{"id":3174,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3174"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:28","slug":"06-the-mystery-of-the-veda-vol-writings-in-bengali-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/writings-in-bengali-translation\/06-the-mystery-of-the-veda-vol-writings-in-bengali-translation","title":{"rendered":"-06_The Mystery of The Veda.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n


\nIII. THE VEDA<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe Mystery of the Veda <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe Veda Samhita is the eternal source of the
\ndharma, culture and spiritual knowledge of India. But the fountain- head of this
\nsource is lost in the cave of an inaccessible mountain and even its initial
\ncourse is hidden under the strange vines, bushes and flowering trees of a thorny
\nforest, deep and very ancient. The Veda is mysterious. The language, the manner of expression and the form of thinking
\nhave been created by another age; they are the product of a
\ndifferent type of mentality. On one hand, it is extremely
\nsimple like the flow of a pure and swift mountain stream; yet,
\non the other, this process of thinking appears so complex to
\nus, the meaning of its language so uncertain that from very
\nancient times disagreements and discussions have continued
\nregarding its essential thought and even regarding the simple
\nwords used in every line. Upon reading the commentary of
\nthe great scholar Sayanacharya, one gets the impression that
\na coherent sense of the Veda never did exist, or else what
\nwas there got submerged in the sea of oblivion of all-
\ndevouring Time even long before the Brahmanas, which
\ncame after the Vedas, were composed. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSayana was in a quandary when he undertook to find the
\nsignificance of the Veda. It was like some one who, wearied
\nof pursuing a false light through darkness, stumbled often
\nand fell into holes full of mire and filthy water, yet was
\nunable to abandon the pursuit. The meaning of the fundamental Scripture of the Aryan dharma had to be found but
\nthe words were so enigmatic, the synthesis was made up of so
\nmany mysterious and profound entangled thoughts that in a
\nthousand places it had no sense at all and, where somehow a <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-27<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmeaning could be gleaned, the shadow of doubt fell across it.
\nMany a time, discouraged by this perplexity, Sayana has put
\nin the mouths of the Rishis such ungrammatical language,
\nsuch complicated, jumbled and halting sentences, and attributed to them such disorderly and incoherent thought that
\nupon reading his commentary, instead of calling this lan-
\nguage and thought the Aryan language, the Aryan thought,
\none is tempted to treat them as the ravings of a barbarian or
\na lunatic. Sayana is not to be blamed. The ancient lexicographer Yaska also committed the same blunder, and long
\nbefore him the authors of the Brahmanas, unable to discover
\nthe plain meaning of the Veda, made an unsuccessful
\nattempt to interpret the difficult Riks with the help of their
\n"mythopoeic faculty." The historians, imitating this method,
\ninvested the Veda with a numerous pageantry of purely
\nimaginary events twisting and obscuring its sacred and simple
\nmeaning. An example will illustrate the nature and the
\namount of distortion that the sense has suffered by this
\ntreatment. In the second Sukta of the fifth Mandala there is
\nthe mention about the compressed or the covered state of
\nAgni and his vast manifestation after a long time. "Kumāram
\nmātā yuvatih samubdham guhā bibharti ne dadāti
\npitre… kametam tvam yuvate kumāram pesī bibharsi mahisī
\njajāna. Pūrvīrhi garbhah \u00e9arado… yadasūta mātā."<\/i> It
\nmeans, "The young Mother carries the boy suppressed in the
\nsecret cavern and she gives him not to the Father; his force is
\nundiminished, men see him in front established inwardly in
\nthe movement. Who is this boy, 0 young Mother, whom
\nthou carriest in thyself when thou art compressed into form,
\nbut when thou art vast thou hast given him birth ? Through
\nmany years grew the child in the womb, I saw him born when
\nthe Mother brought him forth." The language of the Veda is
\neverywhere a little dense, compact and pregnant with
\nmeaning; it tries to express a wealth of significance in a few <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-28<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwords yet without ever impairing the simplicity of the
\nmeaning and the harmony of the thought. Historians could
\nnot understand this straightforward meaning that when the
\nmother is compressed or contracted, then the boy is also
\nsuppressed or covered. They did not notice or seize the
\nharmony between the language and the thought of the Rishi.
\nThey understood, by the word pesī, some<\/i> fiendish woman
\nwho stole the power of Agni; the word mahisī<\/i> suggested to
\nthem ‘a queen’ and the words kumāra samubdha<\/i> conveyed to
\nthem that a young Brahmin was crushed to death under the
\nwheels of a chariot. Quite a long legend based on this
\ninterpretation was fabricated, with the result that the
\nmeaning of the Riks became unintelligible. Who was the
\nyoung man? or the Mother? or the fiendish woman? Was it
\nthe story of Agni or of the young Brahmin ? Who is speaking
\nto whom and about what? Everything is in confusion.
\nEverywhere there is such a torture. Pointless tyranny of
\nimagination has distorted and mutilated the simple yet
\nprofound meaning of the Veda and at places where the
\nlanguage and the thought are a little involved, by the grace of
\nthe commentator the incomprehensibility has assumed a
\nfrightfully hideous appearance. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nLet alone this question of individual Riks and metaphors,
\nthere was a great deal of controversy in ancient times even
\nregarding the veritable significance of the Veda itself.
\nAccording to Euhemeros of Greece, the Gods of the Greeks
\nwere ever-remembered heroes and kings who with the
\npassage of time were transformed into gods and enthroned in
\nheaven by a different kind of superstition and reckless poetic
\nimagination. There was no dearth of followers of Euhemeros
\neven in ancient India. Here is an example: they said that in
\nfact the two Ashwins were neither gods nor stars but two
\nrenowned kings, men of flesh and blood like us, who
\nprobably attained godhead after their death. According to <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-29<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nothers, everything is a Solar myth, that is to say, the Sun,
\nMoon, Sky, Stars and Rain, etc.\u2014each play of the physical
\nNature adorned with a poetical name has become a god with
\na human form. Vritra is the cloud, Vala also the cloud, and
\nthe Dasyus (robbers), the Danavas (demons) and the
\nDaityas (titans) are nothing else but the clouds of the sky; the rain-god Indra, interceptor of sunlight, pierces the
\nmiserly clouds unwilling to give rain, and by sending down
\nthe rain produces the free flow of the five male and the seven
\nfemale rivers which fertilise the soil and make the Aryans
\nrich and prosperous. Or else Indra, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga,
\nVaruna, Vishnu are only different appellations of the Sun.
\nMitra is the god of day, Varuna the god of night, the Ribhus
\nwho by their will-power fashion the horse of Indra and the
\nchariot of the two Ashwins, are, too, only rays of the sun. On
\nthe other hand, there existed a great number of orthodox
\nadherents of the Veda who were ritualists. They said that
\ngods have a human figure, and at the same time, they are the
\nall-pervading guardians of the powers of Nature; Agni is
\nsimultaneously a god with a body and the fire on the altar of
\nsacrifice; the earthly fire, the undersea fire and the lightning
\nare the three forms of his manifestation. Saraswati is a river
\nas well as a goddess, and so on. They firmly believed that the
\ngods, pleased by the chants and the hymns of the devotee,
\ngranted him heaven after death and bestowed on him in this
\nlife, strength, children, cows, horses, food and clothing,
\nkilled his enemy and crushed with lightning the head of his
\nimpertinent and slandering critic; they were always anxious
\nto accomplish such auspicious and friendly acts. This idea
\nwas by far the most powerful in ancient India. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nYet thoughtful men were not rare who had faith in the
\nintrinsic value of the Veda, in the Rishihood of the Rishi,
\nand who diligently sought after the spiritual significance of
\nthe Rik-Samhita, who looked for the fundamental truth of <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-30<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe Upanishads in the Veda. They held the opinion that the
\nboon of light for which the Rishis prayed to God was not the
\nlight of the material sun but the light of the Sun of Knowledge, the Sun which is mentioned in the mantra of ‘Gayatri’,
\nthe Sun which Vishwamitra had seen. This light is tatsavitur-
\nvarenyam devasya bhargah,<\/i> that power and light of the
\nDivine Sun, this god is yo no dhiyah pracodayāt,<\/i> he who
\nimpels all our thoughts towards the principles of the Truth,
\nThe Rishis feared tamah,<\/i> darkness, but not the darkness of
\nnight; they feared the dense obscurity of ignorance. Indra is
\njivatma,<\/i> the soul or the life; Vritra is neither cloud nor the
\ndemon imagined by the poets but the one who impedes the
\ngrowth of our manhood by covering it up with the thick night
\nof ignorance, in whom the gods, at first, remain concealed
\nand lost, then rise delivered by the bright light of knowledge
\nemanating from the Divine Word. Sayanacharya has given to
\nthese Rishis the name of ‘atmavids’ or knowers of the Self
\nand he often cites their explanation of the Veda. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAs an example we can quote the explanation of the
\n‘atmavids’ given for the hymn addressed by Gotama Rohugana to the ‘maruts’ the Winds. In this Sukta, Gotama
\ninvokes the Maruts and prays to them for light: <\/font><\/p>\n

\nyūyam tatsatyaśavasā āviskarta mahitvanā<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nvidhyatā vidyutā raksah<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\ngūhatā guhyam tamo vi yāta viśvamatrinam<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\njyotiskartā yaduśmasi<\/i> (1-86-10) <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAccording to the Ritualists, the light mentioned in the two
\nRiks is the light of the physical sun. "The Rakshasa,
\ndevourer who has covered up the light of the sun by
\ndarkness, 0 Maruts, destroy that Rakshasa and reveal again the light of the Sun
\nto our eyes." According to the ‘atmavids’, a different meaning should be given: "O ye who are
\nmighty with the strength of the Truth, manifest that supreme
\nknowledge by your greatness; pierce with your lightning the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-31<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nRakshasa. Conceal the darkness reigning in the cave of the
\nheart, that is to say, let the darkness sink and disappear in
\nthe flood of the Truth-light. Repel every devourer of
\nmanhood, create the light for which we long."’ Here the
\nMaruts are not the winds who disperse the clouds but the five
\nvital energies. Tamah<\/i> is the psychological darkness in the
\nheart, the devourers of manhood are the six adversaries2<\/sup>,
\njyotih<\/i> is the Light of Knowledge, the living form of the
\nTruth. Thus interpreted we find simultaneously in the Veda
\nthe spiritual knowledge, the basic idea of the Upanishads,
\nand the Rajayogic system of ‘pranayama’. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThus far is the story of the indigenous bungle regarding the
\nVeda. In the nineteenth century, the Western Pundits girded
\nup their loins and came into the arena producing a more
\nintense foreign imbroglio. Even to this day, only to keep
\nafloat, we are struggling hard against the huge waves of that
\nflood. The European Pundits have erected their new and
\nbrilliant temple of phantasy on the old foundations laid by
\nthe ancient lexicographers and historians. They do not much
\nfollow the ‘Nirukta’ of Yaska, but explain the Veda with the
\nhelp of recent lexicons compiled to their liking in Berlin and
\nPetrograd. By giving a novel and bizarre form to the Solar
\nmyth of the ancient historians of India, by putting new paint
\non the old colours, they have dazzled the eyes of the
\neducated community of this country. The Europeans also
\nhold the view that the gods mentioned in the Veda are only
\nsymbols representing various activities of physical Nature,
\nThe Aryans used to worship the Sun, Moon, Stars, Planets, <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n‘ Sri Aurobindo’s own later English translation reads: "0 ye who have the
\nflashing strength of the Truth, manifest that by your might; pierce with your
\nlightning the Rakshasa. Conceal the concealing darkness, repel every
\ndevourer, create the Light for which we long." <\/font><\/p>\n

\n2 i.e. lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride and jealousy. (Translator’s
\nnote) <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-32<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe Dawn, the Night, the Wind and the Storm, Rivers,
\nStreams, Sea, Mountains, Trees and such visible objects,
\nFilled with awe at the sight of their fascinating movement,
\nthe barbarians adored these objects in their chants as
\npoetical personalities. Again, seeing in them the conscious
\nplay of multiple Gods, and wishing to establish friendly
\nrelations with these Powers, they prayed to them for victory
\nin battle, for prosperity, long life, health or children.
\nTerrified by the darkness of night, they performed rituals
\nand sacrifices for recovering the Sun. They were even afraid
\nof ghosts and solicited the gods in a piteous manner to drive
\nthem away. The hope and ambition of gaining heaven by
\noffering sacifices, and similar ideas, were in fact quite
\nbefitting the barbarians of a prehistoric age. , <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere is victory in the battle, but battle with whom? They
\nsay it is the war between the Aryan race which lived in the
\nland of the five rivers, and the true Indians, the Dravidians; it is the constant fighting against the neighbouring people
\nand the internal strife of the Aryans. The Europeans followed the method of the ancient Indian historians who used
\nto fabricate various historical episodes on the authority of
\nseparate Riks and Suktas, with the difference that instead of
\nletting their imagination run riot and building up such
\nextraordinary stories full of unnatural and strange incidents
\nas the death of a Brahmin youth crushed under the wheels of
\nthe chariot conducted by Jara (son of Jara), Rishi Vrisha,
\nwho is then recalled to life by the power of the mantra, and
\nthe theft of the force of Agni by some fiendish woman, they
\ntried to reconstruct the ancient history of India with the help
\nof such true or fanciful tales as the battle of the Aryan
\nTritsuraj Sudas against ten kings of mixed race, the priest-
\nhood of Vasistha on one side and the priesthood of Vishwamitra on the other, the theft of cattle of the Aryans and the
\nobstruction of the flow of their rivers by the cave-dwelling <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-33<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nDravidians, the despatch of the Aryan envoy or royal
\nambassadress to the Dravidians in the parable of Sarama
\n(the Hound of Heaven) etc. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe disorder which these Occidentals have created in their
\nattempt to coordinate mutually contradictory symbols of
\nphysical Nature with historical metaphors is beyond all
\ndescription. It seems in order to justify it, they say, "What
\ncan we do ? The mentality of those ancient barbarian poets
\nwas very confused, that is why we have been obliged to use
\nsuch contrivances; but as far as our explanation is concerned,
\nit is perfect, genuine and faultless." Anyway the long and
\nshort of it is that, in spite of the interpretation offered by the
\nEuropean scholars, the meaning of the Veda remains just as
\nincoherent, confused, incomprehensible and complicated as
\nit had become at one time by the explanation given by the
\nEastern scholars. Everything has altered and yet remains the
\nsame. It is true that hundreds of thunderers hailing from the
\nbanks of the Thames, the Seine, and the Neva have poured
\non our heads the seven celestial rivers of new learning, but
\nnone of them have been able to remove the obscurity produced by Vritra.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n We are enveloped in the same darkness as before. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-34<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

III. THE VEDA The Mystery of the Veda   The Veda Samhita is the eternal source of the dharma, culture and spiritual knowledge of India….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings-in-bengali-translation","wpcat-64-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3174","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=3174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}