The existence of nothingness in the Rig Veda is very intriguing and is what sets it apart from the other creation stories.  Genesis already starts with the earth existing albeit it “was welter and waste and darkness over the deep,” it still exists (158).  In the very beginning of the Yoruba proverbs “everything was water,” and that makes sense to hear as an early creation story (392).  Many early creation stories start with a great ocean or some sort of land and sky existing or even a giant floating turtle, like early Native Americans believed.  The point of this is that the land, the water, a turtle are all things that physically exist.  The early peoples could see these things they could imagine them in their heads.  Nothing however can’t be seen nor can it be imagined.  Seriously try right now to imagine nothing and then describe what you are imagining.  It makes tons of sense that these early people didn’t start their creation stories with “first there was nothing” because they have no idea what nothing looks like.  However the Rig Veda does exactly that.  In fact it’s the third word in the whole song.  Not only that but later down in the song nothing is mentioned again “That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing” (Rig Veda).  Now, maybe the people who wrote the Rig Veda meant The One was naked and was wearing nothing at all.  This would make a lot of sense because certainly the people who wrote the Rig Veda have seen someone not wearing clothes.  However why wouldn’t they, or the people who translated the text, use another word which would mean a similar thing such as, naked, or nude, or plainly not wearing anything at all?  Why would they willingly use a word they have already used in the text, to set the grand scene of creation, to now describe The Ones lack of clothing?  Maybe that analysis is going too far with the idea and maybe it really does mean The One wore nothing.  Nonetheless I am thoroughly impressed that a piece of writing that came out sometime between 1500-1200 BCE had the idea of nothing when other creation tales that came out before or after it did not.