The
Matsya Purāṇa (2.25–30) gives an account of initial creation. After
Mahāprālaya, the great dissolution of the Universe, there was darkness everywhere. Everything was in a state of sleep. There was nothing, either moving or static. Then
Svayambhu, self-manifested being arose, which is a form beyond senses. It created the primordial waters first and established the seed of creation into it. The seed turned into a golden womb, Hiraṇyagarbha. Then Svayambhu entered into that egg. The
Nārāyaṇa Sūkta exclaims that everything that is, visible or invisible, all this is pervaded by
Nārāyaṇa within and without. The
Īśvara Upaniṣad says that the universe is pervaded by
Īśvara (God), who is both within and without it. He is the moving and the unmoving, He is far and near, He is within all these and without all these. The
Vedānta Sūtra further states that Brahman is That from Whom this Universe proceeds, in Whom it subsists, and to Whom, in the end, it returns. The
Saṃkhya school holds that there are only two primary principles,
Puruṣa and
Prākṛti, and creation is only a manifestation or evolution of the constituents of
Prākṛti due to the action of Puruṣa's Consciousness. The
Bhagavata states that
Nārāyaṇa alone was in the beginning, who was the pious of principles of creation, sustenance, and dissolution (also known as the Hindu Trinity of
Brahmā,
Viṣṇu and
Shiva) - the Supreme god, multi-headed, multi-eyed, multi-footed, multi-armed, multi-limbed. This was the Supreme Seed of all creation, subtler than the subtlest, greater than the greatest, larger than the largest, and more magnificent than even the best of all things, more powerful, than even the wind and all the gods, more resplendent than the Sun and the Moon, and more internal than even the mind and the intellect. He is the Creator, the Supreme. The term can also mean as He who, having become first the Creator, has come to be considered as the womb of all objects. The Hiraṇyagarbha Sūkta of the
Rigveda declares that God manifested Himself in the beginning as the Creator of the Universe, encompassing all things, including everything within Himself, the collective totality, as it were, of the whole of creation, animating it as the Supreme Intelligence. In the Rigveda (RV 10.121) it is also mentioned that at the creation of the world the cosmic egg was separated in to two halves, one part became the sky and the other the sun. ==See also==