{"id":37,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=37"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:29","slug":"17-the-interpretation-of-scripture-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/17-the-interpretation-of-scripture-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-17_The Interpretation of Scripture.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nThe Interpretation of Scripture<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 
\n            T<\/font>HE <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b>Spirit who lies concealed behind the
\nmaterial world, has given us, through the inspiration of great
\nseers, the Scriptures as helpers and guides to unapparent truth,
\nlamps of great power that send their rays into the darkness of the
\nunknown beyond which He dwells, tamasah parastāt<\/i>. They are
\nguides to knowledge, brief indications to enlighten us on our
\npath, not substitutes for thought and experience. They are śabdabrahma<\/i>, the Word, the oral expression of God, not the
\nthing to be known itself nor the knowledge of Him. Śabda <\/i>has three elements, the word, the meaning and the spirit. The
\nword is a symbol, vāk<\/i> or nāma<\/i>; we have to find the artha<\/i>, the
\nmeaning or form of thought which the symbol indicates. But
\nthe meaning itself is only the indication of something deeper
\nwhich the thought seeks to convey to the intellectual conception.
\nFor not only words, but ideas also are eventually no more than
\nsymbols of a knowledge which is beyond ideas and words. Therefore it comes that no idea by itself is wholly true. There is indeed
\nrūpa<\/i>, some concrete or abstract form of knowledge answering to
\nevery name, and it is that which the meaning must present to the
\nintellect. We say a form of knowledge, because according to our
\nphilosophy, all things are forms of an essentially unknowable
\nexistence which reveals them as forms of knowledge to the
\nessential awareness in its Self, its Atman or Spirit, the Chit in the
\nSat. But beyond nāma<\/i> and rūpa<\/i> is svarūpa<\/i>, the essential figure of
\nTruth, which we cannot know with the intellect but with a higher
\nfaculty. And every svarūpa<\/i> is itself only a symbol of the one
\nessential existence which can only be known by its symbols because in its ultimate reality it defies logic and exceeds perception,
\n\u2014 God.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSince the knowledge the Scripture conveys is so deep, difficult and subtle, \u2014 if it were easy what would be the need of the
\nScripture ? \u2014 the interpreter cannot be too careful or too perfectly trained. He must not be one who will rest content in the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
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\n

\nthought-symbol or in the logical implication of the idea; he must
\nhunger and thirst for what is beyond. The interpreter who stops
\nshort with the letter, is the slave of a symbol and convicted of error. The
\ninterpreter who cannot go beyond the external meaning, is the prisoner of his thought and rests in a partial and incomplete knowledge. <\/b> One must transgress limits and penetrate
\nto the knowledge behind, which must be experienced before it
\ncan be known; for the ear hears it, the intellect observes it, but
\nthe spirit alone can possess it. Realisation in the self of things is
\nthe only knowledge; all else is mere idea or opinion.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe interpretation of the Veda is hampered by many irrelevancies. Men set up an authority and put it between themselves
\nand knowledge. The orthodox are indignant that a mere modern
\nshould presume to differ from Shankara in interpreting the
\nVedanta or from Sayana in interpreting the Veda. They forget
\nthat Shankara and Sayana are themselves moderns, separated
\nfrom ourselves by some hundreds of years only, but the Vedas
\nare many thousands of years old. The commentator ought to be studied, but
\ninstead we put him in place of the text. Good commentaries are always helpful even when they are wrong, but the
\nbest cannot be allowed to fetter inquiry. Sayana’s commentary
\non the Veda helps me by showing what a man of great erudition
\nsome hundreds of years ago thought to be the sense of the
\nScripture. But I cannot forget that even at the time of the
\nBrahmanas the meaning of the Veda had become dark to the
\nmen of that prehistoric age. Shankara’s commentary on the
\nUpanishads helps me by showing what a man of immense metaphysical genius and rare logical force after arriving at some
\nfundamental realisations thought to be the sense of the Vedanta.
\nBut it is evident that he is often at a loss and always prepossessed
\nby the necessity of justifying his philosophy. I find that Shankara
\nhad grasped much of Vedantic truth, but that much was dark to
\nhim. I am bound to admit what he realised; I am not bound
\nto exclude what he failed to realise. \u00c0ptavākyam<\/i>, authority, is
\none kind of proof; it is not the only kind: pratyaksa<\/i> is more
\nimportant.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe heterodox on the other hand swear by Max M\u00fcller and
\nthe Europeans. It is enough for them that Max M\u00fcller should<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 116<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhave found henotheism in the Vedas for the Vedas to be henotheistic. The Europeans have seen in our Veda only the rude
\nchants of an antique and primitive pastoral race sung in honour
\nof the forces of Nature, and for many their opinion is conclusive
\nof the significance of the mantras<\/i>. All other interpretation is to
\nthem superstitious. But to me the ingenious guesses of foreign
\ngrammarians are of no more authority than the ingenious guesses
\nof Sayana. It is irrelevant to me what Max M\u00fcller thinks of the
\nVeda or what Sayana thinks of the Veda. I should prefer to know
\nwhat the Veda has to say for itself and, if there is any light there
\non the unknown or on the infinite, to follow the ray till I come
\nface to face with that which it illumines.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere are those who follow neither Sayana
\nnor the Europeans, but interpret Veda and Vedanta for themselves, yet permit
\nthemselves to be the slaves of another kind of irrelevancy. They
\ncome to the Veda with a preconceived and established opinion
\nand seek in it a support for some trifling polemic; they degrade
\nit to the position of a backer in an intellectual prize-fight. Opinions are not knowledge, they are only sidelights on knowledge.
\nMost often they are illegitimate extensions of an imperfect knowledge. A man has perhaps travelled
\nto England and seen Cumberland and the lakes; he comes back and imagines England ever
\nafter as a country full of verdant mountains, faery woodlands, peaceful and
\nenchanted waters. Another has been to the manufacturing centres; he imagines England as a great roaring workshop, crammed with furnaces and the hum of machinery and the
\nsmell of metal. Another has sojourned in the quiet country side
\nand to him England is all hedges and lanes and the daisy-sprinkled meadow and the well-tilled field. All have realised a
\nlittle, but none have realised England. Then there is the man who
\nhas only read about the country or heard descriptions from
\nothers and thinks he knows it better than the men who have been 
\nthere. They may all admit that what they have seen need not be
\nthe whole, but each has his little ineffaceable picture which, because it is all he has realised, persists in standing for the whole.
\nThere is no harm in that, no harm whatever in limitation if you
\nunderstand and admit the limitation. But if all the four begin
\nquarrelling, what an aimless confusion will arise! That is what<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 117<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhas happened in India because of the excessive logicality and too
\nrobust opinionativeness of southern metaphysicians. We should
\ncome back to a more flexible and rational spirit of inquiry.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWhat then are the standards of truth in the
\ninterpretation of the Scripture ? The standards are three, the knower, knowledge and the known.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe known is the text itself that we seek to interpret. We
\nmust be sure we have the right word, not an emendation to suit
\nthe exigency of some individual or sectarian opinion; the right
\netymology and shade of meaning, not one that is traditional or
\nforced to serve the ends of a commentator; the right spirit in
\nthe sense, not an imported or too narrow or too elastic spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe knower is the original drastā <\/i>or seer of the
\nmantra<\/i>,
\n<\/i>with whom we ought to be in spiritual contact. If knowledge is
\nindeed a perishable thing in a perishable instrument, such contact is impossible; but in that case the Scripture itself must be
\nfalse and not worth considering. If there is any truth in what
\nthe Scripture says, knowledge is eternal and inherent in all of us
\nand what another saw I can see, what another realised I can realise. The drastā<\/i>  was a soul in relation with the infinite Spirit, I
\nalso am a soul in relation with the infinite Spirit. We have a
\nmeeting-place, a possibility of communion.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nKnowledge is the eternal truth, part of which the drastā
\n<\/i>expresses to us. Through the part he shows us, we must travel
\nto the whole, otherwise we shall be subject to the errors incidental
\nto an imperfect knowledge. If even the part is to be rightly
\nunderstood, it must be viewed in the terms of the whole, not the
\nwhole in the terms of the part. I am not limited by the Scriptures; on the contrary I must exceed them in order to be master of their
\nknowledge. It is true that we are usually the slaves of our individual and limited outlook, but our capacity is unlimited, and if
\nwe can get rid of ahankāra<\/i>, if we can put ourselves at the service
\nof the Infinite without any reservation of predilection or opinion,
\nthere is no reason why our realisation should be limited. Yasmin vij\u00f1āte sarvam idam
\nvij\u00f1ātam<\/i>. He being known, all can be known.
\nTo understand Scripture, it is not enough to be a scholar, one
\nmust be a soul. To know what the drastā<\/i> saw one must oneself have drsti<\/i>, sight, and be a student if not a master of the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 118<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nknowledge. Atha parā yayā tad aksaram adhigamyate<\/i>. Grammar, etymology, prosody, astronomy, metaphysics, logic, all
\nthat is good; but afterwards there is still needed the higher
\nknowledge by which the Immutable is known.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage
\n<\/font>\u2013 119<\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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