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82 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
I
Prajapati Parmesthin started with the problem: “Did being come out of non-being ?” His view was that this was an irrelevant question. For him water was the original substance of that which exists. For him the original matter—water—came neither under the definition of being nor under that of non-being.
Paramesthin did not draw any distinction between matter and motive power. According to him water transformed itself into particular things by some inherent principle to which he gave the name Kama, Cosmic Desire.
Anila was another Vedic Philosopher. To him the principal element was air (vayu). It possesses the inherent capacity for movement. It is endowed with the generating principle.
12. Dirghtamas maintained that all living beings rest and depend ultimately on the sun. The sun held up and propelled by its inherent force went backward and forward.
The sun is composed of a grey coloured substance and so are lightning and fire.
The sun, lightning and fire formed the germ of water. Water forms the germ of plants. Such were the views of Dirghatamas.
According to Narayana, Purusha (God) is the first cause of the universe. It is from Purusha that the sun, the moon, the earth, water, fire, air, mid-air, the sky, the regions, the seasons, the creatures of the air, all animals, all classes of men, and all human institutions, had originated.
Hiranyagarbha. From doctrinal point of view he stood midway between Parmeshthin and Narayan, Hiranyagarbha means the golden germ. It was the great power of the universe, from which all other powers and existences, divine and earthly, were derived.
Hiranyagarbha means fire. It is fire that constituted the solar essence, the generating principle of the universe.
From the point of view of Vishvakarman it was quite inadequate and unsatisfactory to hold that water was the primitive substance of all that is, and