The questions of the Nāsadīya Sūkta did not end with the Ṛgveda. Several Upaniṣads, composed some centuries later, take up the same puzzle of being and non-being at the beginning, and answer it in different ways.
“In the beginning there was nothing here at all”
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (1.2.1) begins its account of creation with naiveha kiṃcanāgra āsīt: “There was nothing whatsoever here in the beginning.” The same rhythm as the Nāsadīya’s nāsad āsīt, and the same refusal to start from a thing.
Non-being first, then being
The Taittirīya Upaniṣad (2.7) says asad vā idam agra āsīt, tato vai sad ajāyata: “In the beginning this was non-being; from that, being was born.” This takes one side of the question the Nāsadīya deliberately left open.
Being first, and only being
The Chāndogya Upaniṣad (6.2.1–2) pushes back. The teacher Uddālaka tells his son Śvetaketu: “In the beginning, my dear, this was being alone, one only, without a second.” He mentions those who say non-being came first, and asks how being could ever come from non-being. This is the line of thought that later grows into Vedānta.
The One, and inner heat
Two images from the hymn run through later thought:
- The One (tad ekam). The neuter “That One,” neither god nor person, foreshadows the Upaniṣads’ Brahman, the single reality behind everything.
- Tapas. In verse 3 the One is born through heat. In later Indian practice tapas becomes the inner heat of discipline and concentration, and creators in many later stories, such as Prajāpati, first perform tapas and then create.
Breath
The hymn’s first sign of life is breath: the One breathed. The Upaniṣads repeatedly make breath (prāṇa) the first and most essential of the powers in a living being, and identify it with life itself.
Reading these passages together shows a tradition in conversation with itself across centuries, trying different answers to a question one hymn had dared to leave open.