Here are a few thought-provoking approaches about the Hindu version of the aether.
Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many.
Brahman is the unborn (aja) in whom all existing things abide. The One manifests as the many, the formless putting on forms. (Rig Veda)
The word Brahman means growth and is suggestive of life, motion, progress. (Radhakrishnan).
The Universe is Brahman, the One that underlies and make possible all the multiplicity; the universal consciousness that is the soul of all existence. It is the primordial no-thingness from which all things arise, the one reality whose oneness is all-inclusive; and includes all that is, or shall be. It is Brahman; the source of the entire cosmos and all cosmic activities relating to the emergence, existence and dissolution of the terrestrial phenomena that form the cosmic rhythm. And this ultimate reality is One- absolute and indeterminable. (Sudhakar S.D. I am All, 1998)
..the problem of the one and the many in metaphysics and theology is insoluble: ‘The history of philosophy in India as well as in Europe has been one long illustration of the inability of the human mind to solve the mystery of the relation of God to the world.’ We have the universe of individuals which is not self-sufficient and in some sense rests on Brahman, but the exact nature of the relation between them is a mystery. (Radhakrishnan)
(From the website ‘On Truth and Reality’; ‘Hinduism – Hindu religion’)
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 