{"id":1856,"date":"2013-07-13T01:37:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:37:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:37:54","slug":"10-chapter-x-the-image-of-the-oceans-and-the-rivers-vol-15-the-secret-of-veda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/15-the-secret-of-veda\/10-chapter-x-the-image-of-the-oceans-and-the-rivers-vol-15-the-secret-of-veda","title":{"rendered":"-10_Chapter X The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n\t\t\tChapter<\/font>  <\/font>
\n\t\t\tX <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Image of the <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOceans and the Rivers <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE <\/font><\/b>three Riks of
\n\t\t\tthe third hymn of Madhuchchhandas in which Saraswati has been
\n\t\t\tinvoked, run as follows, in the Sanskrit: <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPāvakā naḥ<\/span> sarasvatī vājebhir
\n\t\t\tvājinīvatī;<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tyaj\u00f1am vaṣ<\/span>tu dhiyāvasuḥ<\/span>.
\n\t\t\t<\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCodayitrī sūnṛ<\/span>tānām, cetantī
\n\t\t\tsumatīnām;<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tyaj\u00f1am dadhe sarasvatī. <\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMaho arṇ<\/span>aḥ<\/span>
\n\t\t\tsarasvatī, pra cetayati ketunā;<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tdhiyo viśvā vi rājati.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe sense of the first two verses is clear enough when we know
\n\t\t\tSaraswati to be that power of the Truth which we call inspiration.
\n\t\t\tInspiration from the Truth purifies by getting rid of all falsehood,
\n\t\t\tfor all sin according to the Indian idea is merely falsehood,
\n\t\t\twrongly inspired emotion, wrongly directed will and action. The
\n\t\t\tcentral idea of life and ourselves from which we start is a
\n\t\t\tfalsehood and all else is falsified by it. Truth comes to us as a
\n\t\t\tlight, a voice, compelling a change of thought, imposing a new
\n\t\t\tdiscernment of ourselves and all around us. Truth of thought creates
\n\t\t\ttruth of vision and truth of vision forms in us truth of being, and
\n\t\t\tout of truth of being (satyam)<\/i> flows naturally truth of
\n\t\t\temotion, will and action. This is indeed the central notion of the
\n\t\t\tVeda. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSaraswati, the inspiration, is full other luminous plenitudes, rich
\n\t\t\tin substance of thought. She upholds the Sacrifice, the offering of
\n\t\t\tthe mortal being’s activities to the divine by awakening his
\n\t\t\tconsciousness so that it assumes right states of emotion and right
\n\t\t\tmovements of thought in accordance with the Truth from which she
\n\t\t\tpours her illuminations and by impelling in it the rise <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\tPage \u2013 100<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\t\tof those truths which, according to the Vedic Rishis, liberate
\n\t\t\tthe life and being from falsehood, weakness and limitation and open
\n\t\t\tto it the doors of the supreme felicity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy this constant awakening and impulsion, summed up in the word,
\n\t\t\tperception, ketu,<\/i> often called the divine perception,
\n\t\t\tdaivya ketu,<\/i> to distinguish it from the false mortal vision of
\n\t\t\tthings, \u2014 Saraswati brings into active consciousness in the human
\n\t\t\tbeing the great flood or great movement, the Truth-Consciousness
\n\t\t\titself, and illumines with it all our thoughts. We must remember
\n\t\t\tthat this Truth-Consciousness of the Vedic Rishis is a supramental
\n\t\t\tplane, a level of the hill of being (adreḥ<\/span>
\n\t\t\tsānu)<\/i> which is beyond our ordinary reach and to which we have to
\n\t\t\tclimb with difficulty. It is riot part of our waking being, it is
\n\t\t\thidden from us in the sleep of the superconscient. We can then
\n\t\t\tunderstand what Madhuchchhandas means when he says that Saraswati by
\n\t\t\tthe constant action of the inspiration awakens the Truth to
\n\t\t\tconsciousness in our thoughts. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut this line may, so far as the mere grammatical form of it goes,
\n\t\t\tbe quite otherwise translated; we may take maho arṇ<\/span>aḥ<\/span><\/i>
\n\t\t\tin apposition to Saraswati and render the verse "Saraswati, the
\n\t\t\tgreat river, awakens us to knowledge by the perception and shines in
\n\t\t\tall our thoughts". If we understand by this expression, "the great
\n\t\t\triver", as Sayana seems to understand, the physical river in the
\n\t\t\tPunjab, we get an incoherence of thought and expression
\n\t\t\twhich is impossible except in a nightmare or a lunatic asylum. But
\n\t\t\tit is possible to suppose that it means the great flood of
\n\t\t\tinspiration and that there is no reference to the great ocean of the
\n\t\t\tTruth-Consciousness. Elsewhere, however, there is repeated reference
\n\t\t\tto the gods working by the vast power of the great flood, mahnā
\n\t\t\tmahato arṇ<\/span>avasya<\/i>
\n\t\t\twhere there is no reference to Saraswati and it is improbable that
\n\t\t\tshe should be meant. It is true that in the Vedic writings Saraswati
\n\t\t\tis spoken of as the secret self of Indra, \u2014 an expression, we may
\n\t\t\tobserve, that is void of sense if Saraswati is only a northern river
\n\t\t\tand Indra the god of the sky, but has a very profound and striking
\n\t\t\tsignificance if Indra be the illumined Mind and Saraswati the
\n\t\t\tinspiration that proceeds from the hidden plane of the supramental <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\tPage \u2013 101<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\t\tTruth. But it is impossible to give Saraswati so important a place
\n\t\t\twith regard to the other gods as would be implied by interpreting
\n\t\t\tthe phrase mahnā mahato arṇ<\/span>avasya<\/i> in the
\n\t\t\tsense "by the greatness of Saraswati". The gods act, it is
\n\t\t\tcontinually stated, by the power of the Truth, ṛ<\/span>tena<\/span>,<\/i>
\n\t\t\tbut Saraswati is only one of the deities of the Truth and not even
\n\t\t\tthe most important or universal of them. The sense I have given is,
\n\t\t\ttherefore, the only rendering consistent with the use of the phrase
\n\t\t\tin other passages. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLet us then start from this decisive fact put beyond doubt by this
\n\t\t\tpassage \u2014 whether we take the great stream to be Saraswati itself or
\n\t\t\tthe Truth-ocean \u2014 that the Vedic Rishis used the image of water, a
\n\t\t\triver or an ocean, in a figurative sense and as a psychological
\n\t\t\tsymbol, and let us see how far it takes us. We notice first that
\n\t\t\texistence itself is constantly spoken of in the Hindu writings, in
\n\t\t\tVeda, Purana and even philosophical reasoning and illustration as an
\n\t\t\tocean. The Veda speaks of two oceans, the upper and the lower
\n\t\t\twaters. These are the oceans of the subconscient, dark and
\n\t\t\tinexpressive, and the ocean of the superconscient, luminous and
\n\t\t\teternal expression but beyond the human mind. Vamadeva in the last
\n\t\t\thymn of the fourth Mandala speaks of these two oceans. He says that
\n\t\t\ta honeyed wave climbs up from the ocean and by means of this
\n\t\t\tmounting wave which is the Soma (amśu)<\/i> one attains entirely
\n\t\t\tto immortality; that wave or that Soma is the secret name of the
\n\t\t\tclarity (ghṛ<\/span>tasya,<\/i> the symbol
\n\t\t\tof the clarified butter); it is the tongue of the gods; it is the
\n\t\t\tnodus (nābhi)<\/i> of immortality. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSamudrād ūrmir madhumān udārad,<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tupāmśunā sam amṛ<\/span>tatvam ānaṭ<\/span>;<\/i>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tghṛ<\/span>tasya nāma guhyam yad asti,<\/i>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tjihvā devānām amr<\/span>̣<\/span>tasya
\n\t\t\tnābhih<\/span>̣<\/span>.<\/span><\/i>
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI presume there can be no doubt that the sea, the honey, the Soma,
\n\t\t\tthe clarified butter are in this passage at least psychological
\n\t\t\tsymbols. Certainly, Vamadeva does not mean that a wave or flood of
\n\t\t\twine came mounting up out of the salt water of the Indian
\n\t\t\tOcean or of the Bay of Bengal or
\n\t\t\teven from the fresh <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\tPage \u2013 102<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\t\twater of the river Indus
\n\t\t\tor the Ganges
\n\t\t\tand that this wine is a secret name for clarified butter. What he
\n\t\t\tmeans to say is clearly that out of the subconscient depths in us
\n\t\t\tarises a honeyed wave of
\n\t\t\tAnanda or pure delight of existence, that it is by this Ananda that
\n\t\t\twe can arrive at immortality; this Ananda is the secret being, the
\n\t\t\tsecret reality behind the action of the mind in its shining
\n\t\t\tclarities. Soma, the god of the Ananda, the Vedanta also tells us,
\n\t\t\tis that which has become mind or sensational perception; in other
\n\t\t\twords, all mental sensation carries in it a hidden delight of
\n\t\t\texistence and strives to express that secret of its own being.
\n\t\t\tThere- fore Ananda is the tongue of the gods with which they taste
\n\t\t\tthe delight of existence, it is the nodus in which all the
\n\t\t\tactivities of the immortal state or divine existence are bound
\n\t\t\ttogether. Vamadeva goes on to say, "Let us give expression to this
\n\t\t\tsecret name of the clarity, \u2014 that is to say, let us bring out this
\n\t\t\tSoma-wine, this hidden delight of existence; let us hold it in this
\n\t\t\tworld-sacrifice by our surrenderings or submissions to Agni, the
\n\t\t\tdivine Will or Conscious-Power which is the Master of being. He is
\n\t\t\tthe four-horned Bull of the worlds and when he listens to the
\n\t\t\tsoul-thought of man in its self-expression, he ejects this secret
\n\t\t\tname of delight from its hiding-place." <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVayam nāma pra. bravama ghṛ<\/span>tasya,<\/i>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tasmin yaj\u00f1e dhārayāmā namobhiḥ<\/span>;<\/i>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tupa brahmā śṛ<\/span>ṇ<\/span>avac
\n\t\t\tchasyamānam,<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tcatuḥś<\/span>ṛ<\/span>ngo
\n\t\t\tavamīd gaura etat.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLet us note, in passing, that since the wine and the clarified
\n\t\t\tbutter are symbolic, the sacrifice also must be symbolic. In such
\n\t\t\thymns as this of Vamadeva’s the ritualistic veil so elaborately
\n\t\t\twoven by the Vedic mystics vanishes like a dissolving mist before
\n\t\t\tour eyes and there emerges the Vedantic truth, the secret of the
\n\t\t\tVeda. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVamadeva leaves us in no doubt as to the nature of the Ocean of
\n\t\t\twhich he speaks; for in the fifth verse he openly describes it as
\n\t\t\tthe ocean of the heart, hṛ<\/span>dyāt
\n\t\t\tsamudrāt,<\/i> out of which rise the waters of the clarity, ghṛ<\/span>tasya
\n\t\t\tdhārāḥ<\/span>;<\/i> the flow he says, becoming
\n\t\t\tprogressively purified by the mind and the inner heart, antar hṛ<\/span>dā
\n\t\t\tmanasā pūyamānāḥ<\/span>.<\/i>
\n\t\t\tAnd in the closing <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPage \u2013 104<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\t\t\tverse he speaks of the whole of existence being triply established,
\n\t\t\tfirst in the seat of Agni \u2014 which we know from other Riks to be the
\n\t\t\tTruth- Consciousness, Agni’s own home, svam damam,
\n\t\t\tṛ<\/span>tam bṛ<\/span>hat,
\n\t\t\t\u2014<\/i>
\n\t\t\tsecondly, in the heart, the sea, which is evidently the same as the
\n\t\t\theart-ocean,\u2014thirdly, in the life of man. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDhāman te viśvam bhuvanam adhiśritam, <\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tantaḥ<\/span> samudre hṛ<\/span>dyantar
\n\t\t\tāyuṣ<\/span>i.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe superconscient, the sea of, the subconscient, the life of the
\n\t\t\tliving being between the two, \u2014this is the Vedic idea of existence.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe sea of the superconscient is the goal of the rivers of clarity,
\n\t\t\tof the honeyed wave, as the sea of the subconscient in the heart
\n\t\t\twithin is their place of rising. This upper sea is spoken of as the
\n\t\t\tSindhu, a word which may mean either river or ocean; but in this
\n\t\t\thymn it clearly means ocean. Let us observe the remarkable language
\n\t\t\tin which Vamadeva speaks of these rivers of the clarity. He says
\n\t\t\tfirst that the gods sought and found the clarity, the ghṛ<\/span>tam,<\/i>
\n\t\t\ttriply placed and hidden by the Panis in the cow, gavi.<\/i> It is
\n\t\t\tbeyond doubt that gauḥ<\/span><\/i> is used
\n\t\t\tin the Veda in the double sense of Cow and Light; the Cow is the
\n\t\t\touter symbol, the inner meaning is the Light. The figure of the cows
\n\t\t\tstolen and hidden by the Panis is constant in the Veda. Here it is
\n\t\t\tevident that as the sea is a psychological symbol \u2014 the heart-ocean,
\n\t\t\tsamudre hṛ<\/span>di, \u2014<\/i> and the Soma is
\n\t\t\ta psychological symbol and the clarified butter is a psychological
\n\t\t\tsymbol, the cow in which the gods find the clarified butter hidden
\n\t\t\tby the Panis must also symbolise an inner illumination and not
\n\t\t\tphysical light. The cow is really Aditi, the infinite consciousness
\n\t\t\thidden in the subconscient, and the triple ghṛ<\/span>tam<\/i>
\n\t\t\tis the triple clarity of the liberated sensation finding its secret
\n\t\t\tof delight, of the thought-mind attaining to light and intuition and
\n\t\t\tof the truth itself, the ultimate supramental vision. This is clear
\n\t\t\tfrom the second half of the verse in which it is said,
\n\t\t\t"One Indra produced, one Surya, one the gods fashioned by natural
\n\t\t\tdevelopment out of Vena"; for Indra is the Master of the
\n\t\t\tthought-mind, Surya of the supra- mental light, Vena is Soma, the
\n\t\t\tmaster of mental delight of existence, creator of the sense-mind.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\tPage \u2013 104<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\t\tWe may observe also in passing that the Panis here must perforce be
\n\t\t\tspiritual enemies, powers of darkness, and not Dravidian
\n\t\t\tgods or Dravidian tribes or Dravidian merchants. In the next verse
\n\t\t\tVamadeva says of the streams of the ghṛ<\/span>tam<\/i>
\n\t\t\tthat they move from the heart-ocean shut up in a hundred prisons
\n\t\t\t(pens) by the enemy so that they are not seen. Certainly, this does
\n\t\t\tnot mean that rivers of ghee \u2014 or of water, either \u2014 rising from the
\n\t\t\theart-ocean or any ocean were caught on their way by the wicked and
\n\t\t\tunconscionable Dravidians and shut up in a hundred pens so that the
\n\t\t\tAryans or the Aryan gods could not even catch a glimpse of them. We
\n\t\t\tperceive at once that the enemy, Pani, Vritra of the hymns is a
\n\t\t\tpurely psychological conception and not an attempt of our
\n\t\t\tforefathers to conceal the facts of early Indian history from their
\n\t\t\tposterity in a cloud of tangled and inextricable myths. The Rishi
\n\t\t\tVamadeva would have stood aghast at such an unforeseen travesty of
\n\t\t\this ritual images. We have not even helped if we take ghṛ<\/span>ta<\/i>
\n\t\t\tin the sense of water, hṛ<\/span>dya
\n\t\t\tsamudra<\/i> in the sense of a delightful lake, and suppose that the
\n\t\t\tDravidians enclose the water of the rivers with a hundred dams so
\n\t\t\tthat the Aryans could not even get a glimpse of them. For even if
\n\t\t\tthe rivers of the Punjab all flow out of one heart-pleasing lake,
\n\t\t\tyet their streams of water cannot even so have been triply placed in
\n\t\t\ta cow and the cow hidden in a cave by the cleverest and most
\n\t\t\tinventive Dravidians. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t"These move", says Vamadeva, "from the heart-ocean, penned by the
\n\t\t\tenemy in a hundred enclosures they cannot be seen; I look towards
\n\t\t\tthe streams of the clarity, for in their midst is the Golden Reed.
\n\t\t\tEntirely they stream like flowing rivers becoming purified by the
\n\t\t\theart within and the mind; these move, waves of the clarity, like
\n\t\t\tanimals under the mastery of their driver. As if on a path in front
\n\t\t\tof the Ocean (sindhu,<\/i> the upper ocean) the mighty ones move
\n\t\t\tcompact of forceful speed but limited by the vital force (vāta,
\n\t\t\tvāyu),<\/i> the streams of clarity; they are like a straining horse
\n\t\t\twhich breaks its limits, as it is nourished by the waves".
\n\t\t\tOn the very face of it this is the poetry of a mystic concealing his
\n\t\t\tsense from the profane under a veil of images which occasionally he
\n\t\t\tsuffers to grow <\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPage \u2013 105<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\t\t\ttransparent to the eye that chooses to see. What he means is that
\n\t\t\tthe divine knowledge is all the time flowing constantly behind our
\n\t\t\tthoughts, but is kept from us by the internal enemies who limit
\n\t\t\tour material of mind to the sense-action and sense-perception so
\n\t\t\tthat though the waves of our being beat on banks that border upon
\n\t\t\tthe superconscient, the infinite, they are limited by the nervous
\n\t\t\taction of the sense-mind and cannot reveal their secret. They are
\n\t\t\tlike horses controlled and reined in; only when the waves of the
\n\t\t\tlight have nourished their strength to the full does the straining
\n\t\t\tsteed break these limits and they flow freely towards That from
\n\t\t\twhich the Soma-wine is pressed out and the sacrifice is born. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYatra somaḥ<\/span> sūyate yatra yaj\u00f1o<\/i>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tghṛ<\/span>tasya dhārā abhi tat pavante.<\/i>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis goal is, again, explained to be that which is all honey, \u2014ghṛ<\/span>tasya
\n\t\t\tdhārā madhumat pavante<\/i>; it is Ananda, the divine
\n\t\t\tBeatitude. And that this goal is the Sindhu, the superconscient
\n\t\t\tocean, is made clear in the last Rik, where Vamadeva says, "May we
\n\t\t\ttaste that honeyed wave of thine" \u2014 of Agni, the divine Purusha, the
\n\t\t\tfour-horned Bull of the worlds \u2014 "which is borne in the force of the
\n\t\t\tWaters where they come together". <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tApām anīke samithe ya ābhṛ<\/span>taḥ<\/span>,<\/i>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\ttam aśyāma madhumantam ta ūrmim.<\/i> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe find this fundamental idea of the Vedic Rishis brought out in the
\n\t\t\tHymn of Creation (X. 129) where the subconscient is thus
\n\t\t\tdescribed. "Darkness hidden by darkness in the beginning was this
\n\t\t\tall, an ocean without mental consciousness … out of it the One was
\n\t\t\tborn by the greatness of Its energy. It first moved in it as desire
\n\t\t\twhich was the first seed of mind. The Masters of Wisdom found out in
\n\t\t\tthe non-existent that which builds up the existent; in the heart
\n\t\t\tthey found it by purposeful impulsion and by the thought-mind. Their
\n\t\t\tray was extended horizontally; there was something above, there was
\n\t\t\tsomething below." In this passage the same ideas are brought out as
\n\t\t\tin Vamadeva’s hymn but without the veil of images. Out of the
\n\t\t\tsubconscient ocean <\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPage \u2013 106<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\t\t\tthe One arises in the heart first as desire; he moves there in the
\n\t\t\theart-ocean as an unexpressed desire of
\n\t\t\tthe delight of existence and this desire is the first seed of what
\n\t\t\tafterwards appears as the sense-mind. The gods thus find out a means
\n\t\t\tof building up the existent, the conscious being, out of the
\n\t\t\tsubconscient darkness; they find it in the heart and bring it out by
\n\t\t\tthe growth of thought and purposeful impulsion, pratīṣ<\/span>yā,<\/i>
\n\t\t\tby which is meant mental desire as distinguished from the first
\n\t\t\tvague desire that arises out of the subconscient in the merely vital
\n\t\t\tmovements of nature. The conscious existence which they thus create
\n\t\t\tis stretched out as it were horizontally between two other
\n\t\t\textensions; below is the dark sleep of the subconscient, above is
\n\t\t\tthe luminous secrecy of the superconscient. These are the upper and
\n\t\t\tthe lower ocean. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis Vedic imagery throws a clear light on the similar symbolic
\n\t\t\timages of the Puranas, especially on the famous symbol of Vishnu
\n\t\t\tsleeping after the pralaya<\/i><\/span> on the folds of
\n\t\t\tthe snake Ananta upon the ocean of sweet milk. It may perhaps be
\n\t\t\tobjected that the Puranas were written by superstitious Hindu
\n\t\t\tpriests or poets who believed that eclipses were caused by a dragon
\n\t\t\teating the sun and moon and could easily believe that during the
\n\t\t\tperiods of non-creation the supreme Deity in a physical body went to
\n\t\t\tsleep on a physical snake upon a material ocean of real milk and
\n\t\t\tthat therefore it is a vain ingenuity to seek for a spiritual
\n\t\t\tmeaning in these fables. My reply would be that there is in fact no
\n\t\t\tneed to seek for such meanings; for these very superstitious poets
\n\t\t\thave put them there plainly on the very surface of the fable for
\n\t\t\teverybody to see who does not choose to be blind. For they have
\n\t\t\tgiven a name to Vishnu’s snake, the name Ananta, and Ananta means
\n\t\t\tthe Infinite; therefore they have told us plainly enough that the
\n\t\t\timage is an allegory and that Vishnu, the all-pervading Deity,
\n\t\t\tsleeps in the periods of non-creation on the coils of the Infinite.
\n\t\t\tAs for the ocean, the Vedic imagery shows us that it must be the
\n\t\t\tocean of eternal existence and this ocean of eternal existence is an
\n\t\t\tocean of absolute sweetness, in other words, of pure Bliss. For the
\n\t\t\tsweet milk (itself a Vedic image) has, evidently, a sense not
\n\t\t\tessentially different from the madhu, <\/i>honey or sweetness, of
\n\t\t\tVamadeva’s hymn. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPage \u2013 107<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\t\t\tThus we find that both Veda and Purana use the same symbolic images;
\n\t\t\tthe ocean is for them the image of infinite and
\n\t\t\teter<\/span>nal
\n\t\t\texistence. We find also that the image of the river or flowing
\n\t\t\tcurrent is used to symbolise a stream of conscious being. We find
\n\t\t\tthat Saraswati, one of the seven rivers, is the river of inspiration
\n\t\t\tflowing from the Truth-Consciousness. We have the right then to
\n\t\t\tsuppose that the other six rivers are also psychological symbols.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut we need not depend entirely on hypothesis and inference, however
\n\t\t\tstrong and entirely convincing. As in the hymn of Vamadeva we have
\n\t\t\tseen that the rivers, ghṛ<\/span>tasya
\n\t\t\tdhārāḥ<\/span>,<\/i> are there not rivers of
\n\t\t\tclarified butter or rivers of physical water, but psychological
\n\t\t\tsymbols, so we find in other hymns the same compelling evidence as
\n\t\t\tto the image of the seven rivers. For this purpose I will examine
\n\t\t\tone more hymn, the first Sukta of the third Mandala sung by the
\n\t\t\tRishi Vishwamitra to the God Agni; for here he speaks of the seven
\n\t\t\trivers in language as remarkable and unmistakable as the language of
\n\t\t\tVamadeva about the rivers of clarity. We shall find precisely the
\n\t\t\tsame ideas recurring in quite different contents in the chants of
\n\t\t\tthese two sacred singers. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 108<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter  X   The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers   THE three Riks of the third hymn of Madhuchchhandas in which Saraswati has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-the-secret-of-veda","wpcat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}