with oblations.
He who is the giver of soul, the giver of strength,
To whose guidance all men “sit nearby”, all the radiant ones;
Of him whose shadow is immortality; of him whose is death….
To the radiant “who”, do we offer worship with oblations.
He who by His greatness became the ONE king
Of the breathing, blinking, dynamic world;
He who is the Lord of the biped and the quadruped….
To the radiant “who”, we offer worship with oblations.
Whose are the snow-capped mountains being in greatness;
He, who is the ocean together with the sea, they say.
He whose are these directions, whose two hands …
To the radiant who, we offer worship with oblations.
By whom the heaven is strong and the earth firm,
He who has erected the light and the firmament,
He who has measured out the air in the atmosphere ….
To the radiant who, we offer worship with oblations.
To whom the crying has steadied by his aid;
The two seeking-places, with the mind;
Upon where the sun, having risen, radiates……
To the radiant who, we offer worship with oblations.
When the magnificent waters came, placing
the universal germ, generating the fire,
Then the one spirit of radiant ones evolved …..
To the radiant who, we offer worship with oblations.
He who even surveyed the waters by greatness,
Placing skill, generating the transformation;
He who is the radiant over the radiant ones alone existed.
To the radiant who, we offer worship with oblations.
May not he weaken us; who’s the progenitor of earth;
Or the who, who has and made the sky vivified;
And made the waters, lustrous and vast, vivified.
To the radiant who, we offer worship with oblations.
Lord of creation! None other than you encompasses
All these that have come into being.
May that object of desires by which we worship you,
That be ours; may we be lords of riches.
NOTES :
*1.1 Hiraṇyagarbha, or the golden embryo, could be better translated as “origin of the golden lustre”. hiraṇyagarbha refers to the progenitor and controller of the lustrous Vedic sun, in whom the radiant rays in sky converge and in whom the seekers converge. The function is Indric – all combined.
*2,2 upa-āsate meaning revere, honour, worship, learn from .. all deriving from to stay/sit nearby. Used as the apt word in a context where the “who” “guides” the mortals towards him as well as makes the radiances stay nearby him, as cows a herdsman.
*3,1 the word “id” in Sanskrit has the same effect as writing in capitals – an emphasis. Hence the translation of “eka id” as “ONE”.
*4,2 talks about rasā and samudra; rasā could mean a river or sea, which has an “odd-man-out” appearance in the Rigveda, perhaps because it is far. People have located Rasā in Afghanistan or Central Asia.
*6 I have translated aikṣetām as “seeking” (from īkṣ – observe) The seeking realms are spiritual and physical – the sky and earth. The “crying” ones in these realms, who seek the hiraṇyagarbha, converge to him steadily, through his aid.
*7,3 The third verse of the seventh stanza (three and seven will haunt us in Vedic poems) while referring to the “one spirit of the radiant ones”, the “one spirit of devas”, uses the word “asu” for spirit; and shows a close resemblance to “devānām asuratvam ekam” – the one spirituous quality of devas”.
The last verse is most likely a Brahmanical addition, to end the otherwise open hymn that leaves the identity of hiraṇyagarbha to be judged by us. The prajāpati, in the Brahmanical age, has the meaning of “king”, and this whole philosophical poem was used for the consecration of kings.
Sanatana Dhara 