Creation

 Creation is interpreted in the Vedas as a developmental course rather than as bringing

into being something not hitherto existent. It was considered as an ongoing-process and

not an event. The Purusha Sukta of Rig Veda paints a picture of the ideal Primeval Being

existing before any phenomenal existence. He is conceived as a cosmic person with a

thousand heads, eyes and feet, who filled the whole universe and extended beyond it. The

world form is only a fragment of this divine reality. The first principle which is called

Purusha manifested as the whole world by his Tapas.

This view gets crystallized into the later Upanishadic doctrine that the spirit or Atman in

man (at microcosm) is the same as the spirit which is the cause of the world which goes

by the name Brahman or Paramatman (at macrocosm). These theories are discussed in

elaborate details in the following Upanishads Viz., Prasna, Aitareya, Mundaka,

Taittiriya, Katha, Chandogya, Svetasvatara, Brhadaranyaka, Maitri, Paingala

Upanishads besides the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Vasishtha. Among the latter Acharyas

the contributions made by Gaudapada, and Adi Sankara to these thoughts are colossal.