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
