Logic of the Ether: Jaipur Kites (clip), 2021, 3-channel video installation, sound, 07:51 minutes 

Narration by Alan Cunningham

Text: Hymn of Creation (Rigveda 10.129, Nāsadīya Sūkta, translation by Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton

Rigveda

X.129

Creation 

1. The nonexistent did not exist, nor did the existent exist at that time. There existed neither the airy space nor heaven beyond.

What moved back and forth? From where and in whose protection? Did water exist, a deep depth?

2. Death did not exist nor deathlessness then. There existed no sign of night nor of day.

That One breathed without wind by its independent will. There existed nothing else beyond that.

3. Darkness existed, hidden by darkness, in the beginning. All this was a signless ocean.

What existed as a thing coming into being, concealed by emptiness—that One was born by the power of heat.

4. Then, in the beginning, from thought there evolved desire, which existed as the primal semen.

Searching in their hearts through inspired thought, poets found the connection of the existent in the nonexistent.

5. Their cord was stretched across: Did something exist below it? Did something exist above?

There existed placers of semen and there existed greatnesses. There was independent will below, offering above.

6. Who really knows? Who shall here proclaim it?—from where was it born, from where this creation?

The gods are on this side of the creation of this (world). So then who does know from where it came to be?

7. This creation—from where it came to be, if it was produced or if not— he who is the overseer of this (world) in the furthest heaven, he surely

knows. Or if he does not know...?