Modern physics has taken us extraordinarily close to the origin of our observable universe. We know that the universe is expanding and that, about 13.8 billion years ago, it was in an extremely hot and dense state associated with the Big Bang. However, one question remains stubbornly open: What came before the Big Bang?
When we trace the expansion of the universe backwards using Einstein’s theory of general relativity, we arrive at what is called a singularity, a point where our present mathematical description breaks down.
The singularity may not answer the question of origin. It may simply indicate that our current understanding has reached its limit. And that raises a more fundamental question: If there was a beginning, what gave rise to that beginning?
Science does not yet have a definitive answer. In fact, the word before itself becomes problematic if time emerged with the universe. Perhaps there was something before the Big Bang. Perhaps there was no “before” at all.
When science reaches the boundaries of what can currently be explained empirically, metaphysics offers another way of exploring the mystery. Remarkably, thousands of years ago, the sages of India were contemplating the same fundamental question.
The Nasadiya Sukta, the Creation Hymn of the Rig Veda, is one of the most profound philosophical enquiries into the origin of existence. What makes it remarkable is not that it provides an answer, but that it refuses to pretend that an answer is known.
It asks what existed before creation. Was there existence or non existence? Was there something or nothing? Who could know how creation came into being?
In a remarkable expression of humility, it even questions whether the one who presides over creation might truly know its origin. It does not close the enquiry. It leaves the mystery open. This is perhaps its greatest wisdom.
Thousands of years before modern science began questioning the origin of the universe, the sages recognised that some questions may lie beyond the limits of human knowledge. Wisdom, therefore, may not always mean finding an answer. Sometimes it means having the courage to remain with the question.
Indian thought offers another possibility: perhaps existence never had an absolute beginning. In Hindu cosmology, creation is viewed as a recurring process of manifestation, sustenance and dissolution. Concepts such as kalpa and pralaya describe vast cycles in which the manifest universe emerges, exists and returns to an unmanifest state.
The Bhagavad Gita too speaks of beings emerging from the unmanifest and returning to it. If existence is cyclical, perhaps the Big Bang was not the beginning of everything, but the beginning of our present cosmic cycle.
Nature gives us a simple glimpse of such cycles. A seed becomes a tree; the tree produces seeds; and the cycle continues. Each beginning becomes part of another beginning.
This way of looking at creation has an important implication for us. We too are part of a world in which everything changes. Bodies grow and age. Relationships evolve. Circumstances change. Civilisations rise and decline. Nothing in the manifested world remains exactly as it is.
Our difficulty is that we often seek permanence in a world defined by change.If creation itself is a process of emergence, existence and dissolution, then change and endings are not exceptions to life. They are part of its very nature.
This perspective can change the way we live. Instead of asking only, “How can I hold on to what I have?”, we can ask, “How consciously can I participate in what is unfolding?”
We cannot control the larger processes of creation and dissolution. But we can choose how we live within them. We can bring greater awareness, responsibility and compassion to the small part of existence entrusted to us.
This is where the ancient enquiry becomes relevant to modern life.
The Nasadiya Sukta invites us to ask, “Who truly knows how creation came into being?”
The Upanishads encourage us to ask, “Who am I?”
Modern physics asks, “What happened at the beginning of our universe, and how is it evolving?”
These may be different doors into the same mystery.
The question of the beginning also invites us to reconsider our place in the universe. We are not detached observers looking at creation from the outside. We are part of the same cosmic story, shaped by the same processes that have shaped the universe. We look into the cosmos to understand where we came from, but we should also look within ourselves to understand how we choose to live while we are here.
The mystery of the beginning is not asking us for certainty. It is inviting us to enquire more deeply, live more consciously and responsibly, and remain humble as we continue to evolve within the mystery of existence.
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