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XI THE RIBHUS, ARTISANS OF IMMORTALITY
Rig-veda 1.20
Page – 324
Page – 325 COMMENTARY
The Ribhus, it has been suggested, are rays of the Sun. And it is true that like Varuna, Mitra, Bhaga and Aryaman they are powers of the solar Light, the Truth. But their special character in the Veda is that they are artisans of Immortality. They are represented as human beings who have attained to the condition of godhead by power of knowledge and perfection in their works. Their function is to aid Indra in raising man towards the same state of divine light and bliss which they themselves have earned as their own divine privilege. The hymns addressed to them in the Veda are few and to the first glance exceedingly enigmatical; for they are full of certain figures and symbols always repeated. But once the principal clues of the Veda are known, they become on the contrary exceedingly clear and simple and present a coherent and interesting idea which sheds a clear light on the Vedic gospel of immortality. The Ribhus are powers of the Light who have descended into Matter and are there born as human faculties aspiring to become divine and immortal. In this character they are called children of Sudhanwan,¹ a patronymic which is merely a parable of their birth from the full capacities of Matter touched by the luminous energy. But in their real nature they are descended from this luminous Energy and are sometimes so addressed, "Offspring of Indra, grandsons of luminous Force" (IV.37.4). For Indra, the divine mind in man, is born out of luminous Force as is Agni out of pure Force, and from Indra the divine Mind spring the human aspirations after Immortality. The names of the three Ribhus are, in the order of their birth, ṛbhu or ṛbhukṣan, the skilful Knower or the Shaper in knowledge, vibhva or vibhu, the Pervading, the self-diffusing, and vāja, the Plenitude. Their names indicate their special nature and function, but they are really a trinity, and therefore, although usually termed the Ribhus, they are also called the Vibhus and Vajas. Ribhu, the eldest is the first in man who begins to shape
¹"Dhanwan" in this name does not mean "bow" but the solid or desert field of Matter otherwise typified as the hill or rock out of which the waters and the rays are delivered. Page – 326 by his thoughts and works the forms of immortality; Vibhwa gives pervasiveness to this working; Vaja, the youngest, supplies the plenitude of the divine light and substance by which the complete work can be done. These works and formations of immortality they effect, it is continually repeated, by the force of Thought, with the mind for field and material; they are done with power; they are attended by a perfection in the creative and effective act, svapasyayā, sukṛtyayā, which is the condition of the working out of Immortality. These formations of the artisans of Immortality are, as they are briefly summarised in the hymn before us, the horses of Indra, the car of the Ashwins, the Cow that gives the sweet milk, the youth of the universal Parents, the multiplication into four of the one drinking-bowl of the gods originally fashioned by Twashtri, the Framer of things. The hymn opens with an indication of its objective. It is an affirmation of the power of the Ribhus made for the divine Birth, made by men whose minds have attained to illumination and possess that energy of the Light from which the Ribhus were born. It is made by the breath of the mouth, the life-power in the world. Its object is to confirm in the human soul the entire delight of the Beatitude, the thrice seven ecstasies of the divine Life.¹ This divine Birth is represented by the Ribhus who, once human, have become immortal. By their accomplishings of the work, — the great work of upward human evolution which is the summit of the world-sacrifice, — they have gained in that sacrifice their divine share and privilege along with the divine powers. They are the sublimated human energies of formation and up- ward progress who assist the gods in the divinising of man. And of all their accomplishings that which is central is the formation of the two brilliant horses of Indra, the horses yoked by speech to "their movements, yoked by the Word and fashioned by the mind. For the free movement of the luminous mind, the divine mind in man, is the condition of all other immortalising works.² The second work of the Ribhus is to fashion the chariot of the Ashwins, lords of the human journey, — the happy movement
¹Ayam devāya janmane, stomo viprebhir āsayā; akāri ratnadhatāmaḥ. ²Ya indrāya vacoyujā tatakṣur manasā harī; śamībhir yajñam āśata. Page – 327 of the Ananda in man which pervades with its action all his worlds or planes of being, bringing health, youth, strength, wholeness to the physical man, capacity of enjoyment and action to the vital, glad energy of the light to the mental being, — in a word, the force of the pure delight of being in all his members.¹ The third work of the Ribhus is to fashion the cow who gives the sweet milk. It is said elsewhere that this cow has been delivered out of its covering skin, — the veil of Nature's outward movement and action, — by the Ribhus. The fostering cow her- self is she of the universal forms and universal impetus of movement, viśvajuvam viśvarūpām, in other words she is the first Radiance, Aditi, the infinite Consciousness of the infinite conscious Being which is the mother of the worlds. That conscious- ness is brought out by the Ribhus from the veiling movement of nature and a figure of her is fashioned here in us by them. She is, by the action of the powers of the duality, separated from her offspring, the soul in the lower world; the Ribhus restore it to constant companionship with its infinite mother.² Another great work of the Ribhus is — in the strength of their previous deeds, of the light of Indra, the movement of the Ashwins, the full yield of the fostering Cow — to restore youth to the aged Parents of the world. Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the mental consciousness, Earth the physical. These in their union are represented as lying long—old and prostrate like fallen sacrificial posts, worn-out and suffering. The Ribhus, it is said, ascend to the house of the Sun where he lives in the unconcealed splendour of his Truth and there slumbering for twelve days afterwards traverse the heaven and the earth, filling them with abundant rain of the streams of Truth, nourishing them, restoring them to youth and vigour.³ They pervade heaven with their workings, they bring divine increase to the mentality,4 they give to it and the physical being a fresh and young and immortal movement.5 For from the home of the Truth they bring with them the perfection of that which is the condition of their work, the movement in the straight path of the Truth and the Truth
¹Takfan nāsatyābhyām, parijmānam sukham ratham. ²Takṣan dhenum sabardughām. For the other details see Rv. IV.33.4,8; IV.36.4 etc. ³Rv. IV.33.2,3,7; IV.36.1,3; 1.161.7. 4Rv. IV.33.1,2. 5Rv. V.36.3. Page – 328 itself with its absolute effectivity in all the thoughts and words of the mentality. Carrying this power with them in their pervading entry into the lower world, they pour into it the immortal essence.¹ It is the wine of that immortal essence with its ecstasies which they win by their works and bring with them to man in his sacrifice. And with them come and sit Indra and the Maruts, the divine Mind and its Thought-forces, and the four great Kings, sons of Aditi, children of the Infinite, Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, the purity and vastness of the Truth-Consciousness, its law of love and light and harmony, its power and aspiration, its pure and happy enjoyment of things.² And there at the sacrifice the gods drink in the fourfold bowl, camasam caturvayam (IV. 36.4), the pourings of the nectar. For Twashtri, the Framer of things, has given man originally only a single bowl, the physical consciousness, the physical body in which to offer the delight of existence to the gods. The Ribhus, powers of luminous knowledge, take it as renewed and perfected by Twashtri's latter workings and build up in him from the material of the four planes three other bodies, vital, mental and the causal or ideal body.³ Because they have made this fourfold cup of bliss and enabled him thereby to live on the plane of the Truth-Consciousness they are able to establish in the perfected human being the thrice seven ecstasies of the supreme existence poured into the mind, vitality and body. Each of these they can give perfectly by the full expression of its separate absolute ecstasy even in the combination of the whole.4 The Ribhus have power to support and contain all these floods of the delight of being in the human consciousness; and they are able to divide it in the perfection of their works among the manifested gods, to each god his sacrificial share. For such perfect division is the whole condition of the effective sacrifice, the perfect work.5
¹Yuvānā pitarā punaḥ, satyamantrā rjūyavaḥ, ṛbhavo viṣṭyakrata. ²Sam vo madāso agmata, indreṇa ca marutvatā; ādityebhiśca rājabhiḥ̣. ³Uta tyam camasam navam, tvaṣṭur devasya niṣkṛtam; akarta caturaḥ punaḥ. 4Te no ratnāni dhattana, trir ā sāptāni sunvate; ekamekam suśastibhiḥ. 5Adhārayanta vahnayo'bhajanta sukṛtyayā; bhāgam deveṣu yajñiyam. Page – 329 Such are the Ribhus and they are called to the human sacrifice to fashion for man the things of immortality even as they fashioned them for themselves. "He becomes full of plenitude and strength for the labour, he becomes a Rishi by power of self- expression, he becomes a hero and a smiter hard to pierce in the battles, he holds in himself increase of bliss and entire energy whom Vaja and Vibhwa, the Ribhus foster.... For you are seers and thinkers clear-discerning; as such with this thought of our soul we declare to you our knowledge. Do you in your knowledge moving about our thoughts fashion for us all human enjoyings, — luminous plenitude and fertilising force and supreme felicity. Here issue, here felicity, here a great energy of inspiration fashion for us in your delight. Give to us, O Ribhus, that richly-varied plenitude by which we shall awaken in our consciousness to things beyond ordinary men."¹
¹Rv. IV.36.6-9. Page – 330 |
