THE GREAT REVEALED SCRIPTURES - THE VEDAS
Vedas indeed are great revealed scriptures. It is believed that the Holy Books belong to sruti or divine revealed literature.
Dr. Radhakrishnan writes: “The Vedas were composed by the seers when they were in a state of inspiration. He who inspires them is God. Truth is impersonal, apauruseya and eternal, nitya. Inspiration is a joint activity, of which man’s contemplation and God’s revelation are two sides. The Svetasvatara Upanishad says that the sage Svetasvatara saw the truth owing to his power of contemplation, tapah-prabhava, and the grace of god, deva-prasada. The dual significance of revelation, its subjective and objective character, is suggested here.”
It is to be noted that as per Svetasvatara Upanishad, truth was seen owing to the Sage’s power of contemplation and deva-prasada (gift from Devatas), which has been wrongly translated by Dr. Radhakrishnan as gods. We have been telling time and again that the Devatas from Noor or Light have been created as the power of guidance, and the aforementioned view too is confirming this. Once the self in the body of a sage, because of extreme tapah (contemplation), became pure enough to make a contact with the Manifest Self, guidance towards the path of truth was bestowed by the Devatas.
The question arises why it is that the Vedas, which were composed when the sages were guided by the Devatas, talk of none else but the Devatas, events from their lives and their relationship with the Manifest Self and Absolute God? We will see the answer as we progress further. In fact, we will also see the real content of the Vedas, inability to understand which till this day has resulted in the modern day Hindu giving no more significance to Vedas than just regard them as divine scriptures.
At another place Dr. Radhakrishnan writes that “The Naiyayikas maintain that the Vedas were composed by God, while the Mimamsakas hold that they were not composed at all either by man or by God, but have existed from all eternity in the form of sounds. It is perhaps a way of saying that the timeless truths of eternity exist from everlasting to everlasting. You will be interested to know that Aristotle too regards the fundamental truths of religion as eternal and indestructible.”
We do not know enough about Aristotle and hence are not in position to comment whether he was an apostle of God or not, but the fact remains that the Straight Path to God – the Sirat-e-Mustaqeem – has always been one and the same, be it coming from the mouth of Krishna, Rama, Aristotle, Athenagoras, Jesus or Mohammad.
With reference to the Prophets, Athenagoras says:
While entranced and deprived of their natural powers of reason by the influence of the Divine Spirit, they uttered that which was wrought in them, the spirit using them as its instrument as a flute-player might blow a flute.
Apol. IX.
Thus, it is clear that it is either the Divine Spirit (Manifest Self or Paramatma) or the Devatas who owe their origin to the Noor that emanated from the Divine Spirit, who were responsible for revelation of various scriptures. Thus, it is not the Absolute God who is responsible for guidance of man but the Manifest Self created by the Absolute God, who took upon itself the task of creating more worshippers of the God whom It worshipped. And it created the Devatas who are both Noor and Spirt and form the Divine Forces of Guidance.
As we have shown, it were the Devatas, under the leadership of the Manifest Self (Paramatma) whose duty it was to lead mankind to the worship of Absolute God, who Himself had nothing to gain from the worship. That is why it is even more logical that the Vedas should be attributed to the Devatas and must be identifying them.
At the same time, as an opposition to this Noorani Power, a Tamasik or Dark power got created, referred to as Zulmat in the Quran, which as per Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad was taught an altogether different doctrine and whose task is to mislead mankind from the path of worshipping the One Absolute God. This Force of Misguidance i.e. Zulmat (referred to as Tamas in Gita meaning Darkness; Zulmat too means Darkness) is constantly working to misguide mankind from the path of truth. Man’s test is whether he is able to defeat Zulmat and climb the rope of the straight path laid by the Devatas; thus unite his self with the Manifest Self (atma with Paramatma).
We have already revealed the true identity of that Divine Spirit, which was not only responsible for the revelation of Vedas but several similar revealed scriptures in all parts of the world. Quran too says that Messengers (Avatars) were sent to all regions, speaking the language of the people among whom they were sent. Since the source of the scriptures is one, they all are revealing the One and Straight Path to reach God but every time the truth was shown by a Messenger (Avatar) or Scripture, Zulmat worked to deviate man from its true understanding.
Be it Aristotle or Athenagoras, or the sages of ancient Mesopotamia, China, India and Egypt, at all places it has been these Devatas, who together comprise the Noor created by the Divine Spirit, who used the pious and pure bodies of sages as instruments, as a flute player uses a flute, at all times endeavouring to lead mankind and all other creatures to one path, that of worship of the Absolute God.
It is the universal belief of Muslims that Mohammad never spoke unless it was the will of God. That too was the case because it was one of the 7 spirits which was using his body as Its office.
Here, in Part-III, we are going to study the true content of the Vedas. As usual, we again forewarn you to be attentive and prepared for certain conclusions that may not be in your wildest imagination. However, we wish to tell in advance that our conclusions are not concocted theories, but are based on hard facts, and substantiated by the Upanishads and the Gita, not at a place or two, but in their entirety. In fact, if you remain patient, and continue to read further, you will find that all those mysteries related to the Vedas, the Upanishads and even the Gita, which have confounded the minds of commentators till date, are getting solved by relying on our study.
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Conflicting Interpretations of Vedic Text
Rishi Dayanand Saraswati (henceforth, we will use RDS), the founder of Arya Samaj, has categorically stated that the Vedas are original and the word of God, containing eternal and true knowledge. Devi Chand endorses the same view in his introduction of the commentary of The Yajur Veda. He writes: “Vedas are the word of God, revealed in the beginning of creation, for the moral, spiritual, and physical guidance and uplift of humanity. They are replete with the eternal truths and throw a flood of light on various aspects of life to make a man perfect and ideal. God, out of His infinite source of knowledge reveals in the beginning of creation a part of it, adequate for the requirements of the soul, its spiritual satisfaction, fulfilment of its thirst for truth and making its journey of life successful.”
“A part of knowledge was revealed at the beginning of creation,” as per Devi Chand. If the remaining part was revealed later in the form of Taurait, Zuboor, Injeel and Quran, we should not doubt it. Surely, neither the God nor His Devatas stopped working for our guidance from that time onwards.
We do not doubt a word of what RDS or Devi Chand says above. In fact, our view is that not even a matra or vowel in Vedas can be without a meaning or significance, now that we know it to be the word of God or His Manifest Self. God is the source of all knowledge and it is not His Nature that He performs errors of speech, even though it is of the degree of a useless matra or for the purpose of rhetoric alone. Anywhere during our study of the Vedas, or for that matter, the Gita, if we are able to find a verse that does not gel with our understanding, we are nobody to doubt the text or point errors in it; something that most commentators have done. In fact, in a situation like this, we should humbly accept our lack of knowledge and pursue with renewed vigour to get to the real meaning, as was intended by God.
Throughout the course of this BOOK, we will cite innumerable instances where the commentators have raised a finger at The Word of God, which is sin in our view and need to be severely condemned. In fact, this became the reason that prompted us to go deeper into the real content of the Vedas and the Upanishads.
We are all aware that the Vedas are replete with mention of Indra, Vayu, Agni, etc. The Vedas, in actuality, are the real source of all information that we possess about these names and also formed the basis of all the myths and legends that came into existence subsequently, which were to find place in later period works like Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata. However, kindly remember that Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata are not revealed scriptures from God or Devatas and were mere compilations by common men like you and me. Therefore, what they say is not final, but what the Vedas and Upanishads, and what Gita says, is final indeed.
RDS is considered one of the greatest commentators of Vedas, along with Sayanacharaya. It is RDS’s commentary that we took up for study and hence would like to talk about it first.
The commentaries of Vedas prior to the one done by RDS were replete with the mention of Devatas; though nobody was clear who the Devatas were. They were understood as mythological characters who had a great fight in some pre-historic times with the demons. A true reformist that he considered himself to be, RDS concluded that the Vedas talked of airplanes, cars and steam engines. RDS was perhaps distressed at the allegations raised by various Western scholars that the Hindu scriptures were merely mythology and ritual, which no longer had any living truth or force for the thinking minds and were therefore fit to be put away among the relics of the past as an antique record of semi-barbarous worship. This distress is also visible in the writing of Aurobindo Ghosh, who shared RDS’s view, and which you will read in a short while. Therefore, RDS re-wrote the entire commentary, saying that the names of Indra, Vayu, Agni, etc. that were so often used in the Vedas, and which have been taken as divine persons, or Devatas, by most commentators, actually meant material sun, air, fire, etc. and nothing else. In the course of his commentary, where Vayu and Agni were mentioned together, he concluded that steam engines were being discussed and so on. This was done with the purpose of making these scriptures fit for the thinking mind, without realizing that we were only moving towards further deviation.
To tell you the truth, when we picked up the Vedas for study, we were of the opinion that if it is God’s revealed text, then it must be of the nature of a torchbearer, which would show the path to the human beings that would lead them to the worship of One God and save them from the scourge of sin and troubled existence. The moment we started reading it, it was apparent that the present content could not be digested, as it was beyond the notions of reason and sense that God would use His energy and time, reveal the book to Prophets and emissaries, to tell that in future there would be airplanes and steam-engines to carry us or tell us what oils to put in ritual fire, what kind of ladle to use during such oblations, and so on.
Our view was further substantiated when we read Manu, who is largely believed to be the first lawgiver after the Vedas, singing the glory of the Vedas in such un-ambiguous terms as:
The Veda is the source of all Dharma i.e. religion, morality, righteousness and good conduct.
(Manusmriti 2-6)
It is unfortunate that the later day translators of the Vedas inferred the value of Vedas from the value given to these scritpures by revered sages of earlier times, but forgot the true meaning and content of the Vedas. Instead of what Manu described Vedas to be, the later day commentators found rites and rituals, electricity, steam engines and airplanes in the Vedas.
How foolish of us that we claim Vedas to be having a universal appeal due to the reason that they talk about future when steam engines would run and electric gadgets would be part of our life. The fact that several Vedic hymns talk in the future tense and carry words like Vayu and Agni made RDS and few others come to this conclusion. But have we ever thought that the same Vedas, of whose universal nature we are boasting of, would become redundant for the man of the period when they were revealed, in case we were to translate them in such a manner. Neither would they be of any further interest to the future generations, to whom steam engines, et al are already things of the past.
To counter this argument, those very people who talk of the scientific and logical nature of Vedas, claim that people of the time when Vedas were composed knew the art of making airplanes and steam vehicles, which was lost with time. Would any person with a scientific and logical bent of mind ever believe this? Did we ever unearth a plane while excavating or ever found a picture of it on the walls of a cave or a mention of it in any of the historical or religious books? Hanuman’s visit from Lanka to Himalaya in a very short time is cited but we believe that his visit was not owing to a fast-moving vehicle but due to something that is far loftier than the flight of our materialism-inflicted minds.
If there were cars and airplanes, where have they disappeared? Why is it that in the excavations, no trace of engine or airplanes is found and the only things to be found are crude utensils, traditional instruments of warfare and life bereft of all the so-called modern luxuries and modes of quicker transportation?
Even for a moment, if we suppose that there were indeed such vehicles existing during the time, then what about the middle ages, when airplanes were surely not plying? Were the Vedas redundant during that time period? Or were they only for our times, and the people of the past were merely reciting the hymns so that they are remembered and reach us without any change? We are sure you won’t agree to this as Vedas truly are God’s own words and are for all times.
With such an explanation, Vedas would also become redundant in the 21st century, when steam engines, cars and airplanes have become common knowledge. Why should we look at the Vedas now when we have gone far ahead in terms of progress, from the days of steam engines and airplanes?
We are sure your curiosity is aroused! Some of you may be thinking that only a handful of commentators like RDS have translated the Vedas with steam-engines and airplanes in them, whereas the rest of the commentators have certainly not done so. Maharshi Patanjali writes in the Mahabhasya, that there are 101 shakhas (schools of thoughts) of the Yajur Veda. All these commentaries are not available at present except the Kanva, Madhyandini, Taittiriya, Maitrayani, Kathak and Kapishthala. Only six available out of the 101 versions!
It can therefore be inferred that RDS’s commentary is either 105th, 110th or any such version but certainly not lesser than the 102nd. Since commentaries or schools of thoughts are based on the understood meaning, this would amount to saying that Yajur Veda alone (containing merely 1984 verses in comparison to Rig Veda’s 10,522) has been understood with at least 102 meanings. If this is so, then what is the real meaning that God intended? God surely must have talked about one straight path, even if He had to send His Messages through various Apostles and emissaries, and not diverse ones as the various Schools of Thoughts suggest.
From this reasoning, you will have to agree that out of at least 102 Schools of Thoughts, 101 are surely wrong and not carry the meaning that God intended. Only one may be the right path that God truly intended to show us. But what if the right path was one amongst the 95 Schools of Thoughts that are lost? Are we groping in the dark then? And the light of illumination that we consider to be from God, is from other source, perhaps has its source in Satan (devil) itself.
Here we would like to say that since we believe the Vedas to be God’s words, we must be prepared to accept it as it is, without getting into a sort of inferiority or superiority complex on the basis of its content. The fact that RDS had to do another translation, to silence the criticism of Western commentators, highlights his lack of faith in God. Why was he eager to give shape to the God’s words or mould them as per his choice? Why didn’t he accept whatever the Vedas were saying, instead of getting into an inferiority complex as regard to the existing translations, which were being labelled by European commentators as pre-historic or archaic? He should have accepted that since God is the Creator and Knower of all that will transpire till the end of this world; His words cannot be termed as lacking foresight or wisdom. Apparently, he too had doubts about it being the God’s words and wanted to show them as contemporary because he adhered to them and was born among those who believed in them. What he failed to comprehend was the fact that if today a copy of Vedas is not found in most Hindu households, who still hold these books to be divine in nature, it is because of the absurd translations done from time to time by those who couldn’t understand the subject of discussion in the Vedas.
If we believe that God has created us and it is He who has made arrangements for showing us the right path, if we believe that not a single leaf falls without His wish, and if we believe that we are like scrap in the smelting unit of an iron or steel factory that keeps moving on a chain towards inevitable destruction of its material form, then we must accept God’s Word as final, whatever it is. Yes, sincere endeavours to understand that Word in the true sense should be an endless pursuit.
Whether truth is in RDS’s inference or in that of commentators like Sayana and various Western scholars, all should be checked and rechecked on the basis of our reasoning, before we come to believe them. Nothing, not even the arguments carried in this BOOK itself, should be accepted until we find them based on logic and reason, after a sincere study.
Let us now see how Sayana and others have interpreted the Vedas, and what was there that was unacceptable to RDS, Aurobindo Ghosh and others. Commentators like Sayana and others (there are several) have taken Indra, Vayu, Agni, etc., to mean divine persons or Devatas, whose meaning is taken as god with small ‘g’. They are believed to be lesser gods or gods of specific functions. The Western scholars too have interpreted Indra, Agni, Vayu, etc. as Nature Gods residing somewhere in the heavens. The problem of accepting this argument in the way it is presented is that it seems to give a ritual, mythological and polytheistic interpretation, which surely won’t be acceptable to any one of us.
Unable to digest this, Aurobindo Ghosh had no choice but to fall back on RDS’s commentary, even though it is apparent from his writing that he is not accepting it because he perfectly agrees with it, but has no choice in the face of other existing translations which are far more non-acceptable. He says: “In any case we have to make one choice or another. Either the Veda is what Sayana says it is, and then we have to leave it behind for ever as the document of a mythology and ritual or which have no longer any living truth or force for thinking minds, or it is what the European scholars say it is, and then we have to put it away among the relics of the past as an antique record of semi-barbarous worship or else it is indeed Veda, a book of divine knowledge, and then it becomes of supreme importance to us to know and to hear its message.”
In this BOOK, we will give the true explanation of the Vedas and you will realize that all the reasons that various different commentators were giving, to accept one version or the other, will get resolved.
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