Rig Veda and the Big Bang Theory: Part 1
Just to set your expectations, this is not another attempt to prove that my ancestors and my culture invented and discovered most important things before others did. Not that it is a bad thing to do, but that’s just not my approach. Our civilization believes that time is a chakra, or a cycle, and not a straight line. If time is indeed cyclical, it is pointless to argue what came first and what happened later. To be clear, belief in an endless cycle of yugas (or eras) and rebirths is one of the central tenets of Hinduism. And so I flinch when anyone says “We only have one life, live it to the fullest.” Again, not that its a bad thing to do. But I digress, I am here to talk about the parallels between what’s in the Rig Veda and the Big Bang Theory.
Nasadiya Sukta is a very well documented part of Rig Veda, and is one of the most well known suktas (hymns). It is commonly known to the world as the Hymn of Creation, and has continued to amaze the world with its inquiry into origins of the Universe. Another school of thought that has held similar inquiry is the Big Bang Theory, which is much more recent than the Rig Veda which modern estimates consider it as around 5000 years old, but which is believed to be around since the beginning of time. Well, since we believe time is cyclical, there is no such thing as the beginning of time, so you figure it out.
There is a lot to unpack in the Nasadiya Sukta. So let’s try to do it slowly, carefully, without turning this into another Wikipedia article which is great at stripping out unique flavors of my heritage and culture when describing our scriptures. We will do this in 7 parts, and will try not to digress too much while we are at it.
Nasadiya Sukta starts off by simply stating that nothing existed before creation. Neither the consumables (sound, touch, form, taste, smell etc.) nor the consumers (the 5 senses, animals, plants, humans etc.) existed. Matter did not exist, be it gross matter or sub-atomic particles. Elements you cannot see (like air) and various forms of energy did not exist. The Sukta wonders if just an impregnable envelop of water (or ether) existed everywhere, and nothing else, and immediately dismisses that notion as well. It concludes that only the creator, the supreme, the omnipresent and omnipotent, existed.
What does the Big Bang Theory say about what existed before creation? The Theory lays it out that before the Universe as we know it came into being, “everything was condensed into an infinitesimally small singularity, a point of infinite density and heat” (https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html) A close parallel to what the Nasadiya Sukta is saying, of course without any mention of the omnipotent. The idea of the Big Bang came about in 1927, so much later than Rig Veda. But then we have already said that we will not indulge in debates about what came first, given time is cyclical and not linear. Did the Big Bang theory borrow (let’s be polite and not use the word steal) from the Rig Veda? You should research and decide.
So, to sum up, both the Sukta and the Big Bang Theory agree that pretty much nothing existed before creation, other than the omnipotent or an infinitesimally small point which contained everything that would manifest later on. Alternate scientific theories exist on the creation of the Universe, but we will stick to the most well known — the Big Bang Theory. You will hopefully notice and agree with me that the only point of difference between the two — the Sukta and the Theory — is the agency that is attributed to all encompassing power in the Sukta (who will be known as God or ParaBrahma) and just a random phenomenon of a point that contained everything as per the Theory.
May be its just me, but I do hope all this is not just created out of something purely random, and I hope there is some agency involved. We will see what happens next, soon.
