According to the Old Testament, is the first man, created by God on the sixth day of creation. Eve is the first woman not born but created by God to be the wife of Adam.
Adam actually is
derived from Adamah meaning earth (They call him Aadmi in hindi)
Few scholars say
that Adam is associated with the Assyrian ‘Adaman’ meaning ‘make‘ or ‘produce‘
and so ‘Adam‘ means maker or producer.
Eve in Hebrew is
‘Havah‘ and is associated with the root ‘hayah‘ or ‘hay‘ meaning life.
Adam and Eve
lived with child like innocence in the Garden of Eden enjoying, God’s bliss.
They were told that they could eat freely the fruit of every tree in the garden
except that of the true knowledge of good and evil.
However, tempted
by the serpent, Eve ate the fruit of knowledge tree and gave it to Adam.
As a result,
they became conscious of their nakedness and sin, covered themselves with
aprons of fig leaves.
To prevent from
eating the fruit of tree of life, God banished them from Eden; and they were
obliged to till the ground to obtain food. Eve’s further punishment was decreed
in the following words-“I will multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in
sorrow, shalt thou bring forth children..”
In this story,
it is said that ‘the God prepared man on the 6th day’ etc., it is evident that
the writer of the story did not have the real knowledge of the Genesis of the
world.
It is not told
in the story who prepared the serpent and how the serpent became equal and
opposite to the God.
Even the ‘GOD‘
who created man and woman was not described clearly how he got the power to
create and why did he create ?
The original
story of Adam & Eve is however described as story of two birds in
Mundakopanishad.
The initial
process of creation from two forces was explained in Prasnopanishad 1/4,
written around 6000 BCE.
Story of Rayi
and Prana in Prasnopanishad : Kabandhi, a student asked the sage named as
Pippalada, “From where all these things and animals come into existence?” .
Sage Pippalada
replied, “The originator(creator) thought of producing different things and he
performed Tapa and produced a couple, Rayi and Prana; and said that these two
will produce variety of things and animals.”
Many may
think Rayi is female because it sounds feminine and Prana is male because it
sounds masculine.
But sage
pippalada used the word Rayi to depict matter, and Prana to depict energy.
This is clear
from the very next statement of the sage that the Sun is Prana and the Moon is
Rayi, not only the Moon but any form is Rayi.(1/5).
Further he
states that the Sun supports and maintains all the life by his rays. (1/6)
Excerpts from
Prasnopanishad : Prana acts on Rayi. Various forms are manifested.
It is the
intermingling of these two that gives rise to the world of diverse forms.
The one is
active, positive and is the male principle; the other is passive, negative and
is the female principle.
Prana belongs to
the conscious side of creation, while Rayi or matter belongs to the form side
of creation.
Matter is the
universal form. Prana is life or consumer.
The body is
upheld by the Prana or life principle.
Prajapati was
desirous of offspring. From this desire a pair sprang forth, viz., matter or
the universal form and Prana, life, or consumer.
As life and
matter, Prajapati is, gradually, the sun and the moon, the year in its two
halves, day and night.
Prana, Aditya
(sun), day, Amurta (formless), life, spirit, northern path, invisibility,
belong to the life side.
Rayi, the moon,
the night, Murta (with form), matter, southern path, visibility, belong to the
matter side.
Everyone who
believes in modern science will agree that sun maintains life on earth.
So, sage
pippalada disclosed this information thousands of years ago.
Now, the
question about eating of the fruit and falling in trouble…
This is
explained with story of two birds in Mundakopanishad 3-1-1 .
Excerpts from
Mundakopanishad :
Two birds,
inseparable companions, dwell upon one and the same tree. One of them eats the
sweet fruit, the other one looks on without eating.
The two birds
are Jiva (the individual soul) and Isvara (the Lord).
Having known Truth
thus, one goes beyond death. There is no other road to salvation.
The Jivatman is
limited by Avidya or ignorance. Therefore, he is bound by body, mind and work.
The Lord is
conditioned by Maaya, but Maaya is under His control. Therefore, He is free,
omnipotent and omniscient.
Tree here means
the body. A tree can be cut or destroyed. The body also can be cut or
destroyed. So the body is compared to a tree.
The reflection
of the Parmatman in the mind-mirror is the Jivatman or the individual soul.
The Jiva tastes,
from ignorance, the fruits of his Karmas, viz. happiness and misery.
The Atman is
always the silent witness. It is non-doer or non-enjoyer. Enjoyment and
agentship are superimposed on the Jiva by the mind.
When ignorance
is destroyed, when the heart is purified, when knowledge of the Self dawns, the
knots of the heart are rent asunder, all Karmas perish, the ideas of doer and
enjoyer are annihilated. One becomes identified with the supreme Self and
attains liberation.
Being seated on
the same tree, the Jiva immersed in ignorance, and deluded, grieves, on account
of helplessness. But when he sees the other, the Lord who is adored by all, and
His glory, then he becomes free from grief.
In sanskrit ‘Adim’ means the
first, primitive, or original, which may have turned into Adam. Shakti is
called as ‘E‘. This ‘E‘ may have converted into Eve.
Both the Prasna
and Mundaka are the Upanishads of Atharva Veda.
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