Origin · 2 tellings · Pan-India

The sacrifice of Purusha

Who is in it

Purusha (the cosmic person) the cosmic Person who is offered

Texts: Rigveda

The story, beat by beat

Purusha has a thousand heads, eyes and feet and is all that has been and will be.
One quarter of him is all creatures; three quarters are immortal in heaven.
The gods perform a sacrifice with Purusha as the offering; spring is the butter, summer the fuel, autumn the gift.
From it come the animals, the verses, chants and formulas.
The moon is born from his mind, the sun from his eye, Indra and Agni from his mouth, wind from his breath.
Sky comes from his head, earth from his feet; so the worlds are formed.

creation sacrifice cosmic person

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Rigveda 10.90

Pan-India All traditions

Sixteen verses. The thousand-headed Person exceeds the earth; Viraj is born from him and he from Viraj. The gods, Sadhyas and seers bind him as the victim; from the offering come beasts, the three kinds of sacred utterance, the four orders of society from his mouth, arms, thighs and feet, and the moon, sun, Indra, Agni, wind, air, sky, earth and quarters from his mind and body. These were the first ordinances.

Hymns of the Rigveda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1896), hymns read for the Vedic layer § 10.90

Scholarly

Taittiriya Aranyaka 1.23 (allusion)

Pan-India All traditions

The tortoise that says it existed before Prajapati rises as a person with a thousand heads, eyes and feet, quoting the opening of the Purusha hymn.

What is different here:

The Purusha verse is quoted inside a Prajapati creation story; the Person is older than Prajapati there.

Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 1 (2nd ed.), J. Muir § vol1.p32-33

Sources: Hymns of the Rigveda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1896), hymns read for the Vedic layer; Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 1 (2nd ed.), J. Muir