{"id":922,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=922"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:14","slug":"06-the-foundation-of-the-psychological-theory-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\/06-the-foundation-of-the-psychological-theory-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","title":{"rendered":"-06_The Foundation of the Psychological Theory.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nC<\/font>HAPTER <\/font><\/p>\n

IV <\/font> <\/b> <\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Foundations of
\nthe Psychological Theory <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nA<\/font> HYPOTHESIS <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b>of the sense of Veda must
\nalways proceed, to be sure and sound, from a basis that clearly
\nemerges in the language of the Veda itself. Even if the bulk of its
\nsubstance be an arrangement of symbols and figures, the sense of
\nwhich has to be discovered, yet there should be clear indications
\nin the explicit language of the hymns which will guide us to that
\nsense. Otherwise, the symbols being themselves ambiguous, we
\nshall be in danger of manufacturing a system out of our own
\nimaginations and preferences instead of discovering the real
\npurport of the figures chosen by the Rishis. In that case, however ingenious and
\ncomplete our theory, it is likely to be a building in the air, brilliant, but without reality or solidity.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nOur first duty, therefore, is to determine whether there is,
\napart from figure and symbol, in the clear language of the hymns a sufficient
\nkernel of psychological notions to justify us in supposing at all a higher than the barbarous and primitive sense of
\nthe Veda. And afterwards we have to find, as far as possible
\nfrom the internal evidence of the Suktas themselves, the interpretation of each symbol and image and the right psychological
\nfunction of each of the gods. A firm and not a fluctuating sense,
\nfounded on good philological justification and fitting naturally
\ninto the context wherever it occurs, must be found for each of
\nthe fixed terms of the Veda. For, as has already been said, the
\nlanguage of the hymns is a language fixed and invariable; it is the
\ncarefully preserved and scrupulously respected diction consistently expressing either a formal creed and ritual or a traditional
\ndoctrine and constant experience. If the language of the Vedic
\nRishis were free and variable, if their ideas were evidently in a state of flux,
\nshifting and uncertain, a convenient license and incoherence in the sense we attach to their terminology and the relation <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 32<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwe find between their ideas, might be justified or tolerated.
\nBut the hymns themselves on the very face of them bear exactly
\nthe contrary testimony. We have the right therefore to demand
\nthe same fidelity and scrupulousness in the interpreter as in the
\noriginal he interprets. There is obviously a constant relation
\nbetween the different notions and cherished terms of the Vedic
\nreligion; incoherence and uncertainty in the interpretation will
\nprove, not that the face evidence of the Veda is misleading, but
\nsimply that the interpreter has failed to discover the right
\nrelations.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIf, after this initial labour has been scrupulously and care-
\nfully done, it can be shown by a translation of the hymns that the
\ninterpretations we have fixed fit in naturally and easily in whatever
\ncontext, if they are found to illuminate what seemed obscure and
\nto create intelligible and clear coherence where there seemed to be
\nonly confusion; if the hymns in their entirety give thus a clear and
\nconnected sense and the successive verses show a logical succession of related thoughts, and if the result as a whole be a profound,
\nconsistent and antique body of doctrines, then our hypothesis will have a right to stand besides others, to challenge them
\nwhere they contradict it or to complete them where they are consistent with its
\nfindings. Nor will the probability of our hypothesis be lessened, but rather its validity confirmed if it be found
\nthat the body of ideas and doctrines thus revealed in the Veda
\nare a more antique form of subsequent Indian thought and religious experience, the natural parent of Vedanta and Purana.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSo considerable and minute a labour is beyond the scope
\nof these brief and summary chapters. Their object is only to indicate for those
\nwho care to follow the clue I have myself received, the path and its principal turnings, \u2014 the results I have
\narrived at and the main indications by which the Veda itself helps us to arrive
\nat them. And, first, it seems to me advisable to explain the genesis of the theory in my own mind so that the reader
\nmay the better understand the line I have taken or, if he chooses,
\ncheck any prepossessions or personal preferences which may have
\ninfluenced or limited the right application of reasoning to this
\ndifficult problem.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nLike the majority of educated Indians I had passively accepted <\/font>  <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 33<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwithout examination, before myself reading the Veda, the
\nconclusions of European Scholarship both as to the religious and
\nas to the historical and ethnical sense of the ancient hymns. In consequence,
\nfollowing again the ordinary line taken by modernised Hindu opinion, I regarded the Upanishads as the most
\nancient source of Indian thought and religion, the true Veda,
\nthe first Book of Knowledge. The Rig-veda in the modern
\ntranslations which were all I knew of this profound Scripture,
\nrepresented for me an important document of our national
\nhistory, but seemed of small value or importance for the history
\nof thought or for a living spiritual experience.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nMy first contact with Vedic thought came indirectly while
\npursuing certain lines of self-development in the way of Indian
\nYoga, which, without my knowing it, were spontaneously con-
\nverging towards the ancient and now unfrequented paths followed by our forefathers. At this time there began to arise in my
\nmind an arrangement of symbolic names attached to certain
\npsychological experiences which had begun to regularise themselves ; and among them there came the figures of three female
\nenergies, Ila, Saraswati, Sarama, representing severally three out
\nof the four faculties of the intuitive reason, \u2014 revelation, inspiration and intuition. Two of these names were not well known to
\nme as names of Vedic goddesses, but were connected rather with
\nthe current Hindu religion or with old Puranic legend, Saraswati,
\ngoddess of learning and Ila, mother of the Lunar dynasty. But
\nSarama was familiar enough. I was unable, however, to establish any connection between the figure that rose in my mind and
\nthe Vedic hound of heaven, who was associated in my memory
\nwith the Argive Helen and represented only an image of the
\nphysical Dawn entering in its pursuit of the vanished herds of
\nLight into the cave of the Powers of darkness. When once the clue is found, the
\nclue of the physical Light imaging the subjective, it is easy to see that the
\nhound of heaven may be the intuition entering into the dark caverns of the subconscious mind
\nto prepare the delivery and outflashing of the bright illuminations of knowledge which have there been imprisoned. But the
\nclue was wanting and I was obliged to suppose an identity of
\nname without any identity of the symbol.<\/font>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 34<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIt was my stay in Southern India which first seriously turned
\nmy thoughts to the Veda. Two observations that were forced on
\nmy mind gave a serious shock to my second-hand belief in the racial division between Northern Aryans and Southern Dravidians.
\nThe distinction had always rested for me on a supposed difference
\nbetween the physical types of Aryan and Dravidian and a more
\ndefinite incompatibility between the northern Sanskritic and the
\nsouthern non-Sanskritic tongues. I knew indeed of the later
\ntheories which suppose that a single homogeneous race, Dravidian or Indo-Afghan, inhabits the Indian peninsula; but hitherto
\nI had not attached much importance to these speculations. I
\ncould not, however, be long in Southern India without being
\nimpressed by the general recurrence of northern or "Aryan"
\ntypes in the Tamil race. Wherever I turned, I seemed to recognise with a startling distinctness, not only among the Brahmins
\nbut in all castes and classes, the old familiar faces, features,
\nfigures of my friends of Maharashtra, Gujerat, Hindustan, even,
\nthough this similarity was less widely spread, of my own province
\nBengal. The impression I received was as if an army of all the
\ntribes of the North had descended on the South and submerged
\nany previous populations that may have occupied it. A general
\nimpression of a Southern type survived, but it was impossible to
\nfix it rigidly while studying the physiognomy of individuals. And
\nin the end I could not but perceive that whatever admixtures
\nmight have taken place, whatever regional differences might have
\nbeen evolved, there remains, behind all variations, a unity of
\nphysical as well as of cultural type\u00b9throughout India. For the rest, this is a
\nconclusion to which ethnological speculation\u00b2 itself
\nhas an increasing tendency.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut what then of the sharp distinction between Aryan and
\nDravidian races created by the philologists ? It disappears. If at
\nall an Aryan invasion is admitted, we have either to suppose
\nthat it flooded India and determined the physical type of the<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>I prefer not to use the term race, for race is a thing much more obscure and difficult to
\ndetermine than is usually imagined. In dealing with it the trenchant distinctions current in the
\npopular mind are wholly out of place. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2<\/font>Always supposing that ethnological speculations have at all any validity. The only firm
\nbasis of ethnology is the theory of the hereditary invariability of the human skull which is now
\nbeing challenged. If it disappears, the whole science disappears with <\/b>it. <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 35<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npeople, with whatever modifications, or that it was the incursion
\nof small bands of a less civilised race who melted away into the
\noriginal population. We have then to suppose that entering a
\nvast peninsula occupied by a civilised people, builders of great
\ncities, extensive traders, not without mental and spiritual culture,
\nthey were yet able to impose on them their own language, religion, ideas and manners. Such a miracle would be just possible
\nif the invaders possessed a very highly organised language, a
\ngreater force of creative mind and a more dynamic religious
\nform and spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd there was always the difference of language to support
\nthe theory of a meeting of races. But here also my preconceived
\nideas were disturbed and confounded. For on examining the
\nvocables of the Tamil language, in appearance so foreign to the
\nSanskritic form and character, I yet found myself continually
\nguided by words or by families of words supposed to be pure
\nTamil in establishing new relations between Sanskrit and its distant sister, Latin, and occasionally, between the Greek and the
\nSanskrit. Sometimes the Tamil vocable not only suggested the
\nconnection, but proved the missing link in a family of connected
\nwords. And it was through this Dravidian language that I came
\nfirst to perceive what seems to me now the true law, origins and,
\nas it were, the embryology of the Aryan tongues. I was unable
\nto pursue my examination far enough to establish any definite
\nconclusion, but it certainly seems to me that the original connection between the Dravidian and Aryan tongues was far closer
\nand more extensive than is usually supposed and the possibility
\nsuggests itself that they may even have been two divergent families derived from
\none lost primitive tongue. If so, the sole remaining evidence of an Aryan invasion of Dravidian India would
\nbe the indications to be found in the Vedic hymns.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt was, therefore, with a double interest that for the first
\ntime I took up the Veda in the original, though without any
\nimmediate intention of a close or serious study. It did not take
\nlong to see that the Vedic indications of a racial division between
\nAryans and Dasyus and the identification of the latter with the
\nindigenous Indians were of a far flimsier character than I had
\nsupposed. But far more interesting to me was the discovery of<\/font>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 36<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\na considerable body of profound psychological thought and
\nexperience lying neglected in these ancient hymns. And the importance of this element increased in my eyes when I found,
\nfirst, that the mantras of the Veda illuminated with a clear and
\nexact light psychological experiences of my own for which I had
\nfound no sufficient explanation either in European psychology
\nor in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta, so far as I was acquainted with them, and, secondly, that they shed light on obscure
\npassages and ideas of the Upanishads to which, previously, I
\ncould attach no exact meaning and gave at the same time a new
\nsense to much in the Puranas.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nI was helped in arriving at this result by my fortunate ignorance of the commentary of Sayana. For I was left free to attribute their natural psychological significance to many ordinary
\nand current words of the Veda, such as dhī,<\/i> thought or understanding, manas,<\/i> mind, mati,<\/i> thought, feeling or mental state,
\nmanīṣā,<\/i> intellect, ṛtam,<\/i> truth; to give their exact shades of sense
\nto kavi,<\/i> seer, manīṣī,<\/i> thinker, vipra, vipaścit,<\/i> enlightened in mind,
\nand a number of similar words; and to hazard a psychological
\nsense, justified by more extensive study, for words like dakṣa
\n<\/i>which for Sayana means strength and śravas<\/i> which he renders
\nas wealth, food or fame. The psychological theory of the Veda
\nrests upon our right to concede their natural significance to these
\nvocables.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSayana gives to the words dhī, ṛtam,<\/i> etc., very variable significances. Ṛtam,<\/i>
\nwhich is almost the key-word of any psychological or spiritual interpretation, is rendered by him sometimes
\nas "truth", more often "sacrifice", occasionally in the sense of
\nwater. The psychological interpretation gives it invariably the
\nsense of Truth. Dhī<\/i> is rendered by Sayana variously "thought",
\n"prayer", "action", "food", etc. The psychological interpretation gives it consistently the sense of thought or understanding.
\nAnd so with the other fixed terms of Veda. Moreover, Sayana’s
\ntendency, is to obliterate all fine shades and distinctions between
\nwords and to give them their vaguest general significance. All
\nepithets conveying ideas of mental activity mean for him simply
\n"intelligent", all words suggesting various ideas of force, and the
\nVeda overflows with them, are reduced to the broad idea of<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 37<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nstrength. I found myself, on the contrary, impressed by the great
\nimportance of fixing and preserving the right shade of meaning<\/font><\/p>\n

and precise association to be given to
\ndifferent words, however
\nclose they may be to each other in their general sense. I do not
\nsee indeed why we should suppose that the Vedic Rishis, unlike
\nall other masters of poetic style, used words pell-mell and indiscriminately without feeling their just associations and giving
\nthem their right and exact force in the verbal combination.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBy following this principle I found that without departing
\nfrom the simple natural and straightforward sense of words
\nand clauses an extraordinarily large body not only of separate
\nverses but of entire passages came at once into evidence which entirely altered
\nthe whole character of the Veda. For this Scripture then appeared to have a constant vein of the richest gold of
\nthought and spiritual experience running all through it and appearing sometimes in small streaks, sometimes in larger bands,
\nin the majority of its hymns. Moreover, besides the words that
\nin their plain and ordinary sense give at once a wealth of psycho-
\nlogical significance to their context, the Veda is full of others to
\nwhich it is possible to give either an external and material or an
\ninternal and psychological value according to our conception of
\nthe general purport of Veda. For instance such words as rāye,
\nrayi, rādhas, ratna,<\/i> may mean either merely material prosperity
\nand riches or internal felicity and plenitude applying itself equally
\nto the subjective and the objective world; dhana, vāja, poṣa<\/i> may mean
\neither objective wealth, plenty and increase or all possessions internal or external, their plenitude and their growth in
\nthe life of the individual. Rāye,<\/i> is used in the Upanishads, in a
\nquotation from the Rig-veda, to mean spiritual felicity; why
\nshould it be incapable of bearing that sense in the original text ?
\nVāja<\/i> occurs frequently in a context in which every other word
\nhas a psychological significance and the mention of physical plenty comes in
\nwith a violent jar of incoherency into the homogeneous totality of the thought.
\nCommonsense, therefore, demands that the use of these words with a psychological import
\nshould be admitted in the Veda.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut if this is done consistently, not only whole verses and
\npassages, but whole hymns assume at once the psychological<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 38<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncomplexion. On one condition this transformation is frequently
\ncomplete, leaving no word or phrase unaffected, \u2014 the condition
\nthat we should admit the symbolic character of the Vedic sacrifice. We find in the Gita the word
\nyaj\u00f1a,<\/i> sacrifice, used in a symbolic sense for all action, whether internal or external, that is
\nconsecrated to the gods or to the Supreme. Was such symbolic
\nuse of the word born of a later philosophical intellectuality, or
\nwas it inherent in the Vedic idea of sacrifice ? I found that in the
\nVeda itself there were hymns in which the idea of the yaj\u00f1a<\/i> or of
\nthe victim is openly symbolical, others in which the veil is quite
\ntransparent. The question then arose whether these were later
\ncompositions developing an incipient symbolism out of old
\nsuperstitious practices or rather the occasional plainer statement
\nof a sense which is in most hymns more or less carefully veiled
\nby the figure. If there were no constant recurrence of psychological passages in the Veda, the former explanation would, no
\ndoubt, have to be accepted. But on the contrary whole hymns
\ntook naturally a psychological sense proceeding with a perfect
\nand luminous coherency from verse to verse, where the only
\npoints of obscurity were the mention of the sacrifice or of the
\noffering or sometimes of the officiating priest, who might be either
\na man or a god. If these words could be interpreted symbolically,
\nI found always that the progression of thought became more
\nperfect, more luminous, more coherent and the sense of the
\nhymn in its entirety was victoriously completed. I felt therefore
\njustified by every canon of sound criticism in pursuing my hypothesis farther and including in it the symbolic sense of the Vedic
\nritual.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nNevertheless here intervenes the first real difficulty of the
\npsychological interpretation. Hitherto I had been proceeding by
\na perfectly straightforward and natural method of interpretation based on the surface meaning of the words and sentences.
\nNow I came to an element in which the surface meaning had, in
\na sense, to be overridden, and this is a process in which every critical and conscientious mind must find itself beset by continual
\nscruples. Nor can one always be sure, even with the utmost care,
\nof having hit on the right clue and the just interpretation.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Vedic sacrifice consists of three features, \u2014 omitting<\/font>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 39<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfor the moment the god and the mantra, \u2014 the persons who offer,
\nthe offering and the fruits of the offering. If the yaj\u00f1a<\/i> is the action
\nconsecrated to the gods, I could not but take the yajamāna,<\/i> the
\ngiver of the sacrifice, as the doer of the action. Yaj\u00f1a<\/i> is works,
\ninternal or external, the yajamāna<\/i> must be the soul or the personality as the doer. But there were also the officiating priests,
\nhotā, ṛtvij, purohita, brahmā, adhvaryu<\/i> etc. What was their part
\nin the symbolism? For if we once suppose a symbolic sense for
\nthe sacrifice, we must suppose also a symbolic value for each
\nfeature of the ceremony. I found that the gods were continually
\nspoken of as priests of the offering and in many passages it was
\nundisguisedly a non-human power or energy which presided over
\nthe sacrifice. I perceived also that throughout Veda the elements
\nof our personality are themselves continually personified. I had
\nonly to apply this rule inversely and to suppose that the person
\nof the priest in the external figure represented, in the internal
\nactivities figured, a non-human power or energy or an element
\nof our personality. It remained to fix the psychological sense of
\nthe different priestly offices. Here I found that the Veda itself
\npresented a clue by its philological indications and insistences,
\nsuch as the use of the word purohita<\/i> in its separated form with the
\nsense of the representative "put in front" and a frequent reference to the god Agni who symbolises the divine Will or Force
\nin humanity that takes up the action in all consecration of
\nworks.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe offerings were more difficult to understand. Even if
\nthe Soma-wine by the context in which it occurred, its use and
\neffect and the philological indication of its synonyms, suggested
\nits own interpretation, what could possibly be indicated by the
\nghṛtam,<\/i> the clarified butter in the sacrifice? And yet the word
\nas used in the Veda was constantly insisting on its own symbolical
\nsignificance. What for instance could be made of clarified butter
\ndropping from heaven or dripping from the horses of Indra or
\ndripping from the mind? Obviously, this was grotesque nonsense, if the sense of ghṛta<\/i> as clarified butter was anything more
\nthan a symbol used with great looseness, so that often the external
\nsense was wholly or partly put aside in the mind of the thinker.
\nIt was possible of course to vary conveniently the sense of the<\/font>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 40<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwords, to take ghṛta<\/i> sometimes as butter and sometimes as water
\nand manas<\/i> sometimes as the mind, sometimes as food or a cake.
\nBut I found that ghṛta<\/i> was constantly used in connection with
\nthe thought or the mind, that heaven in Veda was a symbol of
\nthe mind, that Indra represented the illuminated mentality and
\nhis two horses double energies of that mentality and even that
\nthe Veda sometimes speaks plainly of offering the intellect
\n(dhiṣaṇā)<\/i> as purified ghṛta,<\/i> to the gods, ghṛtam na pūtam
\ndhiṣaṇām
\n<\/i>(III.2.1). The word ghṛta<\/i> counts also among its philological
\nsignificances the sense of a rich or warm brightness. It was by
\nthis concurrence of indications that I felt justified in fixing a certain psychological significance for the figure of the clarified
\nbutter. And I found the same rule and the same method applicable to other features of the sacrifice.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe fruits of the offering were in appearance purely material
\n\u2014 cows, horses, gold, offspring, men, physical strength, victory
\nin battle. Here the difficulty thickened. But I had already found
\nthat the Vedic cow was an exceedingly enigmatical animal and
\ncame from no earthly herd. The word go<\/i> means both cow and
\nlight and in a number of passages evidently meant light even
\nwhile putting forward the image of the cow. This is clear enough
\nwhen we have to do with the cows of the sun \u2014 the Homeric
\nkine of Helios \u2014 and the cows of the Dawn. Psychologically,
\nthe physical Light might well be used as a symbol of knowledge
\nand especially of the divine knowledge. But how could this
\nmere possibility be tested and established ? I found that passages
\noccurred in which all the surrounding context was psychological and only the
\nimage of the cow interfered with its obtrusive material suggestion. Indra is invoked as the maker of perfect forms
\nto drink the wine of Soma; drinking he becomes full of ecstasy
\nand a "giver of cows"; then we can attain to his most intimate
\nor his most ultimate right thinkings, then we question him and his
\nclear discernment brings us our highest good. It is obvious that
\nin such a passage these cows cannot be material herds nor would
\nthe giving of physical Light carry any sense in the context. In
\none instance at least the psychological symbolism of the Vedic
\ncow was established with certainty to my mind. I then applied
\nit to other passages in which the word occurred and always I<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 41<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsaw that it resulted in the best sense and the greatest possible
\ncoherency in the context.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe cow and horse, go<\/i> and aśva,<\/i> are constantly associated.
\nUsha, the Dawn, is described as gomatī aśvavatī;<\/i> Dawn gives to
\nthe sacrificer horses and cows. As applied to the physical dawn
\ngomatī <\/i>means accompanied by or bringing the rays of light and
\nis an image of the dawn of illumination in the human mind.
\nTherefore aśvavatī <\/i>also cannot refer merely to the physical steed;<\/font><\/p>\n

it must have a psychological significance as well. A study of the
\nVedic horse led me to the conclusion that go<\/i> and aśva<\/i> represent
\nthe two companion ideas of Light and Energy, Consciousness
\nand Force, which to the Vedic and Vedantic mind were the
\ndouble or twin aspect of all the activities of existence.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt was apparent, therefore, that the two chief fruits of the
\nVedic sacrifice, wealth of cows and wealth of horses, were
\nsymbolic of richness of mental illumination and abundance of
\nvital energy. It followed that the other fruits continually associated with these two chief results of the Vedic karma must also
\nbe capable of a psychological significance. It remained only to
\nfix their exact purport.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnother all-important feature of Vedic symbolism is the
\nsystem of the worlds and the functions of the gods. I found the
\nclue to the symbolism of the worlds in the Vedic conception of
\nthe vyāhṛtis,<\/i> the three symbolic words of the mantra, om bhūr
\nbhuvaḥ svaḥ,<\/i> and in the connection of the fourth Vyahriti,
\nMahas, with the psychological term ṛtam.<\/i> The Rishis speak of
\nthree cosmic divisions, Earth, the antarikṣa<\/i> or middle region
\nand Heaven (dyau);<\/i> but there is also a greater Heaven (bṛhad
\ndyau)<\/i> called also the Wide World, the Vast (bṛhat),<\/i> and typified
\nsometimes as the Great Water, maho arṇaḥ.<\/i> This bṛhat<\/i> is
\nagain described as ṛtam bṛhat<\/i> or in a triple term satyam ṛtam
\nbṛhat.<\/i> And as the three worlds correspond to the Vyahritis,
\nso this fourth world of the Vastness and the Truth seems
\nto correspond to the fourth Vyahriti mentioned in the Upanishads, Mahas. In the Puranic formula the four are completed
\nby three others, Jana, Tapas, and Satya, the three supreme
\nworlds of the Hindu cosmology. In the Veda also we have three
\nsupreme worlds whose names are not given. But in the Vedantic<\/font>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 42<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand Puranic system the seven worlds correspond to seven
\npsychological principles or forms of existence, Sat, Chit, Ananda,
\nVijnana, Manas, Prana and Anna. Now Vijnana, the central
\nprinciple, the principle of Mahas, the great world, is the Truth of
\nthings, identical with the Vedic ṛtam<\/i> which is the principle of
\nbṛhat,<\/i> the Vast, and while in the Puranic system Mahas is followed in the ascending order by Jana, the world of Ananda, of
\nthe divine Bliss, in the Veda also ṛtam,<\/i> the Truth, leads upward
\nto Mayas, Bliss. We may, therefore, be fairly sure that the two
\nsystems are identical and that both depend on the same idea of
\nseven principles of subjective consciousness formulating themselves in seven objective worlds. On this principle I was able to
\nidentify the Vedic worlds with the corresponding psychological
\nplanes of consciousness and the whole Vedic system became
\nclear to my mind.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWith so much established the rest followed naturally and
\ninevitably. I had already seen that the central idea of the Vedic
\nRishis was the transition of the human soul from a state of death
\nto a state of immortality by the exchange of the Falsehood for
\nthe Truth, of divided and limited being for integrality and infinity. Death is the mortal state of Matter with Mind and Life
\ninvolved in it; Immortality is a state of infinite being, consciousness and bliss. Man rises beyond the two firmaments,
\nrodasī,
\n<\/i>Heaven and Earth, mind and body, to the infinity of the Truth,
\nMahas, and so to the divine Bliss. This is the "great passage"
\ndiscovered by the Ancestors, the ancient Rishis.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe gods I found to be described as children of Light, sons
\nof Aditi, of Infinity; and without exception they are described as increasing
\nman, bringing him light, pouring on him the fullness of the waters, the abundance of the heavens, increasing
\nthe truth in him, building up the divine worlds, leading him against all attacks
\nto the great goal, the integral felicity, the perfect bliss. Their separate functions emerged by means of their
\nactivities, their epithets, the psychological sense of the legends
\nconnected with them, the indications of the Upanishads and
\nPuranas, the occasional side-lights from Greek myth. On the
\nother hand the demons who opposed them, are all powers of division and limitation, Coverers, Tearers, Devourers, Confiners,<\/font>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 43<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nDualisers, obstructor                  s, as their names indicate, powers that
\nwork against the free and unified integrality of the being. These
\nVritras, Panis, Atris, Rakshasas, Sambara, Vala, Namuchi, are
\nnot Dravidian kings and gods, as the modern mind with its exaggerated historic sense would like them to be; they represent a
\nmore antique idea better suited to the religious and ethical preoccupations of our forefathers. They represent the struggle
\nbetween the powers of the higher Good and the lower desire,
\nand this conception of the Rig-veda and the same opposition of
\ngood and evil otherwise expressed, with less psychological
\nsubtlety, with more ethical directness in the scriptures of the
\nZoroastrians, our ancient neighbours and kindred, proceeded
\nprobably from a common original discipline of the Aryan culture.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nFinally, I found that the systematic symbolism of the Veda
\nwas extended to the legends related of the gods and of their
\ndealings with the ancient seers. Some of these myths, if not all,
\nmay have had, in all probability had, a naturalistic and astronomical origin;
\nbut, if so, their original sense had been supplemented by a psychological symbolism. Once the sense of the
\nVedic symbols is known, the spiritual intention of these legends
\nbecomes apparent and inevitable. Every element of the Veda
\nis inextricably bound up with every other and the very nature of
\nthese compositions compels us, once we have adopted a principle of interpretation, to carry it to its farthest rational limits.
\nTheir materials have been skilfully welded together by firm
\nhands and any inconsistency in our handling of them shatters
\nthe whole fabric of their sense and their coherent thinking.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThus there emerged in my mind, revealing itself as it were
\nout of the ancient verses, a Veda which was throughout the
\nScripture of a great and antique religion already equipped
\nwith a profound psychological discipline, \u2014 a Scripture not
\nconfused in thought or primitive in its substance, not a medley
\nof heterogeneous or barbarous elements, but one, complete and
\nself-conscious in its purpose and in its purport, veiled indeed by
\nthe cover, sometimes thick, sometimes transparent, of another
\nand material sense but never losing sight even for a single
\nmoment of its high spiritual aim and tendency.<\/font>
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 44<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER IV   The Foundations of the Psychological Theory   A HYPOTHESIS of the sense of Veda must always proceed, to be sure and sound,…<\/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-922","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\/922","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=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}