Hiranyagarbha

Hiranyagarbha (Sanskrit हिरण्यगर्भ, Hiranyagarbha golden egg, golden womb ) is a creator deity in the cosmology of Hinduism.

In the Rigveda Hiranyagarbha is revered as otherwise unknown creator of heaven, earth, and the gods, in a later appended stanza he is then equated with the creator god Prajapati. In Atharvaveda Hiranyagarbha is a seed that originates in the primeval ocean and is surrounded by a gold shell.

In the various stages and manifestations of Hinduism an abundance of concretions was made. In the Samkhya influenced by Indian philosophy, the golden egg is considered as a product of the interaction of the spiritual principle of Purusha with Prakriti the material principle. In the Upanishads, it is used as macrocosmic representation of the human soul to the soul of Brahman, the actual creator of the world, reinterpreted. In the Puranas, he appears as a name of Brahman, as it emerged from a golden egg, or as the cosmic egg from which the water forms the primeval ocean. In Shaivism Hiranyagarbha is considered an aspect of the god Shiva, the churning of the milk caused by the ocean the emergence of the world.