review of religions: September: In the words of the famous cosmologist and professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College London, Joao Magueijo:

“Cosmology was for a long time the subject of religion. That it has become a branch of physics is to some extent a surprising achievement.”¹

Scriptures of every religion contain some account of how the universe was created. Before the current advances in the field of cosmology, the origins of creation remained a matter of belief for people of different faiths, who relied on their respective religious scriptures for unraveling the mysteries surrounding how the universe came into being. Even before the advent of the modern scientific era, some scriptures declared their inability to comment suitably upon these intriguing questions, such as how the universe was created. The most pressing questions among these have captured the human imagination for thousands of years: “Did anything exist beside the Creator before the creation of the universe began?” and “Does anything share eternity with God?” In this article we will undertake an analysis into whether the scriptures of different religions address these questions or not; how these scriptures have dealt with this particular aspect of creation; and whether these scriptures maintain that God created this universe out of nothing or they declare that when God commenced the process of creation, at least some entities were present and they were not created by God. These questions are inextricably linked to how the concept of God is presented by these scriptures, compelling questions in the nature of: Is God powerful enough to start creation from nothing? Or have matter, time, space or souls always existed and when God created this universe He merely used these constituents as building blocks. If the latter theory were to be accepted, then we would be forced to conclude that one or more of these entities are eternal like God. Theoretical physicists have led scientific inquiries into these confounding questions by using various self-devised methods as the understanding of science and cosmology have advanced. For scientists who deny the existence of God altogether or who are atheists, the challenge of rendering a plausible explanation for the creation of the universe is increasingly complex. If we were to assume that the universe has no creator and initially the energy content of the universe was zero, then we are left with the unanswered and equally puzzling question of how the present energy content of the universe may be explained by the laws of physics. Intriguing as these scientific debates are, we now turn to the focus of the present article, which is a theoretical inquiry into how did the ancient scriptures address the question of the creation of the universe?

Hinduism

Translation of a part of the Vedas – The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India and are among the oldest sacred texts. Composed in Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism and Buddhism.

We turn our attention first to Hindu scriptures, wherein the Vedas constitute the oldest scriptures of Hindu literature. The distinguishing feature of the Vedas from other religious texts of the Hindu faith is that the Vedas are believed to have been the result of direct revelation (Sruti). Among the four Vedas, Rigveda is considered to be the oldest and it declares the following:

“Who verily knows and who can declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?

The Gods are latter than this world’s production. Who knows thence first it came into being?

He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,

Whose eye control this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.”²

This reference makes it clear that, according to the Rigveda, it is unclear whether creation occurred on God’s command or whether creation occurred as a consequence of a spontaneous phenomenon—leaving unanswered the question of whether God (or gods) themselves had any definite knowledge about creation. We will now explore how the Rigveda’s narration evolved through in subsequent Hindu scriptures. A topic of repeated discussion in the Hindu literature is whether everything was non-existent in the beginning except for the creator and was subsequently created, or whether some other entities of the universe share eternity with the creator. This question has been stirring the minds of Hindu theologians since ancient times. The Upanishads are philosophical texts considered to be early sources of the tenets of Hinduism. There are approximately 200 Upanishads, almost 12 of which are relatively older than the others. The Khandogya Upanishad narrates that Uddalaka, the son of Aruna, taught his son:

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