Rigveda: Celebration of life, Pursuit
of excellence
इयं विसृष्टिर्यत आबभूव यदि वा दधे यदि वा न ।
यो अस्याध्यक्षः परमे व्योमन्त्सो अङ्ग वेद यदि वा न
वेद ॥७॥ (nasdia sukta -Rigveda)
“he is a wise man ,
he has read the Vedas”, it was one of those lines by my grandfather in
appreciation of someone very learned that put the desire in me probably for the
first time to read and understand the Vedas. Years later when I first took a Hindi
translation of the book(rig veda) various thoughts passed my mind; I had some
kind of imagery in my mind about the Vedas. What lied in Vedas was a mystery, Vedas
have been the source of wisdom for ages; they are the foundation of India’s
spiritual wealth throughout millennia’s. Right from Indian gurus like Vivekananda,
Aurobindo or dayand Sarasvati in recent times to religious text like Gita ,
Ramayana and Upanishads all have their roots in the Vedas. It was therefore an assumption
before picking up the text that it would be a fountain of spiritualism, just
like Gita which in a breath establishes the principal of karma without worrying
for the results there was one big message that I was looking in the Vedas. To
prepare the ground I did read some of the commentaries by Aurobindo where he
attempts to find higher philosophical and spiritual meanings in the hymns of
the Vedas or Tilak who tries to find out geographical origins of the Aryan
people who composed Rigveda. There were other questions in my mind the answers
to which I was looking ahead to find in the Vedas questions regarding the
origins of the trinity of the Hindu pantheon ,regarding the mention of animals
, geography ,rivers, castes , tribes , kind of spiritualism ( idol worship ,
nature worship , dualism etc. etc.).
The journey of reading
the book continued for almost 4-5 months, though it is not that voluminous
however with the limited time I used to get, the numerous stories with each
passing hymn and the thoughts that the book used to leave me throughout the day
it was worth to go slow and ruminate on each thought invoked by the RigVeda.
The book started with invoking the Agni and then story of Indra and vriata
started. It took me a couple of hundred pages to realize that the most talked
about god in Rigveda was not going to be lord Vishnu or Shiva but it was rather
Indra. It has since then puzzled me why and how Indra lost the place he had in Rigveda’s
to the trinity of brahma Vishnu and Mahesh.
The conundrum
As I progressed on my
reading I must accept I rather started growing a bit uncomfortable .Vedas
presented a challenge before me ,some may think it might have been the
complexity of Vedas which challenged me unfortunately that was not the case it
was rather the simplicity of the text which took me by surprise. The most
important text of Hinduism didn’t talk the language of asceticism renunciation and
spiritualism that I had grown up hearing. It rather talked of such simple
things of life that it made me uneasy if it was indeed simple or was I missing something.
To find the answers I went back to Aurobindo and he started making more sense. He
had put it precisely what I was going through in my mind. In the opening
remarks of his book “The secret of vedas” he starts with the following
“Is THERE at all or is there still a secret of the Veda? According
to current conceptions the heart of that ancient mystery has been plucked out
and revealed to the gaze of all, or rather no real secret ever existed. The
hymns of the Veda are the sacrificial compositions of a primitive and still barbarous
race written around a system of ceremonial and propitiatory
rites, addressed to personified Powers of Nature and replete
with a confused mass of half-formed myth and crude astronomical allegories yet
in the making. Only in the later hymns
do we perceive the first appearance of deeper
psychological and
moral ideas”
It was the kungfu panda
moment for me, where the secret recipe was actually no secret at all. I went
back to Aurobindo and it made a little more sense, that the cows and horses ghrat
(ghee) described in a text described almost 5000 years ago just did not
literally meant objects as we know now but they had rather philosophical meaning.
It took me some more distance ahead with my reading but the doubt remained.
However it comforted me that I was not the only one challenged by the
simplicity of the Vedas but the Vedas have always presented this challenge to
everyone who has tried to peek into the wisdom from antiquity. It is no
surprise that the earliest translations of RigVeda done by Sayana in around 1300
where the interpretation of Vedas were done with more inclination towards the
ceremonial aspects, centuries later Aurobindo while he appreciated the efforts
of sayana to preserve the text he strongly criticized him for the literal,
incoherent translation and the narrow sense to which he had reduced the Vedas
“..the central defect of Sayana’s system that he is obsessed always by the
ritualistic formula and seeks continually to force the sense of the Veda into
that narrow mould. So he loses many clues of the greatest suggestiveness and importance
for the external sense of the ancient Scripture,—a problem quite as interesting
as its internal sense. The outcome is a representation of the Rishis, their thoughts,
their culture, their aspirations, so narrow and poverty-stricken that, if
accepted, it renders the ancient reverence for the Veda, its sacred authority, its
divine reputation quite incomprehensible to the reason or only explicable as a
blind and unquestioning tradition of faith starting from an original error.”
Aurobindo criticized the
philosophical meanings which sayana took away from
his translation even though Sayana admitted that earlier such meanings existed (“multi-significance of roots ) and gave multiple interpretations
of the same hymns in his original composition, however if we go deep Aurobindo rather
seemed to be uncomfortable with the materialistic aspect of the Vedas presented by Sayana. As he puts down at
another place
“But if we
accept the current interpretations, whether Sayana’s or the modern theory(translations
by European scholars), the whole of this sublime and sacred reputation is a
colossal fiction. The hymns are, on the contrary, nothing more than the naive superstitious
fancies of untaught and materialistic barbarians concerned only with the most
external gains and enjoyments and ignorant of all but the most elementary moral
notions or religious aspirations.”
Aurobindo interpretation
were much nearer to Swami dayanad Sarasvati however even they differed
considerably in their interpretations of the Vedas.He puts it down eloquently
“Dayananda’s interpretation of the hymns is governed by the idea that
the Vedas are a plenary revelation of religious, ethical and scientific truth.
Its religious teaching is monotheistic and the
Vedic gods are different descriptive names of the one Deity; they are
at the same time indications of His powers as we see them working in Nature and
by a true understanding of the sense of the Vedas we could arrive at all the
scientific truths which have been discovered by modern research. Such a theory
is, obviously, difficult to establish. The Rigveda itself, indeed, asserts that
the gods are only different names and expressions of one universal Being who in
His own reality transcends the universe; but from the language of the hymns we
are compelled to perceive in the gods not only different names, but also
different forms, powers and personalities of the one Deva. The monotheism of
the Veda includes in itself also the monistic, pantheistic and even
polytheistic views of the cosmos and is by no means the trenchant and simple
creed of modern Theism. It is only by a violent struggle with the text that we
can
force on it a less complex aspect.
While Aurobindo had his points,
Aurobindo’s argument that everything in Vedas is just limited to spirituality was
again reducing Rigveda’s to just one sense. In fact Aurobindo criticism of
sayana is not entirely correct. Sayana’s commentary on Vedas is not just the
only complete work of translation of Rigveda but also Sayana identified the
multiple roots of words and also provided multiple inferences of the same hymns
(gothic, spiritual etc) wherever he could identify. However on the other side
Rigveda does not even seems to be rooted in ritualistic formula and ceremonies as
emphasized by Sayana.
The revelation
It started to puzzle me
why did the interpretation of Vedas were so different by different people. Why did
sages who wrote hymns on creation of universe, cosmology (e.g. nasdia sukta)
and spirituality in the later part of Rigveda which leaves the reader
mesmerized were so simple in their composition towards the start of the Vedas.
Was it the result of chronology where the hymns with more thoughts were created
later but even if it was true why was it allowed to stay a part of the whole
work for thousands of years, what was the message that the sages wanted to pass
to the generations who may be reading it many thousand years after they
composed them? Did that happened by chance?
Quite unlikely, as the
bus I used to take for office passed through the snow laden roads and as winter
slowly started to make way for summer my mind started wondering if it was
intentional. Any interpretation of Vedas will always have this battle of taking
the literal meaning against taking the philosophical and spiritual meaning. If
we take it literally then Rigveda mention some of the most amazing
technological and medical science advancements which sweep the readers off his
feet. If however we derive a spiritual and philosophical meaning then it destroys
the argument that it was primitive or ritualistic, it starts to makes more
sense .However going one way to read it does not hold well enough for the whole
text. I therefore decided to read it as it is mentioned, try to look for an
inference with much more sophisticated thoughts but if I can’t find one read it
as it is. Somehow just like all others before me who arrived at a meaning which
had a lot of commonality yet they held different meanings I too arrived at a
sense of Rigveda’s which had something from everyone before me who had written
their commentary on it and yet it contained a message so fresh and so
contemporary it left me wiser.
Celebration of life
It was the celebration
of life Hymns after hymns that started making a connect with me , the emphasis
on rationality ,the culture of questioning ,the focus on scientific temper and
the pride it took in the accomplishments of the human race.
सोमानं सवरणं कर्णुहि बरह्मणस पते | कक्षीवन्तं याुशिजः ||
O
BRAHMANAPSATI, make him who presses Soma glorious,
Like
Kaksivan Ausija.
यो रेवान यो अमीवहा वसुवित पुष्टिवर्धनः | स नः सिषक्तु यस्तुरः ||
2
The rich, the healer of disease, who giveth wealth, increaseth store,
The
prompt,-may he be with us still.
मा नः शंसो अररुषो धूर्तिः परणं मर्त्यस्य | रक्षा णो बरह्मणस पते ||
3
Let not the foeman's curse, let not a mortal's onslaught fall on us
Preserve
us, Brahmanaspati. (Hymn 18)
तद राधो अद्य सवितुर्वरेण्यं वयं देवस्य परसवे मनामहे |
अस्मभ्यं दयावाप्र्थिवी सुचेतुना रयिं धत्तं वसुमन्तं शतग्विनम ||
अस्मभ्यं दयावाप्र्थिवी सुचेतुना रयिं धत्तं वसुमन्तं शतग्विनम ||
5
This is to-day the goodliest gift of Savitar: this thought we have when now the
God is furthering us.On us with loving-kindness Heaven and Earth bestow riches
and various wealth and treasure hundredfold! (Hymn 159)
Such thoughts mentioned
above where rishis made prayers for wellbeing are not few in fact Rigveda is
replete with such hymns. The same hymns which initially looked primitive
started to make connect with me. It was the desire of life the desire to live
happily the desire to be safe , the desire to grow, the desire to progress, the
desire to earn wealth, the desire to be healthy that made a connect with me. It
is written in a language so simple and yet does not bind itself to one fixed
meaning. Rigveda did not romanticize poverty though it urged you to help
others. It touch every aspect of human life and the rishis take pride in their
accomplishments and how those accomplishments ,discoveries or inventions made
life easy for them at that time. From hyms on gravity and speed of light to
hyms on how the sun has kept the earth and other planets of the solar system
Rigveda touched every aspect of life at that time from the cycle of birth and
death, cosmology, science, governance, astronomy, creation of universe, gods,
medical science, married life, human relationships etc. If Rigveda would have
been written today it definitely would had mentioned the great achievements we
have made in the field of science, space, nuclear, digital, and cloning and
other areas.
Achievements of the Ashvinikumars
युवं चयवानमश्विना जरन्तं पुनर्युवानं चक्रथुः शचीभिः | युवो रथं दुहिता सूर्यस्य सह शरिया नासत्याव्र्णीत ||
13
Ye with the aid of your great powers, O Asvins, restored to youth the ancient
man
Cyavana.The
Daughter of the Sun with all her glory, O ye Nasatyas, chose your car to bear
her.(hymn 117)
जुजुरुषो नासत्योत वव्रिं परामुञ्चतं दरापिमिव चयवानात |
परातिरतं जहितस्यायुर्दस्रादित पतिमक्र्णुतं कनीनाम ||
परातिरतं जहितस्यायुर्दस्रादित पतिमक्र्णुतं कनीनाम ||
10
Ye from the old Cyavana, O Nasatyas, stripped, as 'twere mail, the skin upon
his
body,Lengthened his life(restored to youth the ancient man) when all had left
him helpless, Dasras! and made him lord of youthful maidens.
अजोहवीन नासत्या करा वां महे यामन पुरुभुजा पुरन्धिः |
शरुतं तच्छासुरिव वध्रिमत्या हिरण्यहस्तमश्विनावदत्तम ||
शरुतं तच्छासुरिव वध्रिमत्या हिरण्यहस्तमश्विनावदत्तम ||
13
In the great rite the wise dame called, Nasatyas, you, Lords of many treasures,
to assist
her.Ye
heard the weakling's wife, as 'twere an order, and gave to her a son
Hiranyahasta.
आस्नो वर्कस्य वर्तिकामभीके युवं नरा नासत्यामुमुक्तम |
उतो कविं पुरुभुजा युवं ह कर्पमाणमक्र्णुतं विचक्षे ||
14
Ye from the wolf's jaws, as ye stood together, set free the quail, O Heroes, O
Nasatyas.Ye,
Lords of many treasures, gave the poet his perfect vision as he mourned his
trouble.
चरित्रं हि वेरिवाछेदि पर्णमाजा खेलस्य परितक्म्यायाम |
सद्यो जङघामायसीं विश्पलायै धने हिते सर्तवेप्रत्यधत्तम ||
सद्यो जङघामायसीं विश्पलायै धने हिते सर्तवेप्रत्यधत्तम ||
15
When in the time of night, in Khela's battle, a leg was severed like a wild
bird's pinion,
Straight
ye gave Vispali a leg of iron that she might move what time the conflict
opened.
शतं मेषान वर्क्ये चक्षदानं रज्राश्वं तं पितान्धंचकार |
तस्मा अक्षी नासत्या विचक्ष आधत्तं दस्रा भिषजावनर्वन ||
तस्मा अक्षी नासत्या विचक्ष आधत्तं दस्रा भिषजावनर्वन ||
16
His father robbed Rjrasva of his eyesight who for the she-wolf slew a hundred
wethers.Ye
gave him eyes, Nasatyas, Wonder-Workers, Physicians, that he saw with sight
uninjured.
(hymn 116)
It is interesting to see
how “ Ashvinikumars” one of the most revered figures are described in Rigveda. Their
achievements on creating artificial limbs, restoring youth, curing blindness
and many more such hymns symbolize the focus Vedic times had on the pursuit of human
excellence, though they (ashvinis) can also be symbolized as the shining of
sunrise and sunset (and that’s the challenge as when do we take the literal
sense and when do we switch to the symbolic and the philosophical/spiritual
meaning).
Spirit of skeptical inquiry, rationality
and a contemporary world
We have often heard that
religion encourages blind faith and discourages the spirit of reasoning
questioning and critical analysis and somewhere I thought that this view had a
valid point. But this whole thought of mine was bulldozed and I was left
speechless by the famous nasdiya sukta, while the scholars from the world over
have been spellbound by the way the creation of the universe has been defined
in this was so exact in description to the famous big bang theory I was amazed
what it said in the end. I am putting here its first two lines where it starts
to delve the creation of the universe but it is the last para which left me
spellbound.
First two lines
नासदासीन्नो सदासीत्तदानीं
नासीद्रजो नो व्योमा परो यत् ।
किमावरीवः कुह कस्य
शर्मन्नम्भः किमासीद्गहनं गभीरम् ॥ १॥
Then even nothingness
was not, nor existence,
There was no air then,
nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where
was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic
water, in depths unfathomed?
Last para
को अद्धा वेद क इह
प्र वोचत्कुत आजाता कुत इयं विसृष्टिः ।
अर्वाग्देवा अस्य
विसर्जनेनाथा को वेद यत आबभूव ॥६॥
But, after all, who
knows, and who can say
Whence it all came, and
how creation happened?
the gods themselves are
later than creation,
so who knows truly
whence it has arisen?
इयं विसृष्टिर्यत
आबभूव यदि वा दधे यदि वा न ।
यो अस्याध्यक्षः परमे
व्योमन्त्सो अङ्ग वेद यदि वा न वेद ॥७॥
Whence all creation had
its origin,
he, whether he fashioned
it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all
from highest heaven,
he knows - or maybe even he does not know.[9]
The nature of the
skeptical inquiry and questioning that we witness here in the last two lines
where the
Rishis even raise doubts
on whether even the gods know or not know all the answers were simply just too
overwhelming for me but it was not the only place in Rigveda where even gods
are put under the boundaries of reasoning and questioning. It has since then
liberated me and propelled me to think that there are no limits to the horizon
of the human thoughts and accomplishments and human race is meant to go on conquer
as far and wide as we allow us to think and the fountain of highest thoughts in
hindu religion does not put any chains in that instead it facilitates it. The
Rigveda breaks all conventional thoughts which we usually associate with the
religion, from women rishis who have composed different hymns in Rigveda to the
equality of women in education, their right to choose their groom for marriage
(swamwar) ,widow remarriage , the composition of hymn by a supposedly rishi
belonging to shudra caste , the election of the president by people, the
majority of thoughts mentioned in rigveda are far more superior to the
contemporary world we live in.
The question is whether
this very contemporary interpretation of Rigveda is correct on my behalf.
Because it was exactly this what Aurobindo resented and yet I did not find it
objectionable in any manner. Why should life not be celebrated? Why should be
leading a happy and prosperous life be a taboo for god. I did not saw any of
those objections in Rigveda. But it is also true that your meaning from Rigveda’s
can be very different from mine ,as the rishis have said “it reveals itself to
the seeker “. But as I look closer I find more and more evidence on what I have
felt. I see the same fundamental message when I look at the stories of Krishna
and his message of karma where the focus was on man and his actions and not of
some divine help and see the same celebration of life in colors of holi and
lights of deepawali. Was this one of the reasons for the fall of Indra as
somewhere Indra has become a symbol of divine intervention and symbolic of
rituals and traditions something which was corrected by internal corrective
mechanism of the religion in the story of goverdhan and Krishna where Krishna
discards old tradition of offerings to Indra. The same message was repeated
when Krishna does not fights Mahabharata on his own but just act as a guiding force.
And same was his message to Bhsima and Drona who continued to stay stuck with traditions
even when confronted with choice between dharma and adharma. As someone said “Change does not roll in on the wheels of
inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten
our backs and work for our freedom.” The yogis understood it long back and left
us a treasure where freedom was not limited to just physical occupation but where
freedom was meant to liberate you of any limitations in thoughts as well as in being.
And they wrote a text which was relevant in their times but still open enough
to be interpreted and reinterpreted again and again and in that effort they
made it immortal.