Introduction
The Rigveda is the most ancient text in Indian culture and also the most sacred. Along with the other three (Samaveda, Yajurveda, and Atharvaveda), it forms the bedrock of Vedic culture in our country. Generally, we classify Indian darshanas as orthodox or non-orthodox based on their acceptance of the Vedic authority. Accordingly, the Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Purva Mimamsa, and Uttara Mimansa are the orthodox darshanas, while Buddhism, Jainism, and Charvakism fall into the non-orthodox philosophies. India’s rich traditional culture allowed for a rich interaction between philosophical traditions, both orthodox and non-orthodox, without violence.
Ananda Coomaraswamy aptly points out that while a superficial reading may distinguish Buddhism from Brahmanism (a term he uses for Vedic culture), a deeper study reveals their similarities and questions the validity of calling Buddhist thought non-orthodox. Non-orthodox philosophies, such as Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, might have said the Vedas are not required for human moksha, but their messages are in close correspondence with the Upanishidic ideas. Contrary to popular belief, this did not imply a rebellious rejection of the Vedas.
However, the Vedas have been the core of Indian civilization for at least five thousand years, and our culture has taken enormous pains to preserve and protect them. The enormous corpus of Indian Knowledge Systems dealing with the widest variety of subjects in philosophy, science, and arts roots in the Vedas. The Vedic recitation today is perhaps an exact tape recording of the chanting five thousand years ago. Tradition claims that the Vedas have an “apaurusheyatva” status, which does not imply that the author is unknown but that the text is not of human origin. It is of divine origin, derived from the Brahman, the Supreme Principle. In their deepest states of contemplation, the Vedic Rishis are drishtas, (seers or hearers) of the mantra. Therefore, the Vedas hold the status of srutis (heard), in contrast to the smritis (remembered and human-originated).
A Veda pandit would inform us that learning each of the four Vedas takes approximately six to seven years. Learning the four Vedas is almost an impossible task in today’s times. Learning each mantra to perfection requires extensive grounding in various subjects such as grammar, prosody, meter, etymology, and correct pronunciation. As with all scriptures, Indian traditions dictate that a Guru guides the learning of the Vedas. A knowledge of Sanskrit, however profound, is of no help in understanding the depth and mysteries of the Vedas. The Vedas deeply embed Indian metaphysical ideas like Brahman, or the one single Self, karma, rebirth, and moksha, which also serve as the basis of both its ontology and epistemology.
For a few centuries, Europeans have developed an interest in the Vedas, with some possessing knowledge of Sanskrit and others lacking it. They largely disregarded the traditional Guru-Shishya system as they began their speculative and imaginative interpretations of the Veda. Their approach to uncovering the Vedic “secret” was significantly flawed, leading to an attack on both the Vedas and Indian culture. Western ontology and epistemology are based on a completely different framework, essentially a form of scientific materialism, leading to an incommensurability problem when one culture tries to explain another. In this case, consciousness, instead of being a primary entity, is a secondary consequence of matter, and there are no concepts of moksha, rebirth, or karma. Clearly, this framework could never do justice to the interpretation of the Vedas, but this did not prevent hordes and hordes of translators and interpreters attacking the Vedas with gusto. Jamison and Brereton’s (2014) English translation of the Rigveda, claimed as the most authoritative, best exemplify this.
Sri Aurobindo’s The Secret of the Veda, written a century ago, not only gives an Indian perspective on the Veda’s understanding but also explains in some chapters the problems with the western approach. They are relevant even today. He is harsh in his criticism of European writers, including the celebrated Max Müller, for their many inconsistencies, ambiguities, and contradictions in approaching the text. Sri Aurobindo regarded the Vedas as the pinnacle of Indian culture and thought. For Sri Aurobindo, subsequent chronological periods and texts represented actually a degeneration from these lofty pedestals. This contradicts the beliefs of most European writers, who posit a primitive civilization that gradually progresses towards greater heights. Of course, for most European writers, Christianity (especially the Protestant variety) represented the highest thought in this evolving religious thought of humanity.
Western metaphysics, its ontology, and epistemology belong to a completely different framework than Indian metaphysics. The fundamental issue with most European or contemporary Indological scholarship on the Vedas is the ‘incommensurability’ or use of one paradigm to evaluate a completely different one. This gives rise to the intellectual violence on the Vedas and all other texts that Indologists try to interpret or understand. Ultimately, it represents an attack on the cultural heritage of India. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, Indian traditional scholars show an indifference to the Indological approach.
This series of essays aims to compare Sri Aurobindo’s ideas on the Vedas with the contemporary Indological understanding of the Vedas, using the introduction by Jamison and Brereton as a representation of the most contemporary views on the Veda. It summarises, paraphrases, and abridges the key chapters from Sri Aurobindo’s book The Secret of the Veda to provide a comprehensive understanding of the Indian approach. The series also examines Jamison and Brereton’s book’s introduction and the criticism it received from various scholars. Finally, it provides some actual examples concerning Agni and the Soma ritual to show the amount of epistemic violence caused by European and modern Indological scholarship, clearly forewarned by Sri Aurobindo a century ago in his deep and powerful writings.
SRI AUROBINDO
The Problem and Its Solution
Sri Aurobindo (henceforth SA) first assesses contemporary Vedic scholarship’s claims that either the mystery of the Vedas is open, or none existed in the first place. The latter view sees the Vedic hymns as the compositions of a primitive race addressed to personified powers of nature. The later and deeper ideas are simply borrowings from the conquered Dravidians. SA writes that the young and conjectural fields of Comparative Philology, Comparative Mythology, and Comparative Religion, characterised by shifting results, lend support to these modern theories of social progress from the savage to the modern.
Ancient forms and words do not appear in later speech, and the “fixation” attempts have been ambiguous and conjectural, giving rise to many difficulties. Over millennia, there have been three attempts to understand the Vedas:
- Prehistoric: fragments in the Brahmanas and Upanishads.
- Traditional interpretation of the Indian scholar Sayana.
- Finally, the interpretation, comparison, and conjecture of modern European scholarship.
SA scathingly writes that the latter two of the above suffer from extraordinary incoherence, poverty of meaning, garish diction, and verbiage that make the Vedic writers incapable of coherent expression. Both portray the hymns as naive superstitious fancies of materialistic barbarians, devoid of any spiritual content. SA says, “Yet these allegedly ‘obscure and barbarous’ compositions have been the source of the profoundest religions and their subtlest metaphysical philosophies. Veda, or knowledge, is the received name for the highest spiritual truth.”
SA then says that the modern scholars speculate that the true foundation of later philosophies is the Upanishads, which were a revolt of philosophical and speculative minds against the ritualistic materialism of the Vedas. SA refutes this notion, asserting that the profound ideas of the Upanishads suggest significant origins that predate them. He writes, “The hypothesis that the barbarous Aryan invaders borrowed loftier Upanishidic ideas from the civilised Dravidians is a conjecture supported only by other conjectures, especially those of philologists.”
SA then talks about contemporary Vedic scholarship, which divides the material worship of external Nature-Powers in the Veda (like Agni, Surya) and the psychological-spiritual functions of the Gods in the Upanishads and Puranas (like Saraswati as Goddess of Learning, Vishnu expressing creative processes). However, this is incorrect, as the Vedas also include moral conceptions of gods. Surya, a God of revelatory knowledge, is invoked daily as the Gayatri mantra, which is a Rigvedic recitation. But modern scholars have concluded some evolutions that suggest a “mysterious” period between the naturalistic element in the Vedas and the psychological conceptions of the later Upanishads and Puranas.
Such a gulf does not really exist in the ancient sacred writings, says SA. The veil of material figures and symbols concealed spiritual and psychological knowledge from the very beginning. This protected the deep meaning from the profane but revealed it to the initiated. One of the leading principles of the mystics was the sacredness of self-knowledge. This wisdom was unfit, perhaps even dangerous to the ordinary human mind. The Vedic rishis clothed their language in words and images that had, equally, a spiritual sense for the elect and a concrete meaning for the ordinary worshippers. Vedic hymns were based on this principle. Their formulas and ceremonies are, overtly, the details of an outward ritual devised for Nature-Worship involving many deities. Covertly, the ceremonies were symbols of a spiritual experience, knowledge, and a psychological discipline of self-culture.
The ritual system recognised by Sayana and the naturalistic sense of European scholarship may, in their externalities, stand. However, behind them there is always the true and still hidden secret of the Veda, spoken for the purified in soul and the awakened in knowledge. Fixing the real import of Vedic terms, symbols, and the psychological functions of the gods is a difficult but necessary task, says SA. Furthermore, such an enterprise will elucidate the parts of the Upanishads and Puranas that remain unintelligible; rationally justify the whole ancient tradition of India (Vedanta, Purana, Tantra, the philosophical schools, and the great Indian religions) as having a Vedic origin; and dissolve the incoherencies of the Vedic texts appearing on a superficial reading. The Veda, then, ranks among the most important of the world’s early scriptures.
A Retrospect of Vedic Theory
In this essay, SA begins by saying that the Vedas evolved when the wisest relied on inner experience and intuitive knowledge for illumination that went beyond ordinary perceptions, logical conviction, or accurate reasoning. The Rishi was the seer (draṣṭā) of an eternal truth and an impersonal knowledge. The language of Veda is śruti, a divine Word heard that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit. SA writes that there is nothing miraculous in the Vedic idea of revelation. Knowledge itself was about travelling, ascending, and reaching. The light of revelation was a final victory.
The poems have a finished metrical form, subtlety, skill, and style variations that are not the work of primitive craftsmen. The art of expression was only a means for spiritual progress and to express the divine in oneself and others. The invariable fixity of Vedic thought, along with its depth, richness, and subtlety, points out that it cannot be the beginnings of thought in a civilisation but rather the close of an earlier period. Or the whole voluminous mass may be only a selection by the traditional author Veda Vyasa. The Veda is the final testament to the Ages of Intuition.
The next Vedantic age struggled to recover the ancient knowledge. The Vedic language was deliberately ambiguous, holding its secrets obstinately. Traditional knowledge, passed down from those who memorised the Vedic text or were in charge of the Vedic ritual, served as one source for understanding the Vedas. The two functions had originally been one; the priest was also the teacher and seer. But gradually, even Purohits performed the rites with an imperfect knowledge of the meaning of the sacred words.
The material aspects of Vedic worship became a thick crust over the inner knowledge, stifling what they once served to protect. The Brahmanas and the Upanishads, revivals of the Vedantic age, had two complementary aspects: the conservation of forms and the revelation of the Veda’s soul, respectively. SA says that a new symbolism working upon an old one that is half lost is likely to overgrow rather than reveal it; therefore, the Brahmanas, though full of interesting hints, help us little in Vedic interpretation. The Upanishads, too, sought to recover waning knowledge through meditation and spiritual experience, and they used the ancient mantras as a prop and authority for their own intuitions and perceptions. Their handling of the texts was not driven by the scholar’s scrupulous desire to arrive at the exact intention of the words. They often employed a method of symbolic interpretation of component sounds. Hence, while the Upanishads are invaluable in shedding light on the principal ideas, they are of as little use as the Brahmanas in determining the accurate sense of the Vedic texts.
The Vedantic movement, on the other hand, had two main tendencies. First, it increasingly subordinated the outward ritual to a more purely spiritual aim. There was more leaning towards asceticism and renunciation. However, it also overemphasised the significance of external factors. Irrationally enforcing the minutiae, a sharp practical division came into being: “the Veda for the priests, the Vedanta for the sages.” The second tendency was to replace the symbolic language of the Mystics with a clearer statement and more philosophical language. Thus, as the Upanishads became the fountainhead of the highest Indian thought, the scholars no longer studied the Vedas with the same zeal. Their symbolic language lost its inner meaning for new generations. The Ages of Intuition were passing away into the Age of Reason.
Buddhism, completing the revolution, sought to abolish the Vedic sacrifice and use the popular vernacular in place of the literary tongue. In order to counter the rising popularity of the new religion, it became necessary to present the texts in a simplified, more modern form of Sanskrit. The Puranas pushed aside the Veda, and a new religious system took the place of the ancient ceremonies. The Veda had been passed from the sage to the priest, then to the scholar. Despite the loss of its secret, the Pandits’ scrupulous diligence preserved the Veda itself.
The Scholars: Yaska and Sayana
For thousands of years, the absolutely uncorrupted Vedic text was of paramount importance to the Vedic ritualists. There is the story of Twashtri, who, performing a sacrifice to produce an avenger of his son slain by Indra, produced, owing to an error of accentuation, one of whom Indra must be the slayer instead. This prodigious accuracy and sanctity prevented interpolations, alterations, and modernising revisions.
Vedic prosody, differing from classical Sanskrit, employed a greater freedom in the euphonic combination of separate words (sandhi). The Rishis followed the ear rather than a fixed rule. However, during the Vedas’ composition, the euphonic combination law became more authoritative. Padapatha, an important accompanying text, resolved all euphonic combinations into their original and separate words. This does not allow for anything similar to the licentious revisions of some European classics. When hymns seem incoherent, it is because we do not understand them. Once we find the clue, they become perfect wholes, admirable in the structure of their thoughts, language, and rhythms.
However, ancient scholarship by Yaska (presumed 7th–5th century BCE) and Sayana (14th century CE) on interpreting the Veda creates the most doubts, says SA. The ritualistic view of the Veda was already dominant, long obscuring the original meaning. Yaska’s dictionary has two elements. As a lexicographer giving the various meanings of Vedic words, his authority is great. But Yaska the etymologist (studying the origin of words and their evolution) does not rank with Yaska the lexicographer. The old etymologists, down even to the nineteenth century, whether in Europe or India, were ingenious, fanciful, and lawless, writes SA.
Sayana’s commentary represents an enormous labour of erudition by a coordinating mind. It drew admiration from the first Vedic scholars in Europe. However, there are instances of linguistic license, implausible conclusions, and inconsistent interpretations of common Vedic terms and formulae. The central flaw is the obsession with the ritualistic formula and the constant attempt to fit the Veda’s meaning into a narrow framework. The representation of the Rishi’s thoughts, culture, and aspirations becomes narrow and poverty-stricken. Accepting such a meaning renders the reverence for the Veda as blind faith incomprehensible to the reason.
Sayana had to deal with three things: 1) the old spiritual, philosophical, or psychological interpretations of the Shruti, which were what made it sacred; 2) the mythological, or Puranic, with its deeper meanings; and 3) the legendary and historic, with stories of old kings and Rishis that were told in the Brahmanas or later on as a way to explain the vague references in the Veda. Sayana admits the first, but it only forms a small component of his work. Sayana’s dealings with the latter two elements were hesitant and unsatisfactory.
Sayana’s naturalistic interpretations become the true parent of the European Science of Comparative Mythology. Indra, the Maruts, Agni, Surya, Usha, Mitra (day), Varuna (night), Aryaman (sun), Bhaga (sun), and the Ribhus (sunrays) follow a naturalistic explanation of gods. The pervasive ritualistic conception makes the hymns a “book of works,” even though, in reality, they serve as a supreme authority for knowledge. Sayana shapes words such as food, priest, giver, wealth, praise, prayer, rite, and sacrifice into their ritualistic meanings. In the most materialistic sense, wealth and food solely refer to power, children, servants, gold, horses, cows, victory, plunder of enemies, and the destruction of rival critics. Hymn after hymn is in this sense only.
According to SA, the most unfortunate outcome of Sayana’s commentary has been the Veda’s binding to the lowest of its possible meanings. When another civilization set itself to study the Veda, its suggestions led to the emergence of new errors. Yet, Sayana’s work can be an important key, and all European erudition has not been able to replace its utility. It can still be a springboard, which we must leave behind to pass forward.
Modern Theories
European scholarship developed an exaggerated material sense, writes SA in this important essay where he is particularly harsh. Standing on Sayana’s commentary, it developed Vedic mythology, history, and civilisation through amplifications of the existing data, ingenious speculation, and unification of the scattered indications. The sureness of method built an edifice, but mostly upon conjecture. Modern theory views the Vedas as the poetry of an early, primitive, and barbaric society, characterised by crude moral and religious conceptions. These were hymns and sacrifices to imaginary superhumans with good or bad personalities. This aligns with the scientific theories of human development, which traced human evolution from the savage to the modern era throughout the nineteenth century. The historical element sought to uncover clues about primitive history, manners, and institutions. The naturalistic element—the identification of the Vedic gods with nature powers—was the starting point for a comparative study of Aryan mythologies.
However, knowledge of advanced civilisations in China, Egypt, Chaldea, Assyria, and Greece undermines this theory of progress from the savage to the civilized. Vedic Indians do not get the benefit of this revised knowledge because of the Aryan theory with which European erudition started. These Aryan races were allegedly northern barbarians who broke into the old and rich civilisations of Mediterranean Europe and Dravidian India.
However, the distinction between Aryan and non-Aryan indicates a cultural rather than a racial difference. Aryan’s spiritual culture included worship of Light and Truth, as well as the aspiration to Immortality—Ritam and Amritam. SA categorically says that there is nothing in the Veda or in the country’s present ethnological features to prove the descent of fair-skinned Aryans into a civilised Dravidian peninsula. The continuation of the ideas sown by the Vedic forefathers should have been the hallmark of Indian civilisation. We can trace the extraordinary vitality of these early cultures, thought, art, and religion to no primitive savagery.
Comparative Mythology and Philology were both inventive expressions of poetic imagination and fantasies rather than meticulous scientific research, writes SA. There is a gulf between the patient, scrupulous and exact physical sciences, and Vedic scholarship, relying on scanty data but sweeping theories filled with an excess of conjecture and hypothesis. Comparative mythology assumes that early religions were founded on a childlike wonder towards natural phenomena and then progressed from there. It has established a few rules that govern language and detect related words in kindred tongues. However, “its maturity has not fulfilled the high expectations that accompanied its birth.” As an example, Parame vyoman is a Vedic phrase that most translate as “in the highest heaven,” but Paramasiva Aiyar (The Riks), employing modern methods, tells us that it means “in the lowest hollow”; for vyoman, “means break, fissure, being literally absence of protection, (ūmā)”. This reasoning is flawed because “absence of protection” cannot possibly refer to a fissure, and human language was not built on these principles.
In modern times, Indian scholars have made three contributions. Two of them, Mr. Tilak and T. Paramasiva Aiyar, accept the general lines of European scholarship. The third by Swami Dayananda, the founder of the Arya Samaj, is based on Nirukta. The Vedas, as a plenary revelation of religious, ethical, and scientific truth, govern Dayananda’s ideas. For him, the religious teaching is monotheistic, and the Vedic gods are different descriptive names for the one Single Being. However, SA asserts that the monotheism of the Veda encompasses monistic, pantheistic, and even polytheistic views of the cosmos, and it is by no means the rigid and simplistic creed of modern Theism. SA summarizes that Sayana and Yaska, who supply the ritualistic framework; Upanishadic philosophy; the critical methodology of European scholarship; and Dayananda, who re-emphasize the central Vedic idea of One Being with the Devas in numerous names, all contribute to a gain a better understanding of the Vedas, but they are strictly springboards for the final secret.
According to Sri Aurobindo, the Rishis arranged their thoughts in a parallelism in which the same deities were both internal and external powers of universal nature. They managed its expression through a system of double values by which the same language served for their worship in both aspects. However, the psychological sense predominates and is more pervasive and coherent than the physical. The primary purpose of the Veda is to facilitate spiritual enlightenment and self-culture. Therefore, the restoration of this sense must come first.
The Foundations of the Psychological Theory
The central idea of the “great passage” discovered by the Vedic Rishis was the transition of the human soul from a state of death to a state of immortality by the exchange of the Falsehood for the Truth, of divided and limited being for integrality and infinity. Death is the mortal state of matter with mind and life involved; immortality is a state of infinite being, consciousness, and bliss. The interpretations of Vedas should fit naturally, illuminate, give a logical succession of thoughts, and finally become the basis for subsequent Indian thought. The Veda, with its profound psychological discipline and self-conscious unity, is not a confused or primitive thought. According to European scholarship, the Upanishads are generally considered the most ancient source of Indian thought, while the Rigveda provides historical and ethnological clues.
SA rejects the Aryan-Dravidian divide and the Aryan Invasion Theory in clear and unambiguous terms. In Pondicherry, the Aryan issue apparently turned SA towards the Veda. Racially, Northern Aryans and Southern Dravidians were supposedly based on physical and linguistic differences. SA discovered that the physical differences between the supposed Aryans and Dravidians were impossible. He asserts that there was a physical and cultural unity throughout India. Again, guided by words meant to be pure Tamil in relation to Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek, SA says, “It certainly seems to me that the original connection between the Dravidian and Aryan tongues was far closer and more extensive than is usually supposed, and the possibility suggests itself that they may even have been two divergent families derived from one lost primitive tongue.” Finally, SA concludes that the Vedic hymns themselves, as the sole evidence of invading Aryans against indigenous Dasus, showed flimsy indications.
A deep study of Vedic mantras reveals a clear psychological experience that European scholarship and even Yoga or Vedanta failed to adequately explain. His study also illuminated many obscure passages of the Upanishads and Puranas, writes SA. Due to the “fortunate ignorance” of Sayana’s works, SA could understand the natural significance of many words of the Veda: dhī (thought or understanding); manas (mind); mati (thought, feeling, or mental state), manīṣā (intellect), ṛtam (truth), kavi (seer), manīṣī (thinker), vipra or vipaścit (enlightened in mind), and so on. Sayana’s variable interpretation of words like Ṛtam (“truth” or often “sacrifice”), Dhī (“thought,” “prayer,” “action,” “food”) obliterates fine shades between words to give their vaguest general significance.
The Vedic Rishis would not have used words randomly. Throughout, the Veda is filled with the richest thought and spiritual experience. The Veda is also full of words like rāye, rayi, rādhas, ratna, dhana, vāja, poṣa with both an external (or material) and an internal (or psychological) value according to general purpose. Whole hymns naturally took on a psychological sense, proceeding with a perfect and luminous coherency from verse to verse.
The Vedic sacrifice consists of a) persons who offer, b) the offering, and c) the fruits of the offering. Yajña is works, internal or external; the yajamāna is the doer. But who were the officiating priests- hotā, ṛtvij, purohita, brahma, and adhvaryu in the symbolism? The gods are continually spoken of as priests of the offering. In many passages, it was undeniably a non-human power or energy that presided over the sacrifice. Applying this rule inversely, the priest’s person in the external figure represented a non-human power or energy, says SA.
Regarding the offerings, scholarship that constructs ghṛtam as clarified butter dropping from heaven or the horses of Indra was “grotesque nonsense.” Ghṛta was constantly in connection with the thought or the mind, even as the heaven in Veda was a symbol of the mind. The Veda sometimes speaks plainly of offering the intellect (dhiṣaṇā) as purified ghṛta, to the gods. The word ghṛta also has the meaning of a rich or warm brightness.
The fruits appear purely material—cows, horses, gold, offspring, men, physical strength, or victory in battle. But the Vedic cow was an exceedingly enigmatical animal. “Go” means both cow and light. Psychologically, the physical light represented the divine knowledge. The cow and horse, go and aśva, constantly associated, represent the two companion ideas of light and energy, the double or twin aspect of all the activities of existence. Cows and horses, the two chief fruits of the Vedic sacrifice, were symbolic of a richness of mental illumination and an abundance of vital energy.
Vedic symbolism has four cosmic divisions of the world: 1) Earth, 2) the antarikṣa or middle region, 3) Heaven (dyau), and the 4) Vast (bṛhat or ṛtam bṛhat). The last corresponds to Upanishadic Mahas. In the Puranic formula, the four are completed by three other supreme worlds of Hindu cosmology: Jana, Tapas, and Satya. The Vedas also speak of three unnamed worlds. In the Vedantic and Puranic systems, the seven worlds correspond to seven psychological forms of existence: Sat, Chit, Ananda, Vijnana, Manas, Prana, and Anna. As a result, the two systems are identical, and both rely on the same idea of seven principles of subjective consciousness formulating themselves in seven objective worlds.
The gods, described as children of light, Aditi, or infinity, lead men to the great goal, which is perfect bliss. On the other hand, the demons who oppose them (Coverers, Tearers, Devourers, Confiners, Dualisers, and Obstructers) are powers against the free and unified integrality of the being. These Vritras, Panis, Atris, Rakshasas, Sambara, Vala, and Namuchi are not Dravidian kings and gods, but they represent the struggle between the powers of the higher Good and the lower desire.
The Philological Method of the Veda
Ingenious conjecture is both a great attraction and a serious weakness of modern philology, says SA. Philologically, Vedic interpretation firstly needs the acceptance of several new meanings for fixed technical terms, like ūti, avas, vayas. Secondly, a philologist should explain how a single word came to be capable of so many different meanings: the psychological; the old grammarian’s meaning; and later Sanskrit meaning. The psychological interpretation depends often on a double meaning for important words, the keywords of the secret teaching. Thirdly, there is a “multi-significance” use of Sanskrit roots to pack as much meaning as possible into a single word. For example, aśva, usually a horse, is used as a figure of the Prana, the nervous energy, and the vital breath that links mind and matter.
Notably, SA asserts that the study of Tamil words appears to provide insight into the origins and structure of the ancient Sanskrit language. With sufficient data, the laws governing language must be discoverable. The clues and data are in Sanskrit. Words are living growths of sound with certain seed sounds as their basis, from which develop initially some primitive root words and later an immense progeny of tribes, clans, families, and groups.
Initially, language sounds were vocal equivalents of general sensations and emotional values. These evolved into the intellectual use of language. Originally, the word had a wide range of applications, sharing many similar sounds. Their individuality lay in the subtle variations in how they expressed the same ideas, rather than in a single, exclusive idea. The transition from the communal life of words to an individual property was initially fluid, but later became more rigid, leading to the emergence of word families and, ultimately, single words that could stand on their own. “In the first state, the word is a more living force than its idea; sound determines sense. In its last state, the positions have been reversed; the idea becomes all-important, the sound secondary.” The progression is from the general to the particular, the vague to the precise, and the physical to the mental.
This knowledge of the laws makes it clear how the same word came to express ideas widely divergent in their meanings. We can also understand the enormous number of words to represent a single idea. Later, a developing intellect typically cuts down on this luxuriance. However, according to SA, the Sanskrit tongue, which disintegrated too early into Prakrit dialects, never quite reached the final stages of this development.
Thus, Vedic Sanskrit, the parent of ideas, was governed by this ancient psychology of the Word. In English, “wolf” or “cow” is simply the animal designated by custom. But for the Vedic Rishi, vṛka meant the tearer and therefore also a wolf; dhenu meant the fosterer, nourisher, and therefore a cow. It is in the light of this pliability and psychology of the old language that we understand Vedic symbolism for words like ghṛtam, the clarified butter, or soma, the sacred wine. Bhaga, enjoyment, and bhāga, share, were for the Vedic mind one word that had developed two different uses. By using it in one sense, Rishis could keep the other in mind or use it equally in both.
Giving further examples, Canas and Soma-wine meant food for the gods in the profane sense, but for the initiated, it was the Ananda, the joy of the divine bliss. For the average worshipper, Agni may have simply meant the god of the Vedic fire or the physical principle of heat and light. In psychological terms, Agni meant the illumined energy that exalts man to the highest. Thus, SA says, the names of the gods are only descriptions, not personal appellations. So, Mitra is the Lord of love and harmony, Bhaga of enjoyment, Surya of illumination, etc. “The Existent is One,” says the Rishi Dirghatamas, “but the sages express It variously. “However, in the later ages, Vedic language rejected its earlier pliability, and the word contracted into its outer and concrete significance. The body of the doctrine remained, but the soul of knowledge had fled.“
Hymn to the Atris
In the foreword to the section A Hymn to the Atris, SA writes that it is impossible to translate the Veda. A literal rendering would result only in a false meaning and interpretation. SA says he takes the middle path: a free form following the turns of the original, yet admitting interpretative devices for revealing the universal and impersonal Vedic truth from the concrete hymns. Highly prescient of modern scholarship, he writes that a literal translation presents a “bizarre, unconnected sequence of sentences to the uninitiated.” Only when the figures and symbols suggest their concealed equivalents do transparent and well-linked spiritual, psychological, and religious ideas emerge from the obscurity.
Sanskrit word translations into English would not suffice. We need to convey the symbolic image appropriately. SA laments that the Vedic ritual has lost its profound symbolic meaning, with scholars suggesting forced interpretations. For example, “Laxmi and Saraswati refuse to dwell under one roof,” which means “wealth and learning seldom go together,” is a common understanding for every Indian. A culture that lacks knowledge of Indian culture would likely find this phrase meaningless. Some scholars would even speculate that Laxmi was the Dawn and Saraswati the Night, and the two were irreconcilable. This represents the current state of modern Vedic European scholarship, according to SA. The statement, “Sarama by the path of the Truth discovers the herds,” may suggest to an untrained mind that Sarama, the hound of heaven, represents a prehistoric embassy to Dravidian nations, aimed at recovering stolen cattle. Its true idea, however, would be, “Intuition by the way of the Truth arrives at the hidden illuminations.”
A literal translation would always need a competent interpretation. “Dawn and Night, two sisters of different forms but of one mind, suckle the same divine Child” would be unintelligible in a literal translation of this Vedic verse. However, here the Rishi is thinking of the alternations in his own spiritual experience, periods of golden illumination and obscuration that gradually strengthen his divine life. In both states, the same divine intention works.
The seer of the house of Atri cries, “O Agni, O Priest of the Offering, loose from us the cords.” SA says that the hymn is for release from the triple cord of mind, nerves, and body and the uprising of the knowledge where the real transcendent truth of all things becomes manifest in a vast illumination. This profound and inner sense cannot be evident in a translation unless we translate in a proper interpretative manner. Agni is the force of the divine Will already awakened and at work within. These associations lose their meanings if we imagine the son of Atri bound as a victim in an ancient barbaric sacrifice, crying to the god of Fire for a physical deliverance! Agni, known as the “vast light,” symbolises a vast, unrestricted, and radiant consciousness that extends beyond the confines of the mind.
Finally, SA writes that the Vedic language is a powerful instrument that follows the natural flight of thought rather than smooth constructions and logical syntax. Translation without modification into English would make the Veda harsh, abrupt, and obscure. Sri Aurobindo says he uses devices best suited to modern speech while preserving the original thought. The goal is to make the Veda’s inner sense clear to today’s cultured intelligence. According to SA, the Rishis sought to hide their knowledge from the unfit, believing that the corruption of the best might lead to the worst. “The secret of the Veda, even when it has been unveiled, to the materially trapped mind, remains still a secret.”
…Continued in Part 2
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