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
