Yajurveda

“ The formulas of the Yajurveda have not, as a rule, the form of prayers addressed to the gods, but on the whole and characteristically consist of statements about the result of employing particular rites and mantras. Together with the corresponding ritual they furnish a complex mass of appliances ready to hand for the obtainment of material welfare in general as well as all sorts of special objects, such as cattle or a village. The presence of a priest capable of using the necessary forms correctly is of course always presupposed. ”

“ Here the adherents of the Yajurveda split up into several schools, which gradually spread over other parts of India, the Kaṭhas, with their subdivision the Kapishṭhalas, being in the time of the Greeks located in the Panjāb, and later in Kashmir also. The Kaṭhas are now to be found in Kashmir only, while the Kapishṭhalas have entirely disappeared. ”

“ A new feature is his constant identification with the sacrifice. The demons, now regularly called Asuras, perpetually appear as a group of evil beings opposed to the good gods. Their conflicts with the latter play a considerable part in the myths of the Yajurveda. The Apsarases, who, as a class of celestial nymphs endowed with all the seductive charms of female beauty, occupy so important a place in post-Vedic mythology, but are very rarely mentioned in the Rigveda, begin to be more prominent in the Yajurveda, in which many of them are referred to by individual names. ”

“ Again, snake-worship, which is unknown to the Rigveda, now appears as an element in Indian religion. That, however, which impresses on the Yajurveda the stamp of a new epoch is the character of the worship which it represents. The relative importance of the gods and of the sacrifice in the older religion has now become inverted. In the Rigveda the object of devotion was the gods, for the power of bestowing benefits on mankind was believed to lie in their hands alone, while the sacrifice was only a means of influencing their will in favour of the offerer. ”

“ An unconscious contradiction runs through this discussion, inasmuch as though the Ātman is regarded as the all-in-all, a sharp contrast is drawn between soul and matter. It is the contradiction between the later Vedānta and the Sānkhya-Yoga systems of philosphy.
According to its own statement, the Çvetāçvatara Upanishad derives its name from an individual author, and the tradition which attributes it to one of the schools of the Black Yajurveda hardly seems to have a sufficient foundation. ”

“ The Anukramaṇī of the White Yajurveda in the Mādhyaṃdina recension, attributed to Kātyāyana, consists of five sections. The first four are an index of authors, deities, and metres. The authors of verses taken from the Rigveda generally agree with those in the Sarvānukramaṇī. There are, however, a good many exceptions, several new names belonging to a later period, some even to that of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa. The fifth section gives a summary account of the metres occurring in the text. ”

“ The second Vedic book, the Samaveda, does not contain much fresh material: it is mainly a compilation of the Rigvedic hymns which the priests chanted at the Soma sacrifice. Its sole interest, from a historical point of view, is the evidence it affords of the steady growth of ritualistic tendencies. A new era of Aryan civilization is revealed, however, by the third Veda, the Yajurveda. In this book the tribes are found to have extended their area of control down the Ganges valley, and southward along the banks of the Indus. ”

“ From the Yajurveda we learn that it was customary for sons and daughters to marry in the order of their age, but the Rigveda more than once speaks of girls who remained unmarried and grew old in their father's house. As the family could only be continued in the male line, abundance of sons is constantly prayed for, along with wealth in cattle and land, and the newly wedded husband hopes that his bride may become a mother of heroes. ”

“ Of kalpa we have already treated at length above. No work representing astronomy has survived from the Vedic period; for the Vedic calendar, called jyotisha, the two recensions of which profess to belong to the Rigveda and Yajurveda respectively, dates from far on in the post-Vedic age. ”

“ To it no eye can penetrate, Nor speech nor thought can ever reach: It rests unknown; we cannot see How any one may teach it us. The various Upanishads of the Black Yajurveda all bear the stamp of lateness. The Maitrāyaṇa is a prose work of considerable extent, in which occasional stanzas are interspersed. It consists of seven chapters, the seventh and the concluding eight sections of the sixth forming a supplement. The fact that it retains the orthographical and euphonic peculiarities of the Maitrāyaṇa school, gives this Upanishad an archaic appearance. ”

“ Here we find the germs of sacerdotal pretensions which gradually increased during the Vedic age. Thus the statement occurs in the White Yajurveda that the Brahman who possesses correct knowledge has the gods in his power. The Brāhmaṇas go a step farther in saying that there are two kinds of gods, the Devas and the Brahmans, the latter of whom are to be held as deities among men. In the Brāhmaṇas, too, the sacrifice is represented as all-powerful, controlling not only the gods, but the very processes of nature. ”

“ There are four of them, the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda, and the Atharvaveda. Devout Hindoos believe that these books have always existed—that they [6] are co-eternal with God. Scholars agree that they are very old, that the Rigveda, the oldest of the four, and one of the oldest books extant, was composed between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago. ”

“ Yet the Rigveda, though it is mainly concerned with praises of the gods in connection with the sacrifice, contains hymns showing that sorcery was bound up with domestic practices from the earliest times in India. The only reference to the spells of the Atharva-veda as a class in the Yajurvedas is found in the Taittirīya Saṃhitā, where they are alluded to under the name of angirasaḥ by the side of Rik, Sāman, and Yajus, which it elsewhere mentions alone. Yet the formulas of the Yajur-veda are often pervaded by the spirit of the Atharva-veda, and are sometimes Atharvan even in their wording. ”

“ The prose parts of the Yajurvedas and the Brāhmaṇas constantly speak of the arrangement of the sacrificial ground and the construction of altars according to very strict rules, the slightest deviation from which might cause the greatest disaster. It is not likely that the exclusive Brahmans should have been willing to borrow anything closely connected with their religion from foreigners. ”

“ The country of the former, called Kurukshetra, is specifically the holy land of the Yajurvedas and of the Brāhmaṇas attached to them. It lay in the plain between the Sutlej and the Jumna, beginning with the tract bounded by the two small rivers Dṛishadvatī and Sarasvatī, and extending south-eastwards to the Jumna. ”

“ Thus he explains the Yajna (sacrificial cult) as “the entertainment of the learned in proportion to their worth, the business of manufacture, the experiment and application of chemistry, physics and the arts of peace; the instruction of the people, the purification of the air, the nourishment of vegetables by the employment of the principles of meteorology, called Agni-Notri in Sanskrit.” He denied that the Vedas warranted the caste system, but wished to retain the four grades as orders of learning to which admission should be won by examination. ”

“ But why do we yearn for the personal, bodily meeting when the spiritual meeting is so pleasant? We ought not to need anything more — is not the spiritual the best in us? ··········
What do you think of the Japaraesque fire-screen? It is splendid, is it not? Hail to all noble friends of Java, who brought the art of her people, and with it the beauty of their souls, into the light! We hope fervently that the interest now taken will not dwindle as has that in all too many other things, and that it will not prove only a fleeting fashion. ”

“ With that free and unconditioned consciousness, known to all men in the phenomena of dreams, the God-tuned master has forged a never-severed link. Innocent of all personal motives, and employing the creative will bestowed on him by the Creator, a yogi rearranges the light atoms of the universe to satisfy any sincere prayer of a devotee. For this purpose were man and creation made: that he should rise up as master of MAYA, knowing his dominion over the cosmos. ”

“ The range of life widens, till it includes the life in Svarga. Vedic Yajna is then performed, though from a pure motive of self-advancement. The advanced self comes very near to the universal self. The performance of Vedic sacrifices is Asuric in so far as it is selfish, but it minimises the self of earthly existence, and gives a transitory character to our worldly joys and sufferings, and it gives the idea of an enlarged self, of widened existence and of higher duties. The Karma Kânda of the Vedas therefore opens the door widely to real spiritual life. ”

“ There are a number of great souls, living in American or European or other non-Hindu bodies today who, though they may never have heard the words YOGI and SWAMI, are yet true exemplars of those terms. Through their disinterested service to mankind, or through their mastery over passions and thoughts, or through their single hearted love of God, or through their great powers of concentration, they are, in a sense, yogis; they have set themselves the goal of yoga-self-control. ”

“ And I really believe that it is more deleterious in its influence upon the Hindu character than anything else connected with this system.
According to this chronology, in its most elaborated form, every day, yea, every hour as well as every yuga, or epoch, has its peculiar moral character assigned to it. It is well known that the first era in the maha-yuga is called Sattia yuga, or the era of truth. During this period the cow of righteousness stands upon four legs, and all living beings are good, beautiful, and happy. This indeed is the golden age of Hinduism. ”

“ The daughter of Kâla is Jarâ or decrepitude.
The Yavanas are diseases or infirmities.
Fear is the King of all diseases and infirmities viz., Death.
Prajvâra is destructive fever.
As long as Purusha does not know his real self, but identifies himself with the Gunas of Prakriti, he becomes subject to births and deaths. The only remedy for this malady is pure devotion to Guru and to Bhagavân. By such devotion, dispassion and wisdom are both acquired.
"Darbha" is Kusa grass, symbolical of Yajna. "Vidarbha" is pure land. "Malaya" or the Deccan is famous for Vishnu worship. ”

“ Behind the horses, a mental recapitulation of the characteristics of Hindu and Buddhist architecture in the golden age of Javanese art will not come amiss, and there may be some wonder that with so much veneration for the Bhagavat in friendly competition with the Jagad Guru, nowhere in the negri Jawa an imprint is shown of the blessed foot of promise, with the deliverer’s thirty-first sign, the wheel of the law on the sole. ”

“ XXXIX. THE DAGOB OF THE BORO BUDOOR BEFORE ITS RESTORATION
(C. Nieuwenhuis.)
[277]
Heart and head rebel against such a religion, which considers conscious life the great enemy to be destroyed, seeks life’s meed in dissolution of energy, man’s best part flickering out as the flame of a spent candle. With the gladdening odour of the garden of Java in our nostrils, rational instinct struggles free from the torment of imposed passivity and we rather take a more militant stand concordant with the Buddha’s dying words: Work out your salvation with diligence. How is it to be done? ”

“ You have paid up your debts to the Rishis and to the Pitris. Now pay up your debts to the Devas, by the performance of Yajna and then give up your home." Vâsudeva then performed Yajna, and the Rishis officiated. The Yajna over, the Rishis went away. Dhritarâshra, Vidura, the Pândavas, Bhishma, Drona, Kunti, Nârada, Vyâsa, his friends and relatives, parted with a heavy heart. Nârada and his followers were detained for three months by the Yâdavas, such was their love for them. They then received many presents and left for Mathurâ. ”

“ Compare the Black Yajur Veda:* "The gods were formerly just like men. They desired to overcome want, misery, death, and to go to the divine assembly. They saw, took and sacrificed with this Chaturvimsatiratra, and in consequence overcame want, misery and death, and reached the divine assembly." In the same Veda we are told that the gods and Asuras contended together; the gods were less numerous, but, as politicians make men peers, they added to their number by placing some bricks in the proper position to receive the sacrificial fire. ”

“ As he progresses to higher spiritual states (nirbikalpa samadhi) , however, he communes with God without bodily fixation, and in his ordinary waking consciousness, even in the midst of exacting worldly duties. 26-11
“Kriya Yoga is an instrument through which human evolution can be quickened,” Sri Yukteswar explained to his students. “The ancient yogis discovered that the secret of cosmic consciousness is intimately linked with breath mastery. This is India’s unique and deathless contribution to the world’s treasury of knowledge. ”

“ On Java we find Hinduism only amid the ruins of temples, images, and inscriptions; on Báli, in the laws, ideas, and worship of the people. On Java this singular and interesting system of religion is classed among the antiquities of the island. Here it is a living source of action, and a universal rule of conduct. The present state of Báli may be considered, therefore, as a kind of commentary on the ancient condition of the natives of Java. Hinduism has here severed society into casts; it has introduced its divinities; it has extended its ceremonies into most of the transactions of life ”