Hindu Philosophy

1. Is Hindu philosophy agnostic?

One important aspect of Hindu philosophy has been to question. This hymn from the tenth book of the Rig Veda is very good example. It question what was before creation, how did creation happen and who knows about creation and before. Maybe the creator, or perhaps not even the creator knows what came first in the very beginning. The following is a translation of the hymn by A.L. Basham. Reprinted from The Wonder That Was India, London, 1954, 247-248:

1
The even nothingness was not, nor existence.
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?

2
Then there was neither death nor immortality,
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.

3
At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.

4
In the beginning desire descended on it--
that was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know that which is, is kin to that which is not.

5
And they have stretched their cord across he void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertile might forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.

6
But, after all, who knows, and who can say
whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?

7
Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows--or maybe even he does not know.