{"id":884,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=884"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:00","slug":"05-modern-theories-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\/05-modern-theories-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","title":{"rendered":"-05_Modern Theories.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nCHAPTER
\n<\/span>III <\/font> <\/b> <\/p>\n

\n
\nModern Theories <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nI<\/font>T<\/font><\/b>
\nWAS <\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

the curiosity of a foreign culture
\nthat broke after many centuries the seal of final authoritativeness
\nwhich Sayana had fixed on the ritualistic interpretation of the
\nVeda. The ancient Scripture was delivered over to a scholarship
\nlaborious, bold in speculation, ingenious in its flights of fancy,
\nconscientious according to its own lights, but ill-fitted to under-
\nstand the method of the old mystic poets; for it was void of any
\nsympathy with that ancient temperament, unprovided with any
\nclue in its own intellectual or spiritual environment to the ideas
\nhidden in the Vedic figures and parables. The result has been
\nof a double character, on the one side the beginnings of a more
\nminute, thorough and careful as well as a freer handling of the
\nproblems of Vedic interpretation, on the other hand a final
\nexaggeration of its apparent material sense and the complete
\nobscuration of its true and inner secret.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn spite of the hardiness of its speculations and its freedom
\nin discovery or invention the Vedic scholarship of Europe has
\nreally founded itself throughout on the traditional elements
\npreserved in Sayana’s commentary and has not attempted an
\nentirely independent handling of the problem. What it found in
\nSayana and in the Brahmanas it has developed in the light of
\nmodern theories and modern knowledge; by ingenious deductions from the comparative method applied to philology, mythology and history, by large amplifications of the existing data with
\nthe aid of ingenious speculation, by unification of the scattered
\nindications available it has built up a complete theory of Vedic
\nmythology, Vedic history, Vedic civilisation which fascinates by
\nits detail and thoroughness and conceals by its apparent sureness
\nof method the fact that this imposing edifice has been founded,
\nfor the most part, on the sands of conjecture.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe modern theory of the Veda starts with the conception,<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 
\nPage \u2013 22<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfor which Sayana is responsible, of the Vedas as the hymnal
\nof an early, primitive and largely barbaric society crude in its
\nmoral and religious conceptions, rude in its social structure and
\nentirely childlike in its outlook upon the world that environed
\nit. The ritualism which Sayana accepted as part of a divine
\nknowledge and as endowed with a mysterious efficacy, European
\nscholarship accepted as an elaboration of the old savage propitiatory sacrifices offered to imaginary superhuman personalities
\nwho might be benevolent or malevolent according as they were
\nworshipped or neglected. The historical element admitted by
\nSayana was readily seized on and enlarged by new renderings and
\nnew explanations of the allusions in the hymns developed in an
\neager hunt for clues to the primitive history, manners and institutions of those barbarous races. The naturalistic element played
\na still more important role. The obvious identification of the
\nVedic gods in their external aspects with certain Nature-Powers
\nwas used as the starting-point for a comparative study of Aryan
\nmythologies; the hesitating identification of certain of the less
\nprominent deities as Sun-Powers was taken as a general clue to
\nthe system of primitive myth-making and elaborate sun-myth
\nand star-myth theories of comparative mythology were founded.
\nIn this new light the Vedic hymnology has come to be interpreted
\nas a half-superstitious, half-poetic allegory of Nature with an
\nimportant astronomical element. The rest is partly contemporary
\nhistory, partly the formulae and practices of a sacrificial ritual-
\nism, not mystic, but merely primitive and superstitious.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis interpretation is in entire harmony with the scientific
\ntheories of early human culture and of the recent emergence
\nfrom the mere savage which were in vogue throughout the nineteenth century and are even now dominant. But the increase of
\nour knowledge has considerably shaken this first and too hasty
\ngeneralisation. We now know that remarkable civilisations
\nexisted in China, Egypt, Chaldea, Assyria many thousands of
\nyears ago, and it is now coming generally to be agreed that
\nGreece and India were no exceptions to the general high culture
\nof Asia and the Mediterranean races. If the Vedic Indians do not
\nget the benefit of this revised knowledge, it is due to the survival
\nof the theory with which European erudition started, that they<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 23<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nbelonged to the so-called Aryan race and were on the same level
\nof culture with the early Aryan Greeks, Celts, Germans as they
\nare represented to us in the Homeric poems, the old Norse Sagas
\nand the Roman accounts of the ancient Gaul and Teuton. Hence has arisen the
\ntheory that these Aryan races were northern barbarians who broke in from their colder climes on the old and rich
\ncivilisations of Mediterranean Europe and Dravidian India.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut the indications in the Veda on which this theory of a
\nrecent Aryan invasion is built, are very scanty in quantity and
\nuncertain in their significance. There is no actual mention of any
\nsuch invasion. The distinction between Aryan and un-Aryan on
\nwhich so much has been built, seems on the mass of the evidence
\nto indicate a cultural rather than a racial difference.\u00b9 The language
\nof the hymns clearly points to a particular worship or spiritual
\nculture as the distinguishing sign of the Aryan, \u2014 a worship of
\nLight and of the powers of Light and a self-discipline based on the
\nculture of the "Truth" and the aspiration to Immortality, \u2014
\nRitam and Amritam. There is no reliable indication of any
\nracial difference. It is always possible that the bulk of the peoples
\nnow inhabiting India may have been the descendants of a new
\nrace from more northern latitudes, even perhaps, as argued by
\nMr. Tilak, from the Arctic regions; but there is nothing in the Veda, as there
\nis nothing in the present ethnological features\u00b2
\nof the country to prove that this descent took place near to the
\ntime of the Vedic hymns or was the slow penetration of a small
\nbody of fair-skinned barbarians into a civilised Dravidian peninsula.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nNor is it a certain conclusion from the data we possess that
\nthe early Aryan cultures \u2014 supposing the Celt, Teuton, Greek
\nand Indian to represent one common cultural origin, \u2014 were
\nreally undeveloped and barbarous. A certain pure and high<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>It is urged that the Dasyus are described as black of skin and noseless in opposition to
\nthe fair and high-nosed Aryans. But the former distinction is certainly applied to the Aryan
\nGods and the Dasa Powers in the sense of light and darkness, and the word anāsaḥ<\/i> does not-
\nmean noseless. Even if it did, it would be wholly inapplicable to the Dravidian races; for the
\nsouthern nose can give as good an account of itself as any "Aryan" proboscis in the North. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2<\/font>In India we are chiefly familiar with the old philological divisions of the Indian races
\nand with the speculations of Mr. Risley which are founded upon these earlier generalisations.
\nBut a more advanced ethnology rejects all linguistic tests and leans to the idea of a single
\nhomogeneous race inhabiting the Indian peninsula. <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 24<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsimplicity in their outward life and its organisation, a certain
\nconcreteness and vivid human familiarity in their conception
\nof and relations with the gods they worshipped, distinguish the
\nAryan type from the more sumptuous and materialistic Egypto-Chaldean civilisation and its solemn and occult religions. But
\nthose characteristics are not inconsistent with a high internal
\nculture. On the contrary, indications of a great spiritual tradition meet us at many points and negate the ordinary theory.
\nThe old Celtic races certainly possessed some of the highest philosophical conceptions and they preserve stamped upon them
\neven to the present day the result of an early mystic and intuitional development which must have been of long standing
\nand highly evolved to have produced such enduring results.
\nIn Greece it is probable that the Hellenic type was moulded in the
\nsame way by Orphic and Eleusinian influences and that Greek mythology, as it has
\ncome down to us, full of delicate psychological suggestions, is a legacy of the Orphic teaching. It would
\nbe only consonant with the general tradition if it turned out that
\nIndian civilisation has throughout been the prolongation of
\ntendencies and ideas sown in us by the Vedic forefathers. The
\nextraordinary vitality of these early cultures which still determine
\nfor us the principal types of modern man, the main elements of
\nhis temperament, the chief tendencies of his thought, art and
\nreligion, can have proceeded from no primitive savagery. They
\nare the result of a deep and puissant prehistoric development.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nComparative Mythology has deformed the sense of man’s
\ntraditions by ignoring this important stage in human progress.
\nIt has founded its interpretation on a theory which saw nothing
\nbetween the early savage and Plato or the Upanishads. It has
\nsupposed the early religions to have been founded on the wonder
\nof barbarians waking up suddenly to the astonishing fact that
\nsuch strange things as Dawn and Night and the Sun existed and
\nattempting in a crude, barbaric, imaginative way to explain their
\nexistence. And from this childlike wonder we stride at one step
\nto the profound theories of the Greek philosophers and the
\nVedantic sages. Comparative Mythology is the creation of
\nHellenists interpreting un-Hellenic data from a standpoint which
\nis itself founded on a misunderstanding of the Greek mind. Its<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 25<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmethod has been an ingenious play of the poetic imagination
\nrather than a patient scientific research.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIf we look at the results of the method, we find an extra-
\nordinary confusion of images and of their interpretations in
\nwhich there is nowhere any coherence or consistency. It is a mass
\nof details running into each other, getting confusedly into each
\nother’s way, disagreeing yet entangled, dependent for their validity on the license of imaginative conjecture as our sole means
\nof knowledge. This incoherence has even been exalted into
\na standard of truth; for it is seriously argued by eminent
\nscholars that a method arriving at a more logical and well-
\nordered result would be disproved and discredited by its very
\ncoherency, since confusion must be supposed to be the very
\nessence of the early mythopoeic faculty. But in that case there
\ncan be nothing binding in the results of Comparative Mythology
\nand one theory will be as good as another; for there is no reason
\nwhy one particular mass of incoherence should be held to be more
\nvalid than another mass of incoherence differently composed.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere is much that is useful in the speculations of Comparative Mythology; but in order that the bulk of its results should
\nbe sound and acceptable, it must use a more patient and consistent method and organise itself as part of a well-founded Science
\nof Religion. We must recognise that the old religions were organic systems founded on ideas which were at least as coherent as
\nthose which constitute our modern systems of belief. We must
\nrecognise also that there has been a perfectly intelligible progressive development from the earlier to the later systems of religious
\ncreed and of philosophical thought. It is by studying our data
\nwidely and profoundly in this spirit and discovering the true
\nevolution of human thought and belief that we shall arrive at
\nreal knowledge. The mere identification of Greek and Sanskrit
\nnames and the ingenious discovery that Heracles’ pyre is an image
\nof the setting sun or that Paris and Helen are Greek corruptions
\nof the Vedic Sarama and the Panis make an interesting diversion
\nfor an imaginative mind, but can by themselves lead to no
\nserious result, even if they should prove to be correct. Nor is
\ntheir correctness beyond serious doubt, for it is the vice of the
\nfragmentary and imaginative method by which the sun and star<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 26<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmyth interpretations are built up that they can be applied with
\nequal ease and convincingness to any and every human tradition,
\nbelief or even actual event of history.1 With this method we
\ncan never be sure where we have hit on a truth or where we are
\nlistening to a mere ingenuity.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nComparative Philology can indeed be called to our aid,
\nbut, in the present state of that Science, with very little conclusiveness. Modern Philology is an immense advance on anything
\nwe have had before the nineteenth century. It has introduced
\na spirit of order and method in place of mere phantasy; it has
\ngiven us more correct ideas of the morphology of language and
\nof what is or is not possible in etymology. It has established a
\nfew rules which govern the phenomena of the detrition of language and guide us in the identification of the same word or of
\nrelated words as they appear in the changes of different but
\nkindred tongues. Here, however, its achievements cease. The
\nhigh hopes which attended its birth, have not been fulfilled by its
\nmaturity. It has failed to create a Science of Language and we are
\nstill compelled to apply to it the apologetic description given
\nby a great philologist after some decades of earnest labour when
\nhe was obliged to speak of his favourite pursuits as "our petty
\nconjectural sciences". But a conjectural Science is no Science
\nat all. Therefore the followers of more exact and scrupulous
\nforms of knowledge refuse that name altogether to Comparative
\nPhilology and deny even the possibility of a linguistic science.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere is, in fact, no real certainty as yet in the obtained results of Philology; for beyond one or two laws of a limited application there is nowhere a sure basis. Yesterday we were all
\nconvinced that Varuna was identical with Ouranos, the Greek
\nheaven; today this identity is denounced to us as a philological
\nerror; tomorrow it may be rehabilitated. Parame vyoman<\/i> is a
\nVedic phrase which most of us would translate "in the highest
\nheaven", but Mr. T. Paramasiva Aiyar in his brilliant and
\nastonishing work. The Riks,<\/i> tells us that it means "in the lowest
\nhollow"; for vyoman<\/i> "means break, fissure, being literally absence of protection, (ūmā);<\/i> and the reasoning which he uses is so<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9\u00b9E.g. Christ and his twelve apostles are, a great scholar assures us, the sun and the twelve
\nmonths. The career of Napoleon is the most perfect Sun-myth in all legend or history.
\n<\/font><\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 27<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nentirely after the fashion of the modern scholar that the philologist
\nis debarred from answering that "absence of protection" cannot
\npossibly mean a fissure and that human language was not constructed on these principles. For Philology has failed to discover
\nthe principles on which language was constructed or rather was
\norganically developed, and on the other hand it has preserved a
\nsufficient amount of the old spirit of mere phantasy and ingenuity
\nand is full of precisely such brilliances of hazardous inference.
\nBut then we arrive at this result that there is nothing to help us in
\ndeciding whether parame vyoman<\/i> in the Veda refers to the highest
\nheaven or to the lowest abyss. It is obvious that a philology so
\nimperfect may be a brilliant aid, but can never be a sure guide to
\nthe sense of Veda.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe have to recognise in fact that European scholarship in
\nits dealings with the Veda has derived an excessive prestige from
\nits association in the popular mind with the march of European
\nScience. The truth is that there is an enormous gulf between the
\npatient, scrupulous and exact physical sciences and these other
\nbrilliant, but immature branches of learning upon which Vedic
\nscholarship relies. Those are careful of their foundation, slow to
\ngeneralise, solid in their conclusions; these are compelled to build
\nupon scanty data large and sweeping theories and supply the
\ndeficiency of sure indications by an excess of conjecture and
\nhypothesis. They are full of brilliant beginnings, but can come to
\nno secure conclusion. They are the first rough scaffolding for a
\nScience, but they are not as yet Sciences.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt follows that the whole problem of the interpretation of
\nVeda still remains an open field in which any contribution that
\ncan throw light upon the problem should be welcome. Three
\nsuch contributions have proceeded from Indian scholars. Two
\nof them follow the lines or the methods of European research, while opening up
\nnew theories which if established, would considerably alter our view of the external sense of the hymns. Mr.
\nTilak in his Arctic Home in the Vedas<\/i> has accepted the general
\nconclusions of European scholarship, but by a fresh examination
\nof the Vedic Dawn, the figure of the Vedic cows and the astronomical data of the hymns, has established at least a strong probability that the Aryan races descended originally from the Arctic<\/font>
\n   
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 28<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nregions in the glacial period. Mr. T. Paramasiva Aiyar by a still
\nbolder departure has attempted to prove that the whole of the
\nRig-veda is a figurative representation of the geological phenomena belonging to the new birth of our planet after its long-
\ncontinued glacial death in the same period of terrestrial evolution.
\nIt is difficult to accept in their mass Mr. Aiyar’s reasonings and
\nconclusions, but he has at least thrown a new light on the great
\nVedic mythus of Ahi Vritra and the release of the seven rivers.
\nHis interpretation is far more consistent and probable than the
\ncurrent theory which is not borne out by the language of the
\nhymns. Taken in conjunction with Mr. Tilak’s work it may serve
\nas the starting-point for a new external interpretation of the old
\nScripture which will explain much that is now inexplicable and recreate for us
\nthe physical origins if not the actual physical environment of the old Aryan world.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe third Indian contribution is older in date, but nearer to
\nmy present purpose. It is the remarkable attempt by Swami
\nDayananda, the founder of the Arya Samaj, to re-establish the
\nVeda as a living religious Scripture. Dayananda took as his basis
\na free use of the old Indian philology which he found in the
\nNirukta. Himself a great Sanskrit scholar, he handled his materials with remarkable power and independence. Especially creative was his use of that peculiar feature of the old Sanskrit tongue
\nwhich is best expressed by a phrase of Sayana’s, \u2014 the "multi-significance of roots". We shall see that the right following of this
\nclue is of capital importance for understanding the peculiar
\nmethod of the Vedic Rishis.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nDayananda’s interpretation of the hymns is governed by the
\nidea that the Vedas are a plenary revelation of religious, ethical
\nand scientific truth. Its religious teaching is monotheistic and
\nthe Vedic gods are different descriptive names of the one Deity; they are at the same time indications of His powers as we see
\nthem working in Nature and by a true understanding of the
\nsense of the Vedas we could arrive at all the scientific truths which
\nhave been discovered by modern research.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSuch a theory is, obviously, difficult to establish. The Rig-veda itself, indeed, asserts<\/font>\u00b9<\/font> that the gods are only different names<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9Rv. 1.164.46. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 29<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand expressions of one universal Being who in His own reality
\ntranscends the universe; but from the language of the hymns we
\nare compelled to perceive in the gods not only different names,
\nbut also different forms, powers and personalities of the one
\nDeva. The monotheism of the Veda includes in itself also the
\nmonistic, pantheistic and even polytheistic views of the cosmos
\nand is by no means the trenchant and simple creed of modem
\nTheism. It is only by a violent struggle with the text that we can
\nforce on it a less complex aspect.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat the ancient races were far more advanced in the
\nphysical sciences than is as yet recognised, may also be admitted.
\nThe Egyptians and Chaldeans, we now know, had discovered
\nmuch that has since been rediscovered by modern Science and
\nmuch also that has not been rediscovered. The ancient Indians
\nwere, at least, no mean astronomers and were always skilful
\nphysicians; nor do Hindu medicine and chemistry seem to have
\nbeen of a foreign origin. It is possible that in other branches also
\nof physical knowledge they were advanced even in early times.
\nBut the absolute completeness of scientific revelation asserted by
\nSwami Dayananda will take a great deal of proving.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe hypothesis on which I shall conduct my own enquiry is
\nthat the Veda has a double aspect and that the two, though
\nclosely related, must be kept apart. The Rishis arranged the substance of their thought in a system of parallelism by which the
\nsame deities were at once internal and external Powers of universal Nature, and they managed its expression through a system of
\ndouble values by which the same language served for their worship in both aspects. But the psychological sense predominates
\nand is more pervading, close-knit and coherent than the physical. The Veda is
\nprimarily intended to serve for spiritual enlightenment and self-culture. It is, therefore, this sense which has first
\nto be restored.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTo this task each of the ancient and modern systems of
\ninterpretation brings an indispensable assistance. Sayana and
\nYaska supply the ritualistic framework of outward symbols and
\ntheir large store of traditional significances and explanations.
\nThe Upanishads give their clue to the psychological and philosophical ideas of the earlier Rishis and hand down to us their<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 30<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmethod of spiritual experience and
\nintuition. European scholarship supplies a critical method of comparative research, yet to be
\nperfected, but capable of immensely increasing the materials
\navailable and sure eventually to give a scientific certainty and
\nfirm intellectual basis which has hitherto been lacking. Dayananda has given the clue to the linguistic secret of the Rishis and
\nre-emphasised one central idea of the Vedic religion, the idea of
\nthe One Being with the Devas expressing in numerous names and
\nforms the many-sidedness of His unity.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWith so much help from the intermediate past we may yet
\nsucceed in reconstituting this remoter antiquity and enter by the
\ngate of the Veda into the thoughts and realities of a prehistoric
\nwisdom.<\/font> <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 31<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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