Hiraṇyagarbha

Vedic, Upanishadic, and Purāṇic sources present variant origin accounts. The Rigveda (Hiraṇyagarbha Sūkta, RV 10.121) invokes a single primal creator at the beginning. Upanishadic traditions describe Hiraṇyagarbha as the 'Soul of the Universe' (Brahman) that floated in emptiness and darkness for a period and then split into halves that became heaven (svarga) and earth (pṛthvī). Purāṇic summaries (e.g., Matsya Purāṇa as summarized in the sources) narrate that after dissolution a self-manifested being (Svayambhu) arose, created primordial waters, placed the seed of creation into them and that seed became the golden womb Hiraṇyagarbha, into which Svayambhu entered; in Purāṇic and later smṛti usage Hiraṇyagarbha is also associated with the emergence of Prajāpati or Brahmā (e.g., Manu Smṛti reference that Brahmā was 'born in a golden egg').

Texts describe Hiraṇyagarbha in cosmological imagery as a hiraṇya (golden) garbha (womb/embryo/egg). Upanishadic accounts speak of it 'floating' in dark emptiness before division; other texts place a golden egg upon Viṣṇu's navel in world-origin metaphors (Vishvakarma Sūkta imagery). Sources consistently use 'golden womb/egg' or 'golden embryo' imagery, though descriptions are schematic and symbolic rather than detailed anthropomorphic depictions.

Sources attribute to Hiraṇyagarbha primarily a causal and formative potency: it is the seed or womb from which the manifested cosmos proceeds. In Upanishadic and Vedāntic exegesis it is read as the first-manifest or first-born aspect of Brahman (the universal Soul) through which the world is fashioned and sustained; in Purāṇic readings it is identified with or gives rise to the creator figure (Brahmā/Prajāpati). The emphasis in the sources is on origination, ordering, and being the locus in which the universe subsists and to which it returns, rather than on volitional deeds or moral agency.