{"id":832,"date":"2013-07-13T01:30:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=832"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:30:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:42","slug":"37-vishnu-the-all-pervading-godhead-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10\/37-vishnu-the-all-pervading-godhead-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","title":{"rendered":"-37_Vishnu the All Pervading Godhead.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nXII <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b> <\/p>\n

\nVISHNU, THE ALL-PERVADING GODHEAD <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nRig-veda 1.154<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/b> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Of Vishnu now I declare the mighty works, who has measured out the earthly worlds and that higher seat of our self-
    \naccomplishing he supports, he the wide-moving, in the
    \nthreefold steps of his universal movement. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \n <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \n

      That Vishnu affirms on high by his mightiness and he is
      \nlike a terrible lion that ranges in the difficult places, yea, his lair is on
      \n\tthe mountain-tops, he in whose three wide movements all the worlds find their dwelling-place.\n\t<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \n <\/p>\n

        \n
      1. \n

        Let our strength and our thought go forward to Vishnu the
        \nall-pervading, the wide-moving Bull whose dwelling-place
        \nis on the mountain, he who being One has measured all this
        \nlong and far-extending seat of our self-accomplishing by
        \nonly three of his strides. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        \n <\/p>\n

          \n
        1. \n

          He whose three steps are full of the honey-wine and they
          \nperish not but have ecstasy by the self-harmony of their <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          \nPage <\/font>
          \n\u2013 331<\/font><\/p>\n

          \n

          \nnature; yea, he being One holds the triple principle and earth
          \nand heaven also, even all the worlds.<\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n

          \n <\/p>\n

            \n
          1. \n

            May I attain to and enjoy that goal of his movement, the
            \nDelight, where souls that seek the godhead have the rapture; for there in that highest step of the wide-moving Vishnu is
            \nthat Friend of men who is the fount of the sweetness. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            \n <\/p>\n

              \n
            1. \n

              Those are the dwelling-places of ye twain which we desire
              \nas the goal of our journey, where the many-horned herds
              \nof Light go travelling; the highest step of wide-moving
              \nVishnu shines down on us here in its manifold vastness. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              \nPage <\/font>
              \n\u2013 332<\/font><\/p>\n

              \n

              \nCOMMENTARY <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

               <\/p>\n

              \nThe deity of this hymn is Vishnu the all-pervading, who in
              \nthe Rig-veda has a close but covert connection and almost
              \nan identity with the other deity exalted in the later religion,
              \nRudra. Rudra is a fierce and violent godhead with a beneficent aspect which approaches the supreme blissful reality of
              \nVishnu; Vishnu’s constant friendliness to man and his helping
              \ngods is shadowed by an aspect of formidable violence, \u2014 "like a
              \nterrible lion ranging in evil and difficult places", \u2014 which is spoken of in terms more ordinarily appropriate to Rudra. Rudra is
              \nthe father of the vehemently-battling Maruts; Vishnu is hymned
              \nin the last Sukta of the fifth Mandala under the name of Evaya
              \nMarut as the source from which they sprang, that which they
              \nbecome, and himself identical with the unity and totality of’ their
              \nembattled forces. Rudra is the Deva or Deity ascending in the
              \ncosmos, Vishnu the same Deva or Deity helping and evoking the
              \npowers of the ascent.<\/p>\n

              \nIt was a view long popularised by European scholars that the
              \ngreatness of Vishnu and Shiva in the Puranic theogonies was a
              \nlater development and that in the Veda these gods have a quite
              \nminor position and are inferior to Indra and Agni. It has even
              \nbecome a current opinion among many scholars that Shiva was
              \na later conception borrowed from the Dravidians and represents
              \na partial conquest of the Vedic religion by the indigenous culture
              \nit had invaded. These errors arise inevitably as part of the total
              \nmisunderstanding of Vedic thought for which the old Brahmanic
              \nritualism is responsible and to which European scholarship by
              \nthe exaggeration of a minor and external element in the Vedic
              \nmythology has only given a new and yet more misleading form.<\/p>\n

              \nThe importance of the Vedic gods has not to be measured by
              \nthe number of hymns devoted to them or by the extent to which
              \nthey are invoked in the thoughts of the Rishis, but by the functions which they perform. Agni and Indra to whom the majority
              \nof the Vedic hymns are addressed, are not greater than Vishnu
              \nand Rudra, but the functions which they fulfil in the internal
              \nand external world were the most active, dominant and directly  <\/p>\n

              \nPage <\/font>
              \n\u2013 333<\/font><\/p>\n

              \n

              \neffective for the psychological discipline of the ancient Mystics; this alone is the reason of their predominance. The Maruts, children of Rudra, are not divinities superior to their fierce and mighty
              \nFather; but they have many hymns addressed to them and are
              \nfar more constantly mentioned in connection with other gods,
              \nbecause the function they fulfilled was of a constant and immediate importance in the Vedic discipline. On the other hand,
              \nVishnu, Rudra, Brahmanaspati, the Vedic originals of the later Puranic Triad,
              \nVishnu-Shiva-Brahma, provide the conditions of the Vedic work and assist it from
              \nbehind the more present and active gods, but are less close to it and in
              \nappearance less continually concerned in its daily movements.<\/p>\n

              \nBrahmanaspati is the creator by the Word; he calls light
              \nand visible cosmos out of the darkness of the inconscient ocean
              \nand speeds the formations of conscious being upward to their
              \nsupreme goal. It is from this creative aspect of Brahmanaspati
              \nthat the later conception of Brahma the Creator arose.<\/p>\n

              \nFor the upward movement of Brahmanaspati’s formations
              \nRudra supplies the force. He is named in the Veda the Mighty
              \nOne of Heaven, but he begins his work upon the earth and gives
              \neffect to the sacrifice on the five planes of our ascent. He is the
              \nViolent One who leads the upward evolution of the conscious
              \nbeing; his force battles against all evil, smites the sinner and the
              \nenemy; intolerant of defect and stumbling he is the most terrible
              \nof the gods, the one of whom alone the Vedic Rishis have any
              \nreal fear. Agni, the Kumara, prototype of the Puranic Skanda,
              \nis on earth the child of this force of Rudra. The Maruts, vital
              \npowers which make light for themselves by violence, are Rudra’s
              \nchildren. Agni and the Maruts are the leaders of the fierce struggle upward from Rudra’s first earthly, obscure creation to the
              \nheavens of thought, the luminous worlds. But this violent and
              \nmighty Rudra who breaks down all defective formations and
              \ngroupings of outward and inward life, has also a benigner aspect.
              \nHe is the supreme healer. Opposed, he destroys; called on for aid and
              \npropitiated he heals all wounds and all evil and all sufferings. The force that battles is his gift, but also the final peace
              \nand joy. In these aspects of the Vedic god are all the primitive
              \nmaterials necessary for the evolution of the Puranic Shiva-Rudra,<\/p>\n

               
              \nPage <\/font>
              \n\u2013 334<\/font><\/p>\n

              \n

              \nthe destroyer and healer, the auspicious and terrible, the Master
              \nof the force that acts in the worlds and the Yogin who enjoys
              \nthe supreme liberty and peace.<\/p>\n

              \nFor the formations of Brahmanaspati’s word, for the actions
              \nof Rudra’s force Vishnu supplies the necessary static elements,
              \n\u2014 Space, the ordered movements of the worlds, the ascending
              \nlevels, the highest goal. He has taken three strides and in the
              \nspace created by the three strides has established all the worlds.
              \nIn these worlds he the all-pervading dwells and gives less or
              \ngreater room to the action and movements of the gods. When
              \nIndra would slay Vritra, he first prays to Vishnu, his friend and
              \ncomrade in the great struggle (1.22.19), "O Vishnu, pace out in
              \nthy movement with an utter wideness" (I V.I 8.11), and in that
              \nwideness he destroys Vritra who limits, Vritra who covers. The
              \nsupreme step of Vishnu, his highest seat, is the triple world of
              \nbliss and light, paramam padam<\/i>, which the wise ones see extended
              \nin heaven like a shining eye of vision (1.22.20); it is this highest
              \nseat of Vishnu that is the goal of the Vedic journey. Here again
              \nthe Vedic Vishnu is the natural precursor and sufficient origin
              \nof the Puranic Narayana, Preserver and Lord of Love.<\/p>\n

              \nIn the Veda indeed its fundamental conception forbids the
              \nPuranic arrangement of the supreme Trinity and the lesser
              \ngods. To the Vedic Rishis there was only one universal Deva of
              \nwhom Vishnu, Rudra, Brahmanaspati, Agni, Indra, Vayu, Mitra,
              \nVaruna are all alike forms and cosmic aspects. Each of them is in
              \nhimself the whole Deva and contains all the other gods. It was
              \nthe full emergence in the Upanishads of the idea of this supreme
              \nand only Deva, left in the Riks vague and undefined and sometimes even spoken of
              \nin the neuter as That or the one sole existence, the ritualistic limitation of
              \nthe other gods and the progressive precision of their human or personal aspects under the
              \nstress of a growing mythology that led to their degradation and
              \nthe enthronement of the less used and more general names and
              \nforms, Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra, in the final Puranic formulation of the Hindu theogony.<\/p>\n

              \nIn this hymn of Dirghatamas Auchathya to the all-pervading
              \nVishnu it is his significant activity, it is the greatness of Vishnu’s
              \nthree strides that is celebrated. We must dismiss from our minds<\/p>\n

               
              \nPage <\/font>
              \n\u2013 335<\/font><\/p>\n

              \n

              \nthe ideas proper to the later mythology. We have nothing to do
              \nhere with the dwarf Vishnu, the Titan Ball and the three divine
              \nstrides which took possession of Earth, Heaven and the sunless
              \nsubterrestrial worlds of Patala. The three strides of Vishnu in
              \nthe Veda are clearly denned by Dirghatamas as earth, heaven and
              \nthe triple principle, tridhā<\/font>tu<\/i>. It is this triple principle beyond
              \nHeaven or superimposed upon it as its highest level, nā<\/font>kasya
              \npṛ<\/font>ṣ<\/font>ṭ<\/font>he
              \n<\/i>(1.125.5), which is the supreme stride or supreme seat of
              \nthe all-pervading deity.<\/p>\n

              \nVishnu is the wide-moving one. He is that which has gone
              \nabroad, \u2014 as it is put in the language of the Isha Upanishad, sa paryagā<\/font>t<\/i>, \u2014 triply extending himself as Seer, Thinker and Former, in the superconscient Bliss, in the heaven of mind, in the
              \nearth of the physical consciousness, tredhā
              \n<\/font>vicakramā<\/font>ṇ<\/font>aḥ<\/font><\/i>.
              \nIn those three strides he has measured out, he has formed in all their extension
              \nthe earthly worlds; for in the Vedic idea the material world which we inhabit is
              \nonly one of several steps leading to and supporting the vital and mental worlds
              \nbeyond. In those strides he supports upon the earth and mid-world,\u2014the earth the
              \nmaterial, the mid-world the vital realms of Vayu, Lord of the dynamic
              \nLife-principle, \u2014 the triple heaven and its three luminous summits, trī<\/font>ṇ<\/font>i
              \nrocanā. <\/font><\/i>These heavens the Rishi describes as the higher seat of the fulfilling. Earth, the mid-world
              \nand heaven are the triple place of the conscious being’s progressive self-fulfilling,
              \ntriṣ<\/font>adhastha <\/i>(1.156.5), earth the lower seat, the
              \nvital world the middle, heaven the higher. All these are contained
              \nin the threefold movement of Vishnu.\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

              \nBut there is more; there is also the world where the self-fulfilment is accomplished, Vishnu’s highest stride. In the second
              \nverse the seer speaks of it simply as "that". "That" Vishnu,
              \nmoving yet forward in his third pace affirms or firmly establishes, pra stavate<\/i>, by his divine might. Vishnu is then described in a
              \nlanguage which hints at his essential identity with the terrible
              \nRudra, the fierce and dangerous Lion of the worlds who begins
              \nin the evolution as the Master of the animal, Pashupati, and
              \nmoves upward on the mountain of being on which he dwells,<\/p>\n

               <\/p>\n

              \n\u00b9<\/font>Viṣ<\/font>ṇ<\/font>or nu kam vī<\/font>ryā<\/font>ṇ<\/font>i pra vocam, yaḥ<\/font>
              \npā<\/font>rthivā<\/font>ni vimame
              \nrajā<\/font>msi; yo askabhā<\/font>yad uttaram
              \nsadhastham, vicakramā<\/font>ṇ<\/font>as tredhorugā<\/font>yaḥ<\/font>.
              \n<\/i><\/p>\n

               
              \nPage <\/font>
              \n\u2013 336<\/font><\/p>\n

              \n

              \nranging through more and more difficult and inaccessible places,
              \ntill he stands upon the summits. Thus in three wide movements
              \nof Vishnu all the five worlds and their creatures have their habitation. Earth, heaven and "that" world of bliss are the three
              \nstrides. Between earth and heaven is the Antariksha, the vital
              \nworlds, literally "the intervening habitation". Between heaven
              \nand the world of bliss is another vast Antariksha or intervening
              \nhabitation, Maharloka, the world of the superconscient Truth
              \nof things.\u00b9<\/font><\/p>\n

              \nThe force and the thought of man, the force that proceeds
              \nfrom Rudra the Mighty and the thought that proceeds from
              \nBrahmanaspati, the creative Master of the Word, have to go forward in the great journey for or towards this Vishnu who stands
              \nat the goal, on the summit, on the peak of the mountain. His is
              \nthis wide universal movement; he is the Bull of the world who
              \nenjoys and fertilises all the energies of force and all the trooping
              \nherds of the thought. This far-flung extended space which appears to us as the world of our self-fulfilment, as the triple altar
              \nof the great sacrifice has been so measured out, so formed by
              \nonly three strides of that almighty Infinite.\u00b2<\/font><\/p>\n

              \nAll the three are full of the honey-wine of the delight of existence. All of
              \nthem this Vishnu fills with his divine joy of being. By that they are eternally
              \nmaintained and they do not waste or perish, but in the self-harmony of their
              \nnatural movement have always the unfailing ecstasy, the imperishable
              \nintoxication of their wide and limitless existence. Vishnu maintains them
              \nunfailingly, preserves them imperishably. He is the One, he alone is, the
              \nsole-existing Godhead, and he holds in his being the triple divine principle to
              \nwhich we attain in the world of bliss, earth where we have our foundation and
              \nheaven also which we touch by the mental person within us. All the five worlds
              \nhe upholds.\u00b3<\/font> The tridhā<\/font>tu<\/i>, the triple principle
              \nor triple material of existence, is the Sachchidananda of the<\/p>\n

               <\/p>\n

              \n\u00b9<\/font>Pra tad viṣ<\/font>ṇ<\/font>uḥ<\/font> stavate
              \nvī<\/font>ryeṇ<\/font>a, mṛ<\/font>go na bhī<\/font>maḥ<\/font> kucaro
              \ngiriṣ<\/font>ṭ<\/font>hā<\/font>ḥ<\/font>; yasyoruṣ<\/font>u triṣ<\/font>u vikramaṇ<\/font>eṣ<\/font>u, adhikṣ<\/font>iyanti
              \nbhuvanā<\/font>ni viśvā<\/font>.
              \n<\/i><\/p>\n

              \n\u00b2<\/font>Pra viṣ<\/font>ṇ<\/font>ave
              \nśū<\/font>ṣ<\/font>am etu manma, giriksita
              \nurugā<\/font>yā<\/font>ya vṛ<\/font>ṣ<\/font>ṇ<\/font>e; ya idam dirgham prayatam
              \nsadhastham, eko vimame tribhir it padebhiḥ<\/font>.
              \n<\/i><\/p>\n

              \n\u00b3<\/font>Yasya trī
              \n<\/font>pū<\/font>rṇā
              \n<\/font>madhunā <\/font>padā<\/font>ni,
              \nakṣī<\/font>yamāṇā
              \n<\/font>svadhayā <\/font>madanti; ya u tridhā<\/font>tu
              \npṛ<\/font>thivī<\/font>m
              \nuta dyā<\/font>m, eko dā<\/font>dhā<\/font>ra
              \nbhuvanā<\/font>ni viś<\/font>vā<\/font>.
              \n<\/i><\/p>\n

               
              \nPage <\/font>
              \n\u2013 337<\/font><\/p>\n

              \n

              \nVedanta; in the ordinary language of the Veda it is vasu<\/i>, substance,
              \nū<\/font>rj<\/i>, abounding force of our being, priyam
              \n<\/i>or mayas<\/i>, delight and love in the very essence of our existence. Of these
              \nthree things all that exists is constituted and we attain to their
              \nfullness when we arrive at the goal of our journey.<\/p>\n

              \nThat goal is Delight, the last of Vishnu’s three strides.
              \nThe Rishi takes up the indefinite word "tat<\/i>" by which he first
              \nvaguely indicated it; it signified the delight that is the goal of
              \nVishnu’s movement. It is the Ananda which for man in his ascent
              \nis a world in which he tastes divine delight, possesses the full
              \nenergy of infinite consciousness, realises his infinite existence.
              \nThere is that high-placed source of the honey-wine of existence
              \nof which the three strides of Vishnu are full. There the souls that seek the
              \ngodhead live in the utter ecstasy of that wine of sweetness. There in the supreme stride, in the highest seat of wide-moving Vishnu is the fountain of the honey-wine, the source of
              \nthe divine sweetness, \u2014 for that which dwells there is the God-head, the Deva, the perfect Friend and Lover of the souls that
              \naspire to him, the unmoving and utter reality of Vishnu to which
              \nthe wide-moving God in the cosmos ascends.1<\/p>\n

              \nThese are the two, Vishnu of the movement here, the eternally stable, bliss-enjoying Deva there, and it is those supreme
              \ndwelling places of the Twain, it is the triple world of Sachchidananda which we desire as the goal of this long journey, this
              \ngreat upward movement. It is thither that the many-horned
              \nherds of the conscious Thought, the conscious Force are moving \u2014that is the goal, that is their resting-place. There in those
              \nworlds, gleaming down on us here, is the vast, full, illimitable
              \nshining of the supreme stride, the highest seat of the wide-
              \nmoving Bull, master and leader of all those many-horned herds, \u2014Vishnu the all-pervading, the cosmic Deity, the Lover and
              \nFriend of our souls, the Lord of the transcendent existence and
              \nthe transcendent delight.2<\/p>\n

               <\/p>\n

              \n‘ Tad asya priyam abhi pā<\/font>tho aś<\/font>yā<\/font>m, naro yatra devayavo madanti; urukramasya sa hi
              \nbandhur itthā<\/font>, viṣ<\/font>ṇ<\/font>oḥ<\/font> pade parame madhva utsaḥ<\/font>.
              \n<\/i><\/p>\n

              \n8 Tā <\/font>vā<\/font>m
              \nvā<\/font>stū<\/font>ni
              \nuś<\/font>masi gamadhyai, yatra gā<\/font>vo
              \nbhū<\/font>riś<\/font>ṛ<\/font>ngā
              \n<\/font>ayā<\/font>saḥ<\/font>,
              \natrā<\/font>ha tad urugā<\/font>yasya
              \nvṛ<\/font>ṣ<\/font>ṇ<\/font>aḥ<\/font>, paramam padam ava
              \nbhā<\/font>ti bhū<\/font>ri.
              \n<\/i><\/p>\n

              \nPage <\/font>
              \n\u2013 338<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              XII   VISHNU, THE ALL-PERVADING GODHEAD   Rig-veda 1.154     Of Vishnu now I declare the mighty works, who has measured out the earthly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","wpcat-17-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","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=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}