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The garden between records

Records in this room

01storyEzekiel · The chariot vision02researchAncient Text Research Kit03storyAt the threshold of Kesh · The temple hymn’s conclusion04storyA Vessel on a White Lotus · Amoghapāśa05storySamuel · The source of the voice06storySpeech that went unheard · Vāk and understanding07storyWind, Dust and the Body · An Incantation of Ningirim08storyMoses · Fire in the bush09storyElijah · After the fire10storyA Voice from the Depths · Jonah11storyJacob · The place he did not know12storyThe empty space · A wheel, a vessel and a room13storyJacob · Tell me your name14storyKena · That through which15storyThe yaksha · Power that is not enough16storyWho knows the beginning · The hymn of origins17storyThe Waters of Nun · Book of the Dead18storyZhuang Zhou · The butterfly dream19storyForm and Emptiness · Heart Sūtra20storyThe Kālāmas · When you know for yourselves21storyThe ending of hostility · Pairs22storyThe cessation of suffering · What can change23storyDiscern and choose · Thought, word and deed24storyMusa · Where the two seas meet25storyThe Plant That Could Not Be Kept · Gilgamesh26storyAfter the Flood · Gilgamesh and Genesis27storyNachiketas · The third boon28storyThe unborn · The body and its dweller29storyA Weapon That Can Be Recalled · Mahābhārata30storyThe Stayed Hand · Abraham and Isaac31storyJob · Before explaining32publicationSuffering is not a required course.33storyAn explanation is not pain relief.34storyWhat Shall I Bring? · Micah and Hosea35storyWho sinned? · A question on the road36storyTo follow · To save and to lose37storyLife within me · No longer I38storyThe transfiguration · A voice from the cloud39storyAre you Elijah? · Three Gospel testimonies40storyWords on the Gates · Deuteronomy41storyElijah and Elisha · On the other side of the Jordan42storyThe seven seals · Who can stand?43storyThe image of the beast · Breath and a name44storyThe river and tree after the end · After the visions of judgment45storyAt the foot of Sumeru · Four mountains46storyMani · The name Maitreya47storyWait here for Maitreya · A dialogue48storyBuddha Mani · The Moon God49storyA place by the water · The garden between records

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Who knows the beginning · The hymn of origins

Rigveda 10.129 · all 7 stanzas

1Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

2Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day’s and night’s divider. That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.

3Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos. All that existed then was void and formless: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.

4Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit. Sages who searched with their heart’s thought discovered the existent’s kinship in the non-existent.

5Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it? There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder.

6Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The Gods are later than this world’s production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?

7He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

Reading notes

The hymn first removes familiar distinctions from its account of the beginning: existent and non-existent, death and immortality, day and night. An account of origins then emerges, together with a question about who could know it.

The final stanza leaves the origin of the world an open question: the uncertainty extends even to the one watching from the highest heaven.

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