Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 4

Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 4

….. contd from Hymns to the Mystic Fire -3

The Rishis are the poet-seers of the Veda. It has been a long tradition in India from the earlierst times that the Rishis were men of with a great spiritual and occult knowledge. This knowledge was not shared by ordinary human beings. The Rishis handed down this knowledge and their associated powers by a secret initiation to their descendant and chosen disciples.

It is a wrong assumption to suppose that this tradition was wholly unfounded.  This convention is not a superstition that arose suddenly. Neither did it slowly formed in a void without any basis. There has to be some solid foundation to this tradition. Granted that there is a likelihood of it being decorated by a legend and there may be other additions over several centuries. However, leaving aside the legend and other superfluous stuff being put on it, we have to accept that at the core, the poet-seers must have expressed something of their secret knowledge, their mystic lore in their writings. There has to be a hardcore truth hidden behind the occult language or behind a technique of symbols.  If it is there, then it must be to some extent discoverable.

It is true that an antique language, obsolete words and often a difficult and out-of-date diction helped to obscure their meaning.  There are more than four hundred words which can not be deciphered as per Yaska (Yāska (Devanagari यास्क) was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pāṇini (fl. 4th c. BC). He is assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century BC. He has authored  Nirukta, which is a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words. He is widely  believed  to have succeeded Śākaṭāyana,who was  an old grammarian and expositor of the Vedas, and  who is mentioned in his text).  At later period the true sense of the symbols was lost because the glossary of these symbols was kept to themselves by the initiates. This made these scriptures unintelligible to later generations. Even in the time of the Upanishads, the spiritual seekers of the age had to resort to initiation and meditation to penetrate into their secret knowledge. The scholars at later generations have even lost his link. They had to resort to conjecture. They had to concentrate on a mental interpretation. They had to take recourse to myths or to the legends of the Brahmanas. These legends were themselves often very symbolic and obscure. Thus these scholars had to penetrate symbols behind symbols. Having thus lost the Master Key, it seems that we are left with no other alternative than to adopt this route (conjecture  and mental interpretation) to get at the true sense and the true value of the Veda.

We must take seriously the hint of Yaska. We have to accept Rishi’s description of the Veda’s contents as “seer-wisdoms, seer-words”. We need to look for whatever clue we can find to this ancient wisdom. Otherwise the Veda will have to for ever remain a sealed book. This sealed chamber of the secret knowledge of the Veda can not be opened by grammarians, etymologists and scholastic conjectures.

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… based on Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Foreword, Pg 4 -5 by Sri Aurobindo

Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 3

Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 3

….. contd from Hymns to the Mystic Fire -2

The change from the nature of Gods from being the Nature Gods to having them assigned a psychological attributes at later period was occasioned due to a cultural development in these early civilizations.  They become progressively more mentalised and less engrossed in the physical life as they advanced in civilization. They then needed to rend into their religion and their deities more and more finer and subtler aspects.  Such a phenomenon would then support their more highly mentalised concepts and interests. It would find for them a true spiritual being or some celestial figure as their support and sanction. However the largest part in determining and deepening this inward turn must be attributed to the Mystics.   

The Mystics had an enormous influence on these early civilizations. There was indeed almost everywhere an age of the Mysteries.  In this age men of a deeper knowledge and self-knowledge established their practices, significant rites, symbols and secret lore. This was done within or on the border of the more primitive exterior religions.  This took different form in different countries. For example, in Greece there was the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries.  Whereas in Egypt and Chaldea the priests had their occult lore and magic. In Persia it was the Magi. In India it was Rishis.

The preoccupation of the Mystics was with self-knowledge and a profounder world-knowledge. They found out that in man there was a deeper self and inner being behind the surface of the outward physical man. It was his highest business to discover and to know.  “Know thyself” was their great precept. Similarly in India the great spiritual need or the highest thing for the human being was to know the Self, the Atman.  They found also a Truth, a Reality behind the outward aspects of the universe. To discover, to follow, realize this Truth was their great aspiration. They discovered secrets and powers of Nature which were not those of the physical world. They could bring occult mastery over the physical world and physical things.

And to systematize this occult knowledge and power was also one of their strong preoccupations. But all this could only be safely done by a difficult and careful training, discipline, purification of the nature. It could not be done by the ordinary man. If men entered into these things without a severe test and training, it would then be dangerous to themselves and others. In their hands this knowledge, these powers could be misused, misinterpreted, turned from truth to falsehood, from good to evil. A strict secrecy was therefore maintained. The knowledge was handed down behind a veil from master to disciple.  A veil of symbols was created. Behind these symbols the mysteries could shelter. Formulas of speech were devised which could be understood by the initiated but were either not known by others or were taken by them in an outward sense. This scheme carefully covered their true meaning and secret.  This was the substance of Mysticism everywhere.
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… based on Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Foreword, Pg 3 - 4 by Sri Aurobindo

Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 2

Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 2

….. contd from Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 1

The European scholars took only that part of Sayana’s interpretation which dealt with ritualistic tradition in Veda. For the rest they dropped Sayana overboard. They then went on to make their own etymological explanation of the words, build up their own conjectural meanings of the Vedic verses. They gave a new presentation which was often arbitrary and imaginative. They only sought the details of early history of India in the text of Veda. They tried to make sense of the ancient society, institutions, customs and a civilization picture of the times. Based on the so called differences in varied languages of India, the European scholars invented the theory of Aryan invasion from the north. The invasion was supposed to be of a Dravidian India. They persisted in their theory in spite of the fact that the Indians themselves had no memory or tradition of such an invasion and also of the fact that there is no record in the great epics or classical literature of India about any such invasion! 

According to European scholars, the Vedic religion was only a worship of Nature-Gods full of solar myths. These Nature-Gods were supposed to have been consecrated by sacrifices and a sacrificial liturgy which is very primitive in its ideas and contents. These scholars put on Veda the stamp of ‘barbaric prayers’ which has become the much vaunted, haloed and glorified aspect persisting even to this day.

It is no denying the fact that in the history of civilizations, in beginning there was a worship of the Powers of the physical world, the Sun, Moon, Heaven and Earth, Wind, Rain and Storm etc., the Sacred Rivers and a number of Gods who presided over the workings of Nature. This was a common factor across different cultures of the world like that of Greece, Rome, etc and India was no exception. We should note that in all these countries these gods of nature began to assume a higher, a psychological function. For example take the case of Pallas Athene who have been originally a Dawn Goddess springing in flames from the head of Zeus, the Sky-God like the Dyaus of the Veda. It has in classical Greece a higher function. It was identified by the Romans with their Minerva, the Goddess of learning and wisdom. In the same way Saraswati, a River goddess, becomes in India the goddess of wisdom, learning and the arts and crafts. In similar way all the Greek deities have undergone a change in this direction. Apollo, the Sun-god has become a god of poetry and prophecy. Hephaestus the Fire-God is a divine smith, god of labour. 

In India this process of assigning a higher psychological function to these Nature Gods was halted half way. The Vedic gods while having developed their psychological functions also retained more fixedly their external character. For higher purposes they gave place to a new pantheon. They had to give way to Puranic deities who developed out of the early company but assumed larger cosmic functions. For example, Puranic Brahma of later period developed out of the Vedic Brihaspati or Brihmanaspati. Same is the case with the Puranic gods of Vishnu, Rudra,. Shiva, Lakshmi and Durga. Thus in India the change in the gods was less complete. The earlier deities became the inferior divinities of the Puranic pantheon. This was largely due to the survival of the Rig-veda in which both their psychological as well as external functions co-existed and are both given a powerful emphasis. On the other hand, in the case of Gods of Greece and Rome, there was no such early literary record to maintain the original features.
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… based on Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Foreward, Pg 2 – 3 by Sri Aurobindo

Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 1

Hymns to the Mystic Fire - 1

Veda has been revered as a sacred book of wisdom since ancient times in India. It is a great mass of inspirational poetry. It is the work of Rishis, seers and sages. Vedas contain a great universal, eternal and impersonal Truth. This Truth was received by the Rishis in their illumined mind. It should be noted that the Vedas were not mentally constructed piece of scripture. This Truth was embodied in Mantras which were a revealed verses of Power. It was not out of an ordinary but of a divine inspiration and source.

These sages were called ‘Kavi’. It originally meant a SEER OF TRUTH. The word Kavi was later on interpreted as a poet. Veda describes these seers as ‘kavayah satyasrutah’ which means ‘seers who are bearers of the Truth’. Veda itself was called Sruti – revealed scripture. The seers of Upanishad had the same idea about the Veda. They frequently appealed to its authority for the truths they themselves announced. These also at later stages came to be known as Sruti – revealed Scrupture. These Upanishads were then included in the sacred Canon.

This tradition persevered in the Brahmanas. It continued to maintain itself in spite of the efforts of the ritualistic commentators, Yajnikas.  These commentators tried to explain everything in the Veda as myth and the rite. Pandits distinguished Veda from Upanishads as Karmakanda and Jnanakanda respectively. This has the effect of drowning of the parts of Knowledge by the parts of ceremonial works. It was strongly criticized in one of the Upanishads and in the Gita. It considered Veda as a Book of Knowledge.  The Sruti including both Veda and Upanishad was regarded as the supreme authority for spiritual knowledge and infallible.

We need to answer a persistent doubt expressed by some of the modern thinkers. Is this all a legend and moonshine ? Is it a groundless and even nonsensical tradition ? Is it a fact that there is only a scanty element of higher ideas in some later hymns which started this theory ? Can we say that the writers of the Upanishads foist upon the Riks (a stanza) a meaning which was not originally intended to be ? Was this meaning read into it by their imagination or a fanciful interpretation ? This is what the modern European scholarship insists on having it so. Sadly, it has persuaded the mind of modern India.

In support of this view of the modern thinkers is the fact that the Rishis of the Veda were not only seers but also singers and priests of Yadna. These chants were written to be sung at Yadna. They are supposed to refer constantly to the customary ritual. It appeared that it was done to call for the outward objects of these ceremonies, wealth, prosperity, victory over enemies. Sayana, who was a great commentator on Veda, interprets Veda in a ritualistic sense. He even dares to give it a tentatively mythical or historical sense. Only very rare occasions does he put forward any higher meaning though sometimes unwittingly he lets through his commentary a higher sense. At times he puts this higher sense as an alternative to the ritualistic meaning – as if in a despair of finding out some ritualistic or mythical interpretation. However, inspite of all this, Sayana does not reject the spiritual authority of the Veda. He does not deny that there is a higher truth contained in the Riks. This last development of even rejecting the spiritual authority of Veda was left to our own times and popularized by occidental scholars.

… based on Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Foreward, Pg 1 – 2 by Sri Aurobindo