Mahabharata

“Om! Having bowed down to Narayana and Nara, the most exalted male being, and also to the goddess Saraswati, we must utter the word for Victory: Jaya!”

This invocation opens with an apostrophe, or a rhetorical device of directly addressing deities who are not physically present, setting a sacred tone that aligns with the reverence of its ancient epic context. The invocation’s structure also hints at didacticism, as it presents a model of piety and respect for divine figures before the story unfolds. The word “Victory” suggests that a winning condition is more than a physical triumph—it’s a spiritual or moral ideal.

“In this world, when it was destitute of brightness and light, and enveloped all around in total darkness, there came into being, as the primal cause of creation, a mighty egg, the one inexhaustible seed of all created beings. It is called Mahadivya and was formed at the beginning of the yuga, the age, in which we are told was the true light Brahma, the eternal one, the wonderful and inconceivable being present alike in all places, the invisible and subtle cause, whose nature partakes of entity and non-entity.”

The imagery of light emerging from darkness evokes a cosmic dichotomy between creation and the void. This imagery combines with symbolism in the “mighty egg,” a symbol of the universe and the potential of all creation. The description of Brahma as “the eternal one, the wonderful and inconceivable being present alike in all places” draws on allegory: Brahma embodies the all-encompassing source of existence, a presence that is both “entity and non-entity,” reflecting the paradoxical nature of the divine, which is said to transcend human understanding.