How Creation Begins · सृष्टि

Hindu traditions do not tell one creation story — they tell several, and one of the oldest ends with a question rather than an answer. From the Nasadiya hymn to Vishnu resting on the cosmic ocean, here is how the scriptures describe the beginning of everything.

[Traditional account]

The Rigveda's Nasadiya Sukta (10.129) begins before existence and non-existence: "Then there was neither being nor non-being; there was no air, nor the sky beyond." It describes a single "That One" breathing without breath, and desire as the first seed of mind. Then it does something remarkable for a sacred text — it asks whether even the highest overseer knows how creation arose: "perhaps he knows, or perhaps he does not."

The Upanishads name the one reality from which all comes and into which all returns: Brahman. "That from which these beings are born, by which they live, and into which they enter" (Taittiriya Upanishad 3.1). Creation, in this view, is not something made from nothing by an outside maker — it is the one reality appearing as many.

The Puranas paint the beginning in images. Hiranyagarbha, the golden womb, floats on the waters of dissolution. In the Vaishnava telling, Vishnu lies on the serpent Ananta (Shesha) upon the causal ocean; from his navel rises a lotus, and on the lotus sits Brahma, who opens his eyes and begins to create…

• Purusha and Prakriti — the Samkhya account
• Brahma creates — the Puranic sequence
• The Purusha Sukta
• Creation happens again and again
• What this teaches

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• Rigveda — 10.129 Nasadiya Sukta; 10.90 Purusha Sukta; 10.121 Hiranyagarbha Sukta
• Taittiriya Upanishad — 3.1
• Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna
• Vishnu Purana — Book 1
• Bhagavata Purana — Canto 3