Matter and anti-matter in the Upanishads

I have been prompted to write on matter and anti-matter as it is enunciated in the Hindu sciptures. I am listing down some of the verses from the Upansidhas that I had read at different points of time.

According to Taitriya Upanishad,

"Tasmat va etasmat atmana akasas sambhutah" (Chap 2.1.1): "From this Universal Atman, space emanated"

Space is actually the negation of the infinity of Brahman. Infinity does not mean extension or dimension – but space is extension, dimension, distance. So, immediately a contradiction is introduced at the very beginning of the concept of creation. God is negated, as it were, for various reasons, the moment creation is conceived, one reason being that the creation appears as an external manifestation, whereas God – Brahman – is the Universal Existence.

In fact, interestingly, the word Brhaman (Brhama, crudely put, as in"the Creator") in Sanskrit is derived from the root Bhr..  which literally means "that which expands". The Thanajvur deity is called "Brughadeeswarar". Taken literally, it means "big temple" ( தஞ்சை பெரிய கோயில்). The deeper meaning of this is that the Lord is all pervasive, in the sense that He fills the ever expanding universe.

According to Bruhadaranyaka Upanishad,

"naiveha kiṁcanᾱgra ᾱsīt, mṛtyunaivedam ᾱvṛtam ᾱsīt, aśanᾱyayᾱ, aśanᾱyᾱ hi mṛtyuḥ; tan mano'kuruta ᾱtmanvī syᾱm iti. so'rcann acarat, tasyᾱrcata. ᾱpojᾱyanta, arcate vai me kam abhῡd iti; tad evᾱrkasya arkatvam; kaṁ ha vᾱ asmai bhavati, ya evam etad arkasya arkatvaṁ veda."

Originally, there was nothing. Death was enveloping everything. That is all the meaning, literally, of this sentence. In the beginning of things, what was there? Nothing was there. There was a devouring, all-consuming death principle, as it were; nothing else can we conceive.

In Prashna Upanshad, the very first question that Kabandhi asks is -  What is the root cause of this world? In fact, Kabandhi's question is literally "From where (which root) these people are born ?" For which, Sage Pippalada answers as if the question were asked about the root cause of the world. He says that Prajapati created a union of Prana and Rayi in order to create world and their intermixing or mating produced all the things in the world. Max Müller has apparently translated this union as Spirit and Matter. The spirit portion roughly equates to anti-matter.

A very interesting story in the  Chandogya Upanishad is reporduced below. It is a brief dialogue between the father (Udhalaka) and his son (Svetaketu).

One day, while discussing the meaning of Sat (the Being), Chit (the Consciousness) and Anand (the eternal Bliss), and the origin and evolution of the world (planet earth), Svetaketu asks his father, how could this ‘world’ with all its multitudinous variety of living and non-living forms be produced in this simple way?

Prompted by his son’s question, Udhalaka asked him –

“Fetch me a fruit, lying on the ground, of the Nyagrodha (peepal or pipal) tree”.

“Here is one, Sir”, said Svetaketu.

“Break it and let me know what you find therein, son”, said Udhalaka.

“I see some tiny seeds, Sir”, answered Svetaketu.

“Crush one of the seeds, son”, asked the father.

“Yes, Sir, I have done it so, Sir”, answered the son.

“What do you see therein, son?”, asked the father.

“Nothing, Sir”, said Svetaketu.

“Yet in that subtle substance that is hardly visible to the naked eye, exists the awesome potential that can produce this huge Nyagrodha tree with many large branches bearing leaves, flowers and fruits”, said the aged and experienced father. Do you wonder at it, son? Likewise, all that exists in this universe was potentially in the Sat, dear son, and thou art That. Believe it, said father. Further, he philosophized with a profound saying, “out of nothing, only nothing can come; non-being cannot produce being, much less could consciousness come out of nothing”. Believe me son that “the causeless beginning, as the sage says, was, in fact, the Sat or Being with consciousness”.

To cap this, Stephen Hawkins, in his book "The Origin of Everything" admits , and I quote.

“Science may solve the problem of how the universe was formed, it cannot, however, answer, why the universe bother to exist? May be only God can answer that”.