Varuna, the Big Bang, and the Unmanifest: A Tapestry of Origins

When the first stars punctured the darkness, ancient eyes looked upward and saw the sky as a vast, rolling ocean. In the Vedic hymns, that ocean had a name: Varuna. He was the keeper of ṛta—the cosmic order that steadies the heavens and the waters, the unseen current that threads the night. In his mythic grasp lay the whole of the uncreated, the abyss that both contains and conceals the seed of everything that is. To speak of Varuna is to speak of a primordial source—a deep, dark sea of potential—before the world took shape, before time began to tick.

The Sea Before the Spark

In the earliest Vedic imagery, Varuna rides a silvered wave of apsaras—celestial waters that surround the world. He is the asura of the night sky, the “holder of the cosmos” whose form is the boundless ocean that lies beyond the horizon. The Rig Veda portrays him as “the god who stretches his net across the world, whose eye sees all that moves in the heavens and the earth.” That net is ṛta: the law that weaves the universe into coherence, the hidden pattern that keeps the stars from scattering.

Modern cosmology offers a parallel. The universe, according to the Big Bang theory, exploded outward from an infinitesimal singularity—a point of infinite density and temperature, a “nothing” that contained every possible form of matter, energy, and space‑time. Before that moment, there was no “there” to point to, no “then” to measure. The singularity is the unmanifest, the cosmic ocean of potential that precedes all manifest existence. In a sense, the ancient poets of India and the 20th‑century physicists are describing the same unknowable sea: the before that is not a place but a state of pure possibility.

Oludumare: The Breath That Breathes

Across the Atlantic, in the Yoruba tradition of West Africa, the source of all is given a name that resonates with breath itself: Oludumare, also called Olorun, “the owner of the sky.” In the Ifa corpus, Oludumare is the supreme deity who “breathes” the ase (the vital force) into all things. He is the ultimate originer, the one who, from the depths of his own being, sends forth the breath that animates the world.

The metaphor of breath is striking. In the moment of the Big Bang, the universe did not merely “explode”; it expanded—a rapid inflation of space‑time that many cosmologists liken to a giant inhalation. The initial singularity can be imagined as a colossal lung, drawing in the void and then exhaling the fabric of reality. Oludumare’s breath is the same breath that, in the scientific story, blows the first fire of creation. The Yoruba deity and the Big Bang both speak of a breath that precedes form, a generative exhalation that brings the unmanifest into being.

The Pleroma: Fullness Beyond Form

Within Gnostic thought, the Pleroma denotes the “fullness” of the divine—an ineffable totality from which all emanations (the Aeons) flow. It is the uncreated source, beyond the created cosmos, that contains all possibilities within itself, yet remains wholly other. The Pleroma is not a place but the state of complete divinity, the “ocean” of all that is divine before it spills into the finite world.

In the same way, the pre‑Big Bang singularity is a Pleroma of sorts: a point of infinite potential, a ‘fullness’ that contains every particle, every force, every law that will ever exist. The Gnostics spoke of a kenosis—a “self‑emptying” of the Pleroma into the material world. The Big Bang can be seen as a cosmic kenosis as well: the unmanifest empties itself out, spilling its fullness into the expanding universe we inhabit. Both narratives describe a movement from fullness to form, from the unknowable to the known.

Other Reflections of the Unmanifest

The image of a primeval source recurs across cultures:

Tao (Dao) – In Chinese philosophy, the Tao is “the Way,” an ineffable principle that is the origin of all things, the “nothing” that gives rise to “something.” It is the silent river beneath all manifestation, just as Varuna’s cosmic ocean underlies the visible sky.

Brahman – In the Upanishads, Brahman is the ultimate reality, the infinite, timeless substratum from which the universe springs. It is akin to the unmanifest sea that, when “cast into Maya,” becomes the world.

Shunyata – Buddhist emptiness is not a void but a potential—the openness that allows all phenomena to arise. It is the “space” in which the Big Bang’s singularity could exist, waiting to become.

Ain Soph – In Kabbalah, the Ain Soph is the “Limitless Light,” the first emanation of the Godhead, beyond description, the source of all sephirot. It mirrors the infinite density of the pre‑Big Bang singularity.

The Cosmic Egg – Many mythologies speak of a primordial egg that cracks to release the world. The egg is a container of potential, the “unmanifest” that splits open to give form.

Each of these images—Varuna’s ocean, Oludumare’s breath, the Pleroma’s fullness, the Tao’s way, Brahman’s absolute, the Buddhist emptiness, the Kabbalistic Ain Soph, the Cosmic Egg—offers a different cultural lens on the same mystery: a source that is both beyond and within everything that exists.

Weaving the Threads

What then is the relationship between Varuna and the Big Bang? It is a symbolic correspondence. Varuna’s cosmic ocean is a mythic perspective for the unmanifest—the potential that exists before time, before space, before matter. The Big Bang is the scientific story of how that potential unfolds into the universe we see. Oludumare’s breath is another perspective for the same unfolding—the vital force that moves from the unmanifest to the manifest. The Pleroma, the Tao, Brahman, Shunyata, Ain Soph, the Cosmic Egg—all are cultural definitions used to name the unnameable source, each using the imagery most resonant with its own worldview.

When we look at the night sky, we see the stars that were forged in the furnace of that first explosion. We also see the glimmer of an ancient god’s eye, watching over the cosmic order. The ancient and the modern are not opposed; they are complementary verses in a single, ever‑unfolding poem. Varuna, the Big Bang, Oludumare, the Pleroma, and their cousins across traditions all point to the same truth: there was a before, a deep, dark sea of potential, and from that sea, all of existence was breathed, spoken, and exploded into being.

In the silence between heartbeats, in the space between atoms, we can sense that original ocean—the unmanifest source—still lapping at the edges of reality, waiting to be remembered, to be honoured, and to be wondered at. It is the common ground on which myth and science meet, a reminder that the story of the universe is still being written, line by line, by every culture that dares to ask: Where did it all begin?

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Image source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rajarani_Temple_03_(cropped).jpg