The Symbolism in Rigveda Sri Aurobindo Revisited K.R.Paramahamsa 1 Dedicated to the Being of Sri Sathya Sai TAT Embodied 2 3 Table of Contents Page.No Preface 7 1. Introduction 11 2. A Retrospect of Vedic Theory 17 3. The Scholars 25 4. Modern Theories 31 5. The Psychological Theory 39 6. The Philological Method 48 7. Agni and the Truth 58 8. Varuna, Mitra and the Truth 71 9. The Ashwins, Indra and the Vishwadevas 81 10. Saraswati and Her Consorts 94 11. The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers 101 12. The Seven Rivers 110 13. The Herds of the Dawn 124 14. Dawn and the Truth 133 15. The Cow and the Angirasa Legend 140 16. The Lost Sun and the Lost Cows 152 17. The Angirasa Rishis 163 18. The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas 179 19. The Human Fathers 194 20. The Victory of the Fathers 207 21. The Hound of Heaven 222 22. The Sons of Darkness 237 23. The Conquest over the Dasyus 249 24. Symbolism in Retrospect 261 4 5 Preface The Indian psyche is saturated with the idea that the Veda is Sabdabrahman, the Word-form of the Brahman and is, therefore, as vast and infinite as the Brahman. ‘Anantaa vai Vedaah’, that is, ‘Infinite indeed is the Veda!’ is the age old saying. The Veda, according to the most ancient tradition, is knowledge infinite and eternal. The word Veda means, derivatively, knowledge as a direct experience. If the Veda is the word, it is not the written word but spoken, or rather a word heard, sruti, as it is called. It means that the language of the Veda stems from a super-human or impersonal source. Sri Aurobindo has said, ‘the language of the Veda itself is sruti, a rhythm not composed by the intellect but heard, a Divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit for the impersonal knowledge.’ It follows that the Veda as a Divine Gospel is unbounded, unlimited and infinite. Issuing from the ineffable sources, it penetrates and permeates the divinely inspired souls. This conviction is supported by the etymological derivation of the word ‘Veda’ whose root is ‘vid’. The famous grammarian Panini indicates three senses to this root according to three different conjugations. ‘Vid’, in one conjugation, means ‘to be or to exist’, vid sattaayaam. In the second conjugation, it means to know or to be conscious or aware of, vid jnaane. In the third conjugation, it means to gain, to attain, vidlr laabhe. The word Veda, derived from vid to be or exist, would mean Being or Existence, that is, the Sat. The word, derived from vid meaning to know or be conscious or aware of, would 6 7 signify the Cit or Supreme Knowledge. The word, derived from The total number of Veda sakhas at the time of Patanjali, vid meaning to gain or to attain, would signify the highest gain or about two millenniums and a half ago, was stated to be 1,131. attainment, that is, the Bliss or Ananda. Thus the word Veda But at present only 10 sakhas remain alive accounting for one of combines in itself all the three senses of the three roots, and Rigveda, four of Yajurveda, three of Samaveda and two of connotes Sacchidaananda of the Vedanta. Atharvaveda. Vedic literature mainly consists of Mantra Samhita, Among the Veda sakhas, the Saakala sakha of Rigveda Brahmanas, Aaranyakas and Upanisads. In understanding the occupies a prominent place. The Rigveda Samhita consists of Mantra Samhita, the study of Brahmanas, Aaranyakas and 10 books or Mandalas and 1,017 hymns or suktas. The total Upanisads is considered to be essential, and the study of the number of verses in the sakha is 10,580. The number of words Brahma-sutras and Bhagavad-Gita is also considered to be is 1, 53,826, and the number of letters is 4, 32,000. necessary. Vedic literature also includes six additional works, which are supposed to be aids in understanding the Veda. They Several great Rishis have sought, over a period of time, are Siksha, Kalpa, Vyakarana, Nirukta, Chhanda and Jyotisa. to interpret different Veda sakhas that are extant. The great Seer Each one of them is called Vedaanga. Sayanacharya is one that interpreted different Veda sakhas. But his interpretation of the Veda sakhas is mainly related to their According to the Matsyapuraana, the Yajur-Veda was ritualistic aspect. Sri Aurobindo is another great Seer that sought the only Veda in the beginning. The same view is repeated in the to fathom out the symbolism in the Veda and, on that premise, to Vayupuraana and Vishnupuraana. It is Vedavyaasa who is stated lay the approach to proper interpretation of the Veda sakhas. to have arranged the Veda sakhas, number unknown, into four Veda Samhitas based on the requirements of the processes of In the words of Sri Aurobindo, he ‘had a vision of the symbolic sacrifice. He is stated to have transmitted the Rig-Veda Vedic goddesses, and the touchstone of his own inner vision to Paila, the Yajur-Veda to Vaishampaayana, the Sama-Veda to helped in revealing to him their symbolic nature’. Therefore, the Jaimini, and the Atharva-Veda to Sumantu. In due course, they secret meaning of the Veda revealed to Sri Aurobindo has the transmitted them to their pupils, and thereafter there developed solid backbone of experiential authority. Consequently, the the tradition of transmission by oral tradition from teacher to method he has evolved to interpret and annotate the Vedic text pupil. In this fashion, there came about a development of various appears to be the most authoritative, flawless, and holistic in its recensions or sakhas of the Veda. scope. In the Bhagavata and in several other Puraanas, there is In another context, he said, ‘Sri Krishna has shown me a detailed description of the various sakhas of the Veda; we have the true meaning of the Veda, not only so, but he has shown me a similar description in Saantiparva (chapter 342) of the a new Science of Philology showing the process and origins of Mahabharata. We also have organized information on the sakhas human speech so that a new Nirukta can be formed and the new of the Veda in Charanavyuha, in three different works, attributed interpretation of the Veda based upon it. He has also shown me to Shaunaka, Kaatyaayana and Vyasa respectively. 8 9 the meaning of all in the Upanisads that is not understood either 1. Introduction by Indians or Europeans.’ Sri Aurobindo puts the question: ‘Is there at all, or is His book ‘The Secret of the Veda’ is a detailed and deeply there still the secret of the Veda?’ inspiring revelation of the symbolism in the Rigveda Samhita, which establishes that the Vedic literature is only the precursor to We have in the Rig-veda a body of sacrificial hymns the Vedantic literature the objective of which is to lead the seeker couched in a very ancient language. The hymns present a number on the path of the Truth to Self-realization. of almost insoluble difficulties. It is full of ancient forms and words, which do not appear in later speech. They have rather to This book ‘The Symbolism in Rigveda’ is only an abridged be fixed in some sense, though doubtful, by intelligent conjecture. version of ‘The Secret of the Veda’ intended for the benefit of beginners among students of Vedic literature. In this book, the The language of the hymns is such that it admits of word Veda refers to the Rigveda Samhita of Saakala sakha unless significance other than in the literary tongue. A multitude of its it is specifically stated to relate to any other Veda sakha. vocables, though they are the most common and are vital to the sense, are capable of surprisingly unconnected significances. These significances may give quite different complexions to whole passages, whole hymns and even to the whole thought of the Veda. In the course of millenniums, there have been, at least, three considerable attempts, differing entirely from one another in their methods and results, to fix the sense of these ancient litanies. One of them is prehistoric in time, and exists, only by fragments, in the Brahmanas and the Upanisads. But we possess, in its entirety, the traditional interpretation by Sayanacharya, and also by modern European scholarship, after putting in immense labour, by way of comparison and conjecture. Both of them have one characteristic in common, according to Sri Aurobindo. It is the extraordinary incoherence and the poverty of sense, which their results stamp upon the ancient hymns. The separate lines of the text can be given, whether naturally or by force of conjecture, a good sense or a sense that 10 11 hangs together. The diction that results can be made to run into One point is to be borne in view. The profound and intelligible sentences, though they contain an amazing mark of ultimate thoughts, the systems of subtle and elaborate psychology gaudy figure and verbiage. as constituting the substance of the Upanisads cannot arise out of a void. The human mind, in its progress, marches from But when we come to read the hymns as a whole, we knowledge to knowledge. Or it renews and enlarges previous seem to be in the presence of men who were incapable of coherent knowledge that has been either obscured or overlaid; or it seizes or natural expression or of connected thought. Except in the on old clues and is led into new discoveries.