Veda

“ He himself had no doubt that the whole Veda was really the eternal word of God, and that an unswerving faith in it was the sine quâ non of a religious and pious life. Even such highly esteemed books as the Laws of Manu, the Mahâbhârata and the Purânas had to give way before it, if there should ever be any difference between them and the Veda. 28We can hardly imagine how people in India could live in such an atmosphere, but it evidently agreed both with those who thought for themselves and with those who thought as they were bid. ”

“ I must say no more to-night of what the Veda is, for I am very anxious to explain to you, as far as it is possible, what I consider to be the real importance of the Veda to the student of history, to the student of religion, to the student of mankind.
[20]
In the study of mankind there can hardly be a subject more deeply interesting than the study of the different forms of religion ”

“ IV. The Veda. We live no longer in times when the head of a great publishing firm would ask a scholar who offered a translation of the Veda, as I know the late Professor H. H. Wilson was asked, “But what in all the world is the Veda, or what you call the Rig-Veda?” But nevertheless in spite of the years that have passed since, I am still asked from time to time much the same question, and I confess I cannot answer it in two words. ”

“ I maintain then that for a study of man, or, if you like, for a study of Aryan humanity, there is nothing in the world equal in importance with the Veda. I maintain that to everybody who cares for himself, for his ancestors, for his history, or for his intellectual development, a study of Vedic literature is indispensable; and that, as an element of liberal education, it is far more important and far more improving than the reigns of Babylonian and Persian kings. ”

“ This is what is called Vedânta, the Veda-end, the end of the Veda, and this is the religion or the philosophy, whichever you like to call it, that has lived on from about 500 b.c. to the present day. If the people of India can be said to have now any system of religion at all—apart from their ancestral sacrifices and their Srâddhas, and apart from mere caste-observances—it is to be found in the Vedânta philosophy, the leading tenets [270] of which are known, to some extent in every village. ”

“ The adorable one possesses knowledge, volition, and creative power; how then can he be destitute of qualities? or, if he is destitute of qualities, how can he be set forth by the Vedas? How can the absence of qualities be predicated of the sea of qualities, and yet all remonstrance be silent? Ponder it well in thine own mind, and then determine what is right.
97. A substance without attributes, like the sky-flower, is not admitted either in the Veda or in the world; if the knowledge of such a thing were derived from the Veda, the Veda itself would then cease to be an authority. ”

“ It is difficult to treat of the so-called gods celebrated in the Veda according to any system, for the simple reason that the concepts of these gods and the hymns addressed to them sprang up spontaneously and without any pre-established plan. It is best perhaps for our purpose to follow an ancient Brahmanical writer, who is supposed to have lived about 400 b.c. He tells us of students of the Veda, before his time, who admitted three deities only, viz., Agni or fire, whose place is on the earth ”

“ Why is it that well-informed Vedic scholars differ so widely in regard to the ritualistic share in the making of the Veda? Because the extremists on either side in formulating the principles of their system forget a fact that probably no one of them if questioned would fail to acknowledge. The Rig Veda is not a homogeneous whole. It is a work which successive generations have produced, and in which are represented different views, of local or sectarian origin; while the hymns from a literary point of view are of varying value. ”

“ When at last not only the texts but the immense Sanskrit commentary also of the most important, the Rig-Veda, had been published, people began to see that there was little of primeval, mysterious wisdom to be found in the Vedic hymns, but only the simplest thoughts that must have passed through the minds of the Rishis when they began to ponder on the great phenomena of nature which every morning and night, every spring and winter were unfolded before their eyes. ”

“ By the aid of history and the Puranas, the Veda may be expounded; but the Veda is afraid of one of little information lest he should injure it. The learned man who recites to others this Veda of Vyasa reapeth advantage. It may without doubt destroy even the sin of killing the embryo and the like. He that readeth this holy chapter at every change of the moon, readeth the whole of the Bharata, I ween. The man who with reverence daily listeneth to this sacred work acquireth long life and renown and ascendeth to heaven. ”

“ Problems such as the beginning of language, of thought, of mythology and religion, were started with youthful hope that the Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis had been present at the first outburst of roots, of concepts, nay, that like Pelops and other descendants of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed daily intercourse with the gods, and had been present at the mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of Kronos. ”

“ The heretics of Vedic religion, the opponents of the orthodox commentators in ages comparatively recent, used to complain that the Vedas were simply nonsense, and their authors "knaves and buffoons." There are moments when the modern student of Vedic myths is inclined to echo this petulant complaint. For example, it is difficult enough to find in the Rig-Veda anything like a categoric account of the gods, and a description of their personal appearance. But in Rig-Veda viii. 29, 1, we read of one god, "a youth, brown, now hostile, now friendly; a golden lustre invests him." Who is this youth? ”

“ A consciousness of the unity of Deity, under whatever form he may be worshiped, adumbrated here and there in earlier hymns, becomes very prominent in the later portions of the Veda. From the most ancient times, possibly, occasional sages may have attained the conception so familiar to the Hindu thinkers of a later age, that a single mysterious essence of divinity pervaded the universe. And in the tenth book of the Rig-Veda, which is generally admitted to belong to a more recent age than the other nine books, as also in the Atharva-Veda, this essence is celebrated under various names ”

“ With all the qualifications now stated, the Veda must retain a position of high importance for all who study Indian thought and life. The religious stamp which the compilers of the Veda impressed so widely and so deeply has not been obliterated in the course of thirty centuries.
Their religion is Nature-worship. The prevailing aspect of the religion presented in the Vedic hymns may be broadly designated as Nature-worship.
[Pg 16] All physical phenomena in India are invested with a grandeur which they do not possess in Physical phenomena in India.northern or even southern Europe. ”

“ The whole Veda is in some way or other the work of the Deity; and even those who received the revelation, or, as they express it, those who saw it, were not supposed to be ordinary mortals, but beings raised above the level of common humanity, and less liable therefore to error in the reception of revealed truth. The views entertained of revelation by the orthodox theologians of India are far more minute and elaborate than those of the most extreme advocates of verbal inspiration in Europe. ”

“ But the Vedas speak fully, while as yet information on this special point is relatively sparse from the other regions. It is wise, therefore, to begin with India, whence the first complete revelations of this kind came. Max Müller and others during recent years have brought before us an immense amount of most interesting information, of the highest importance for our present subject.
They tell us that 1,500 years B.C. there was a ritual, a set of hymns called the Veda (Veda meaning " knowledge") . ”

“ The Gita even seems to go on to attack the Veda itself which, though it has been practically cast aside, is still to Indian sentiment intangible, inviolable, the sacred origin and authority for all its philosophy and religion. “The action of the three gunas is the subject matter of the Veda; but do thou become free from the triple guna, O Arjuna.” The Vedas in the widest terms, “all the Vedas”,—which might well include the Upanishads also and seems to include them, for the general term Sruti is used later on,—are declared to be unnecessary for the man who knows. ”

“ Religion of the Veda.—The Supreme Being first acknowledged by the Aryans was gradually lost sight of, and a worship of Nature arose. In the 1,028 hymns of the Rig-Veda (by several hundred authors, and comprising 10,580 verses) , “thrice eleven” gods are invoked as intelligent beings, the principal of whom are Varuna (vur’oo-nah) —god of waters, the sun, the moon, the day, fire, the storm (Indra) , the dawn, and the earth; and to “the three and thirty,” offerings were made of cakes, wine, and grain. They were immortal; clothed with power to answer prayer, and punish those who offended them. ”

“ One by one, in their ridiculous helplessness, they behold their strong places taken and wrested from their grasp. The very Veda in which they gloried, and behind which they falsely defended the vileness and cruelty of their system, has been magnificently collated and published in eight volumes by the scholarship of Max Müller, and then rendered, with equal ability, (the last volume having been published within the past five years,) into English by Wilson & Cowell. ”

“ The whole of nature was alive to the poets of the Veda, the presence of the gods was felt everywhere, and in that sentiment of the presence of the gods there was a germ of religious morality, sufficiently strong, it would seem, to restrain people from committing as it were before the eyes of their gods what they were ashamed to commit before the eyes of men. ”

“ I remind you again that the Veda contains a great deal of what is childish and foolish, though very little of what is bad and objectionable. Some of its poets ascribe to the gods sentiments and passions unworthy of the deity, such as anger, revenge, delight in material sacrifices; they likewise represent human nature on a low level of selfishness and worldliness. Many hymns are utterly unmeaning and insipid, and we must search patiently before we meet, here and there, with sentiments that come from the depth of the soul, and with prayers in which we could join ourselves. ”

“ We have not to deal with hard formulas only, with unintelligible ceremonies, or petrified fetiches. We can see how the human mind arrives by a perfectly rational process at all its later irrationalities. This is what distinguishes the Veda from all other Sacred Books. Much, no doubt, in the Veda also, and in the Vedic ceremonial, is already old and unintelligible, hard, and petrified. ”

“ After this we learn from a Purâna text ('He should make the Veda grow by means of Itihâsa and Purâna; the Veda fears that a man of little reading may do it harm') that the Veda should be made to grow by Itihâsa and Purâna. By this 'making to grow' we have to understand the elucidation of the sense of the Vedic texts studied by means of other texts, promulgated by men who had mastered the entire Veda and its contents, and by the strength of their devotion had gained full intuition of Vedic truth. ”

“ The Vedic Period [3]
The term veda—i.e. “knowledge,” (sacred) “lore”—embraces a body of writings the origin of which is ascribed to divine Saṃhitās. revelation (śruti, literally “hearing”) , and which forms the foundation of the Brāhmanical system of religious belief. This sacred canon is divided into three, or (according to a later scheme) four co-ordinate collections, likewise called Veda: (1) the Ṛig-veda, or lore of praise (or hymns) ; (2) the Sāma-veda, or lore of tunes (or chants) ; (3) the Yajur-veda, or lore of prayer (or sacrificial formulas) ”

“ As the systems of human origin set forth doctrines mutually contradictory, and, moreover, teach what is in conflict with the matter known from the Veda—which, on account of its non-human character, is raised above all suspicion of error and other imperfections—they cannot be accepted as authoritative with regard to anything not depending on human action and choice. Now the matter to be known from the Veda is Nârâyana, who is none other than the highest Brahman. ”

“ The Veda contains devotional hymns; we can no more expect much narrative here than in the Psalms of David. Again, the religious sentiment of the Veda is half-consciously hostile to the stories. As M. A. Barth says, “Le sentiment religieux a écarté la plupart de ces mythes, mais il ne les a écartés tous.” The Brahmanas, on the other hand, later compilations, canonized books for the direction of ritual and sacrifice, are rich in senseless and irrational myths. Sometimes these myths are probably later than the Veda, mere explanations of ritual incidents devised by the priests. ”

“ The Protestant missionary entered India, and stood up to “plead for the widow.” Before the blessed Name which he invoked, the demon of suttee feared and fled from British India. What Veda, and Shaster, and Menu,
Mohammedan Emperor and European governor, all failed to prevent or terminate, in the long experience of twenty-five centuries, was effected by the beneficent religion of Him who, in every age and in every land, has proved himself to be woman's greatest and truest friend. ”

“ For the general reader, the mystery that covered the Vedas is a mystery no longer; all that they contain stands out for public view in the common light of day. Except as to grammatical construction and translation into modern words, we are far abler to discover and understand what story these ancient documents tell than is any of the Pundits. For, in ascertaining their sense, we have to deal with questions of race, of language, of history, of chronology, and external influences; questions unknown, and therefore unintelligible, to the Hindoo mind. ”