Origin of The Universe | What Was The Big Bang? | The Hindu Interpretation of Creation

Dear readers,

Welcome back to our blog. I will explain first two shlokas of the second Brahmana within the first chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad today.

You can read or recite the shlokas.

Shloka 1.2.1

नैवेह किंचनाग्र आसीन्मृत्युनैवेदमावृतमासीत्। अशनाययाऽशनाया हि मृत्युस्तन्मनोऽकुरुतात्मन्वी स्यामिति। सोऽर्चन्नचरत्तस्यार्चत आपोऽजायन्तार्चते वै मे कमभूदिति। तदवार्क्यस्यार्कत्वं क ह वा अस्मै भवति य एवमेतदर्कस्यार्कत्वं वेद॥ ||१||

"naiveha kiṃcanāgra āsīnmṛtyunaivedamāvṛtamāsīt. aśanāyayā'shanāyā hi mṛtyustanmano'kurutātmanvī syāmiti. so'rchannacarttasyārcata āpo'jāyantārcate vai me kamabhūditi. tadavārkyasyārkatvaṃ ka ha vā asmai bhavati ya evametadarkasyārkatvaṃ veda. ||1||"

English Translation:

In the begining there was nothing whatever in the universe. This universe was enveloped by death (Hiranyagarbha) alone or hunger; for hunger is death. He produced the mind (desiring), 'May I be possessed of a mind'. He moved about worshipping himself. As he was thus worshipping himself, water was produced. (As he thought), 'Verily, while I was worshipping, water sprang up', this is why fire is called Arka. Surely there is water (or happiness) for him who thus knows why fire is called Arka.

Shloka 1.2.2

आपो वा अर्कस्तद्यदपा शर आसीत्तत्समहन्यत सा पृथिव्यभवत्तस्यामश्राम्यत्तस्य श्रान्तस्य तप्तस्य तेजो रसो निरवर्तताग्निः॥ ||२||

"āpo vā arkastadyadapā śar āsīttatsamahanyata sā pṛthivyabhavattasyāmaśrāmyattasya śrāntasya tap tasyatejo raso niravartatāgnih. ||2||"

English Translation:

Water verily is Arka. What was there as the froth of water hardened, and it became the earth. In this (work of creation) Prajapati was tired. From him, fatigued and afflicted came forth his essence as lusture. This was fire.

Before we interpret, I recommend you to read the previous articles on cosmic meditation and introduction of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. You can read the articles on Isha Upanishad to unveil the Secrets of Self in case you missed it. Links to those articles are given at the bottom of the page.

When I was a little kid, one day I saw an egg in the ventilator of our house. The ventilator was the nest of a sparrow. After a few days, a baby sparrow was born. Its eyes were closed, no feathers on its body. The tiny bird was a wonder for me.

Anyway, let's interpret the shlokas. We should be thankful to the Rishis who started inquiring about the creation of this Universe. Based on their imagination, they tried to give a theory in the form of Shloka. After almost 3000 years, modern humans tried to give many theories on the same topic based on the evolution of knowledge and scientific observations. Out of those theories, the Big Bang theory is the one which garnered more attention and acceptance. Even the theory of creation mentioned in Upanishad can go hand in hand with the Big Bang theory.

According to the opening statement of the verse, the universe as seen today was not there. Here, "nothing" means whatever objects we see in this Universe today were not there. But there was a potential universe which was Hiranyagarbha. Hiranyagarbha was the cosmic egg where the whole universe was in an embryo state. But there was no activity in that egg, hence it was mentioned in the shloka that the universe was covered by death. Another word used is hunger. Why hunger? Because hunger can be eradicated through food, and food can be acquired by killing something such as a plant or animal. So, here hunger is equivalent to death. Mind was produced at first. Here, the mind should not be treated as the human mind but we can think of it as a sort of cosmic intelligence. From there, desire took birth. That desire produced water, fire, and other elements, and later our Earth. In this one line, different cosmic events are mentioned. Instead of taking them word by word, take them as a series of events. Like water, fire, water becoming solid, etc. are different events. In the second shloka, water hardened and became earth and other cosmic bodies. Prajapati started the creation and got tired, then in one step, he produced fire. That is one of the important steps because after that, other things were produced in this universe. Here, Prajapati does not mean a deity of creation rather Hiranyagarbha or the whole creation.

Now, let's relate my childhood story. The egg in the nest had the possibility of a sparrow's life. Before birth, it was like dead material. But some activity happens when the mother sparrow gives its body temperature with the desire for a baby. Then a baby sparrow was born. In a similar fashion, in the cosmic egg Hiranyagarbha, there was a possibility of the Universe. With some activity and desire, the universe took birth. The Universe is growing similar to how a baby sparrow grows.

Now let's understand the creation of the Universe using the Big Bang theory, the most accepted prevailing cosmological model that describes the early development and evolution of the universe. There was nothing before this Universe because our current understanding breaks down at that point. At this moment of the Big Bang, the laws of physics, time as we understand them break down, and our current theories cannot accurately describe the universe's state. The universe began as an infinitely dense and hot point, often referred to as a singularity. In that singularity, some quantum fluctuations or Cosmic Inflation happened and because of that, the Big Bang happened. But these are still hypotheses. From that Big Bang, the Universe took birth. The universe rapidly expanded from the initial singularity in a process often likened to the inflation of a balloon. This expansion continues to this day, with galaxies moving away from each other in an expanding space-time. In the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot and dense that individual particles could not exist. Instead, matter existed in a state known as a quark-gluon plasma, where quarks and gluons, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, were freely moving and interacting. As the universe expanded and cooled, it entered a phase where quarks and gluons began to combine to form protons and neutrons. Electrons also formed during this period, along with their antiparticles, positrons. During the first few minutes after the Big Bang, the universe was cool enough for nuclear reactions to occur. This period, known as primordial nucleosynthesis, resulted in the formation of light atomic nuclei such as hydrogen, helium, and small amounts of lithium and beryllium. About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe had cooled enough for protons and electrons to combine and form neutral atoms. This event, known as recombination, allowed photons to travel freely through space, creating the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). As the universe expanded and cooled, matter began to clump together under the influence of gravity. This led to the formation of galaxies, stars, and eventually planets such as our Earth. The expansion of the universe is not slowing down due to gravity but rather accelerating. This acceleration is attributed to a mysterious force known as dark energy.

In conclusion, I would like to say that we human beings have a curiosity to know how this universe came to be. Rishis tried to answer them according to the knowledge available at that time, later the baton was passed to scientists and they tried to answer according to different discoveries, observations, and research. The research is still ongoing. Scientists are working on different hypotheses. I believe in the future we will know more on this topic. My viewers should not be blind and believe that the Shlokas are the conclusion to the answer to this complex question. But rather, wait and watch and analyze rationally. Unfortunately, I am seeing a sudden increase in religious temperament and people are trying to justify every unscientific fact from religious scriptures, while another group of people are justifying by science or saying all the scientific innovations were done in our religion long ago. That is disrespectful to the hard work of scientists, their innovations, and disrespectful to the ancient rishis who gave all their lives to these complex questions and tried to give direction to everyone, emphasizing knowledge, logic, and rationality. So, grow your hunger for knowledge, grow scientific temperament. Let another rishi wearing a scientist's coat give us a theory which can explain what happened in the Hiranyagarbha before the big bang.

Dear readers, be with us in this journey of Universal Vedanta movement.

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Readers' List

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 20 Minute Guided Meditation | Cosmic Meditation
https://universal-vedanta.blogspot.com/2024/04/20-minute-guided-meditation-cosmic.html

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Chapter 1 First Brahmana
https://universal-vedanta.blogspot.com/2024/03/brihadaranyaka-upanishad-chapter-1-1st-brahmana-cosmic-meditation.html

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Introduction
https://universal-vedanta.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-universe-is-infinite-you-are-too.html

Isha Upanishad - Conclusion
https://universal-vedanta.blogspot.com/2024/02/isha-upanishad-explained-in-english.html

Isha Upanishad - Shloka - 18

https://universal-vedanta.blogspot.com/2023/11/isha-upanishad-in-english-isha-verse-18-karma-life-after-death-heaven-hell-rebirth-virtue-sinexplained.html