THE SEVEN BECAME FOURTEEN
Gita says:
The seven great sages of old, as also the four law-givers (Manus) are born from My own process of becoming and mind, and from these all progeny in the world.
Before we write any further on this verse, we wish to clarify that ‘Manus’ given by Nataraj Guru in the bracket is his own view and Krishna didn’t call four law-givers as Manus. Vishnu through Krishna’s mouth talks of 7 great sages and four law-givers and Manus are traditionally described to be 7 or 14 in number. We have already shown the relationship that exists between 7 and 14.
Commenting to this verse, the book Religious Consciousness says: “The rishis (sages) and the manus (law-givers) belong to two different and divergent developments in spiritual traditions. At the source of mystical and contemplative tradition we must place the rishis (sages, seers or bards) who were people cut away from society living their own lives free from social obligation and sometimes transgressing the rules of society. These were individualists.
The other referred to, who are named here as manus (law-givers, thoughtful men), were people who were socially and legalistically minded. They laid down the codes for the government of people who belonged to a certain group. But during the long course of history it sometimes happened that what was laid down by the rule-maker had to be drastically revised in the light of changed circumstances. The intervening period between one manu (law-giver) and another has been named manvantara (period of a manu) of which fourteen constitute a “day of Brahma” and of which the present is said to the seventh. These refer to natural periods of time in which a certain tradition remains in vogue with a given group of people. If we think of humanity in different groups or “races”, as it has been sometimes suggested, these manus may all be considered as belonging to the same period at the very beginning of the human race, if such a beginning can be fixed. But it is more probable that these law-givers succeeded one another through manvantaras (periods of a manu). The names of the first seven are given as follows: Swayambhuva (the author of the Manusmriti or the famous Code of Manu), Swarochisa, Anuttami, Tamasa, Raivata, Chakshusha and Vaivasvata.
Whether existed as contemporaries or succeeded one another is not of much consequence of us here. What is important to understand is that the two classes mentioned, the sages and the law-givers, who in themselves represent particular spiritual values important to human life, whether collective or individual, have both one common origin in the neutral Absolute, just in the same manner as the other spiritual values enumerated above.
Maharshayati Sapta purve (the seven great sages of old) refers to the poet-hermits whose names have been renowned in the Vedas. The Mahabharata in which the Bhagwada-Gita appears in Book XII, lists the following: Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya and Vasishta. Other lists of seven are given, e.g. Kutsa, Atri, Rebha, Agastya, Kushika, Vasishta and Vyashva; and sometimes other names are included, such as Gotama, Bharadvaja, Vishwamitra, Jamadagni, Kasyapa, Daksha, Prachetas, Bhrigu and Narada (see Shatapatha Brahmana, XI.4, 5.2.6 and Harivamsa, 417 ff)
In this verse the different set of public or private values are personalized. They are represented by the law-giver or the hermit type of ancient spiritual person. The difference is similar to that we know to exist between the law-giver Confucius and the mystic LaoTze in China.
When the mind (of VII, 4) begins to function, it tends to become directed to society because mind is the seat of the ego and the interaction of ego and ego is the basis of social life which throws up the social man. But when pure becoming works out its own nature we find types representing the natural man who may be even anti-social but still spiritual according to the best standards of spirituality known to the srutis (revealed spiritual texts), though not to the smritis (remembered code of behaviour) to which later section the law-givers naturally belong. Thus the sages and law-givers represent two branches of the Absolute when it enters the domain of human affairs.”
If you have seen, people have given long narrations to tell what has been said of the sages and Manus in various books. However, you ask any one of them to name a Manu who was a law-giver or point at exactly who those sages were in history, and they would be unable to tell. This cannot include Rama, as he didn’t give any laws. On the contrary, Rama is himself curious to know the names of Prajapatis in Ramayana of Valmiki (III, 14,7-9). Neither can this include Krishna through whose mouth God is referring about the 7 sages and the 4 lawgivers.
Moreover, what is important to understand is that it is the Paramatma (Manifest Self) who is doing the talking from the mouth of Krishna. If Manifest Self endorses some Rishis or Law-givers, they cannot be normal men and women, neither their Laws could be without Divine sanctions. Also, we must understand that ‘srutis’ and ‘smritis’ is not a classification done by Gita or any other divine scripture. We ourselves have categorized the books available with us by different names. For us, the categorization will only be whether the scripture has a divine source, whether it has remained unaltered through the passage of time and whether it has been correctly understood. All other books don’t matter much!
Since it is getting clearer now that the 14 Manus are the Devatas who took birth several centuries after Krishna, Rama and Buddha, we have reasons to believe that the four-law givers talked about at several places is reference to the four Divine Books that Muslims believe were sent on earth, the last being Quran. The four are Taurait, Injeel, Zuboor and Quran. It appears that Divine Powers were foretelling the coming of the 4 law-givers as well just as they were prophesying about the coming of Devatas in human bodies.
The 7 sages of Gita are the 7 names who became 14. It speaks of the extreme callousness of the modern scholars that they didn’t try to find out who these persons are, particularly when the present Hindu religion has no laws as such that it can boast of, and which have the capacity to govern our lives. Manusmriti, that is accepted as a law-book is not fit, in its present state, as it contains certain laws that are against the basic human character. This makes us conclude that either it is not in its original form anymore or it never was a divine book.
We have mentioned from the Puranas how, even before the creation of the world, the 7 great sages [Spirits/Noorani Roohs] were created, who were responsible for the creation of the world. These 7 spirts took birth on the earth, in the form of 14 divine personalities (the 12 Adityas, Indra and Saraswati). Islam is also of the view that 4 divine books or law-books were sent by God, including Quran. Also innumerable small treatises, perhaps adhering to a particular subject, were sent from time to time through various Prophets; Vedic hymns could be these treatises as they never came as books but as hymns.
It is sad that author of the Religious Consciousness says that the 5 great ‘beings’ [panj-tan] and their relationship with 7 and 14 was a product of speculative minds of the people of early period. If that is so, why do you base your religion on those very books that talk of these speculative characters? The very fact that the author raises a question reveals that there were a set of people who talked of some relationship between 5 great ‘beings’ with 7 and 14.
We have seen the differences have occurred because we tried to interpret the verses in a wrong manner, knowingly or unknowingly. “The great beings” were interpreted as air, water, earth, fire, etc. Why don’t commentators like Rishi Dayananda Saraswati, who have translated Vedas to be talking of water’s composition from hydrogen and oxygen say that merely 5 element cannot constitute the entire cosmos? Even if some of them emphasize that they all (earth, water, air, etc.) are sustainers of life, they can give no reasonable argument as to why, whenever these ‘great beings’ are being described, it is in the context of attaining or leading the way to salvation or guidance towards the right path.
Neither can it be explained that Paingala Upanishad talks of 5 and then talks of 14. The 14 are described as ‘guardians of the fourteen quarters’. Can these material things like ‘earth, fire, water, etc.’ be worthy enough to be appointed as guardians in God’s scheme of the creation of cosmos?
Since they wanted to give explanation for 5 and 7, which are repeated several times over in various scriptures, the ‘scholars’ coined the 5 ‘great beings’ as earth, fire, water, etc. and to describe the 7 added mahat (intelligence), ahamkara (ego) and prakriti (nature) while removing earth. Some have just added mahat and ahamkara to the 5 elements to make 7. Any reasonable mind would conclude that mahat (intelligence), ahamkara (ego) and prakriti (nature) do not gel with water, earth, and the rest. Yet, since they had to eventually give any explanation, they went ahead with their explanation without bothering for a while of the stupid arguments that it could lead to.
Religious Consciousness too is confused whether they are 7 or 14: “Each Manu-period in theory has its own set of seven Maharishis. The Manusmriti (I, 19,63) postulates only seven first elements used in creation, and speaks of seven Manus only, though according to the theory of Manu periods, there ought to be fourteen of them, the later number being a multiple of seven. The influence of the number seven in cosmological speculation – astronomical knowledge having been in step with it, as there were only seven known planets and seven days to the artificial division of time known later as week – is clearly demonstrated by Kalidasa, the national mind, in his works which are pure literature, using the cosmological and religio-philosophical data incidentally. In his poem Raghuvamsa (X, 21) he has given his version of the prayer gods (Devas) and men would have addressed to the great God Vishnu lying on the seven-hooded cobra. It is dominated by the number seven as the characteristic accompaniment or means to the propitiation of Vishnu. He is sung in seven ‘saman’ hymns; He lies over the seven oceans; He has as his mouth the seven-rayed Fire and he is the one support of the seven worlds.
It is seen that before Kalidasa’s age, the worlds were counted as seven in number and the number of oceans had come to be fixed as seven. In another context in the same work (XCIII, 78) Kalidasa has told us that the great mountains, the ‘kulaparvatas’ or ‘kulabhubhrts’ or ‘kulacalas’, as they are known and may be translated as stabilizing mountains, which have become almost fabulous legends in Hindu cosmography, were already known to be seven in number. He describes the seven ages (Kumarasambhava, VI, 3-10, 15-19) in a glowing manner as those who are called ‘upholders’ (dhatarah) by antiquarians and as what do not vanish even at the great destruction (mahapralaya) taking place at the end of a ‘kalpa’. One of the worlds of the cosmos, the earth, is itself a seven-islanded (satadvipa) unit (Sakuntala, VII, 33) of which Jambudvipa, in which India (Bharatakhanda) is situated, is one.
According to the Puranic account of the seven islands of the earth two appear to be too shadowy. Leaving them one finds that four of the five, the fifth being ‘Jambudvipa’ have each of them seven regions, seven mountains and seven rivers in it. The Puranas further postulate seven nether regions in the cosmos or in the earth, each region being known as Patala. The term ‘Patala’ is more commonly used to designate the seven nether regions; and it is in that sense that Kalidasa (Raghuvamsa, I, 80; XV, 84) used the word, informing his readers that the region was very vigilantly guarded by poisonous snakes.”
In spite of these lengthy descriptions, the true relationship between 5, 7 and 14 has not been described by any of these. Our view is that the number 7 was so important (for reasons that we will elaborate later) that every positive thing was associated with 7 (remember, the hells are not 7). So much so that even the pheras (circles) that a bride and groom have to take around the fire are 7, which have come to signify as 7 oaths but were actually in remembrance of the number 7.
Religious Consciousness further writes: “This influence of the number seven having been operative for centuries, Manusmriti (I, 19), as pointed out above, having, too, postulated seven first elements, produced the kind of Hindu cosmology and cosmography that we get explicitly stated by Ramadasa, in the later half of the 17th century and implied in the very popular book Tulsidasa Ramayana more than a century earlier.
Ramadasa, though he speaks of both the cosmos and the individual person being seven-sheathed, does not clearly enumerate the seven sheaths of ether, and as we shall see later in the case of the latter, he actually expounds his views on the pattern of the eightfold constitution of human personality, with the addition of a few more constituents postulated by him.
Ramadasa’s cosmology has seven oceans, which are specifically and after the Puranic manner were tantalizingly named after various drinks, seven islands, seven nether regions (patalas), seven great sages. Though he mentions by name some of the great stabilizing mountains he has not specified their number.”
Ramadasa has also added one category of world or sub-world in his cosmography by postulating 14 such units called ’bhuvana’ (Ibid, XX, 10-12), which number too, reflects the same influence. Much earlier Jnanesvara, too, noted the number of ‘bhuvanas’ as 14. (Jnanesvari, XI, 183).
We must note that there is so much stress on 5, 7 and 14, yet none has been able to tell what it signifies. It is also to be noted that the translations of 5 as five material elements and various other absurd derivations like this have mostly been done after 8th to 10th century A.D.
The following account of Matsya Purana confirms that Manus and Devatas are the same as it refers to Indra, Varuna, etc. in the list of Manus. Therefore, it can easily be summed up that the 14 Devatas created as consequence of the process described in Brhad-aranyaka and Paingala Upanishads is reference to the 14 Manus.
Chapter VI of the Purana states that Devatas were also called Tusita who flourished in the reign of Chaksusa Manu. They came to be known as Adityas (suns), owing to their having been born as the sons of Deva called glorious Kasyapa from his wife, Aditi, during the reign of King Vaivasvata Manu. They were 12 in numbers, viz., Indra, Dhata, Bhaga, Tuasta, Mitra, Varuna, Yama, Vivasvana, Savita, Pusa, Ansumana and Vishnu. These were the 12 Adityas – the centre of rays.
It is also stated that the Devapraharanas, the sons of Krisasva Risi, and the 12 Adityas appear at the beginning of every Manvantara and Kalpa and vanish at their termination.
Knowing now that Kasyapa is Ali and Aditi is Fatima, there remains no doubt that the 12 Adityas are the 12 Imams, the last of whom is about to appear shortly.
Chapter IX-34 of Matsya Purana states the term ‘Devas’ and ‘Manus’ together:
I have explained to you something about the past and future Manus, O King! Similarly commencing from the age of Devas, in the 994th age, the afore-mentioned fourteen Manus rule in succession. In their time, they play their part in the creation of the moveable and immoveable objects, and afterwards attain final rest with Brahma, at the end of the age. They (the Manus), after 1000 ages, shall be absorbed in Brahma and be joined to Vishnu.
Book IV Chapter I of The Vishnu Purana states link of Manu with Brahma; we have seen countless narrations linking Brahma with Devatas:
Parasara says, “It is said: ‘the lineage of him shall never be extinct who daily calls to mind the race of Manu, originating with Brahma.’ Listen therefore, Maitreya, to the entire series of the princes of this family, by which all sin shall be effaced.”
Again, the link of Manu (said to be 14 and at times referred to as 7) with Brahma who is mentioned in Upanishads as the first Noor or Light from which the Devatas originated, who too have been described to be 14 or ‘seven and seven’ (as we have seen before), confirm that Manus and Devatas are one and the same and also the same as the 14 Ahlulbayt (who had 7 names, thus 7 and 7, equal to 14).
Unfortunately, the succeeding passage is not original in our view, and there is no need to quote here the long list of monarchs that the Purana consequently gives.
However, this brings us to a point. Is there a single person who can say which family is being talked about? This is despite the importance given to them. And it cannot be the mention of any family of the kings on earth because it is explicitly said that this family originated with Brahma. Also, taking their names washes away the sins. How unfortunate that we have no information about them? How could we when the names of the first 5 of them were interpreted as the 5 elements, and it was concluded that all matter comprised of these elements? Surely all matter and life owes their origin and sustenance to them, though they are not elements but Divine Persons created for a purpose.
Section 15 of Chhandogya Upanishad states that people of the period knew that salvation could be obtained by this knowledge alone. It says:
Brahma imparted this knowledge that was such to Prajapati, Prajapati (imparted it) to Manu (and) Manu to the creatures. Having studied the Vedas in the teacher’s house accordance with the injunctions, during leisure after performing the duties to the teacher, he returns home from the teacher’s house and takes up the duties of a householder. Then, he studies the scriptures in a sacred place, and makes his sons and disciples virtuous. Then, withdrawing all his organs into the Self, not injuring any creature other than what is prescribed in the scriptures, living in this way to the end of his life, he attains the world of Brahma. He does not return again, he does not return again.
It is apparent that even the Upanishads have talked of a relationship of Brahma and Prajapati with Manu, thereby further giving credence to our conclusion that Manus and Devatas are one and the same.
Dowson’s account clearly mentions that in the Ramayana, ‘mention is made of a female Manu, and it appears that the word is sometimes used for “the wife of Manu.” Truly, there is a female Manu, who is very much one of the 7 and also one of the 14; wife of a Manu (Ali, or Vayu or Rudra or Marut or Aditya). It is these Manus who took the task of leading the world to the worship of One God. They kept guiding the Rishis and Sages and at times one or the other of the 7 Noorani Roohs [Lighted Spirits] descended in human bodies. The Forces of Darkness continued to digress mankind from their teachings. Finally all the 7 Spirits together descended in 14 human bodies. Thirteen of them have been killed till now and the last remains, who will appear sometime in future as the Kalki Avatar or the 14th Ahlulbayt. The day is not far when he will appear and remove all injustice, all evil, all inhumanity, all notions of wrong from this world and the world will return to the worship of One God. Then their work will be brought to conclusion.
As God said to angels at the time of creation of Adam, ‘You do not know what I know’. This is something that even the angels were not aware of: that the mankind will shirk the path of evil to return to the path of One God - the same path that was the path of all the Avatars/Messengers of God, be it Adam, Rama, Krishna, Moses, Abraham, Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus or Mohammad.
We conclude by saying that the identity of Manus or Devatas or of Paramatma will remain hidden forever without adhering to our view. Other than ours, there is no logical view available that can throw light on their personality, their relationship with God, the time when they lived, and our obligations to them. In order to know the true identity of Manus or Devatas or of Paramatma you will have to accept our view as true.
No comments:
Post a Comment