A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

by Mircea Eliade

But already in the Vedas brahman was thought to be, and was expressly called, the imperishable, the immutable, the foundation, the principle of all existence. It is significant that in several hymns of the Atharva Veda (e.g., 10. 7. 8) brahman is identified with the skambha (literally, “stay, support, pillar”); in other words, brahman sustains the world, for it is at once cosmic axis and ontological foundation. “In the skambha is all that is possessed by the spirit (atmanvat), all that breathes” (Atharva Veda 7. 8. 2). “He who knows the brahman in man knows the supreme being (parameṣthin, the Lord), and he who knows the supreme being knows the skambha” (ibid. 10. 8. 43). We perceive the effort to isolate the ultimate reality: brahman is recognized as the “pillar of the universe,” the support, the base; and the term pratiṣṭhā, which expresses all these notions, is already frequently used in the Vedic texts. The Brahman is identified with brahman because he knows the structure and origin of the universe, because he knows the Word that expresses all that; for Vāc, the Logos, can transform any person into a Brahman (already Rig Veda 10.