The Rig Veda is the oldest of the four Vedas, which are collections of hymns and prose written in Sanskrit and dating back to the late 3rd to the early 2nd millennium BC. They form the cornerstone of sacred literature of Hinduism. Although the Vedas are accorded much respect and sanctity by the Hindus, only a handful of people today are really well-versed with the actual text of the Vedas, much less a deep understanding of Vedic philosophy or metaphysics. Even worse, the current trend among specialists is to deny the presence of any consistent underlying philosophy in the Vedas, and specifically Rig Veda. Two main reasons for this state of affairs are:
1. Demarcation of the Vedic corpus into Karma-kāṇḍa and Jñāna-kāṇḍa by traditional scholars. The Karma-kāṇḍa, consisting of the Samhitā, Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka texts, is supposed to deal only with ritual, whereas the Jñāna-kāṇḍa consisting of Upanishads is the spiritual knowledge part. In addition, medieval commentators on the Vedas like Sāyaṇācārya gave a face-value explanation of the Samhitā mantras, neglecting to see an integral metaphysical doctrine.
2. Starting in the late 18th century, the Rig Veda in particular captured the attention of European linguists and scholars who found a linguistic commonality between Sanskrit and Latin & Greek. This spurred on further research into finding a common source of all 3 languages, and by extension, of all languages in the newly recognized Indo-European language family. Early Oriental scholars were convinced that the homeland must have been India due to the very archaic form of Sanskrit preserved in the Vedas. However, this opinion changed starting in the mid-19th century when the theory of a Southern European "Urheimat" (German: "original homeland") were put forth. According to this theory, the people speaking the "Proto-Indo-European" language inhabited the steppes of southern Europe and Central Asia in nomadic communities, and one day decided to disperse to the east, west and south. In India, this implied that the immediate ancestors of the Vedic or "Aryan" people were intruders from outside. This theory played well into the hands of the colonialist agenda of the British ruling India, who claimed as much a right to conquer and rule the country as their Aryan cousins from 3000 years ago. But the most damaging aspect of this theory was that texts like the Rig Veda were mistranslated to serve as evidence for the movement of the so-called Aryan race into India.Today, after more than 200 years of perpetuation of the "Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory" against an increasing heap of counter-evidence from texts, archeology, paleo-anthropology and astronomy, it is still being debated. Although the problem of the linguistic affinities between the various members of the Indo-European language family is genuine, its solution cannot be through this theory of "grand dispersal from a central point". I will stop here, as this whole subject has been, and is being, dealt with by several competent scholars elsewhere.
In effect, the contents of the Rig Veda were shown to be mere poems, artistic creations of spur-of-the-moment aesthetic inspirations, rather than expressions of a metaphysics of universal validity. The hymns were seen as nothing more than odes to personified forces of nature in a childish attempt to pacify and curry favor.
Such early translations of the Rig Veda by Max Muller and other Orientalists were helped in no small measure by the Sanskrit pandits under whom the Europeans studied. Max Muller, for example, liberally uses Sāyaṇa's 14th century commentaries. No doubt, Sāyaṇa can be defended by saying that he was only being faithful to the tradition that was prevalent during his time.
This only shows how Vedic religion had morphed through the millennia. In the beginning, there was no attempt at systematizing. Hence, a profusion of hymns that were representative of personal realizations (sākṣātkāra) or vision (darśana) of hundreds of ṛṣis (incidentally, the Nirukta gives this definition: ṛṣih darśanāt - the vision is what makes a seer). Every one of the hymns was independently profound in the context of the individual, while revealing a common symbolism and metaphysics. Some hymns are turned out differently, while many use popular phrases. This in fact reflected precisely the central Vedic doctrine of "viśvam ekam" - multiplicity in unity, and unity of the multiplicity. This is also evident from the refrain of RV 3.55, "महद् देवानाम् असुरत्वं एकम् - mahad devānām asuratvam ekam" - great is the common Asura source of the Devas. While not denying the common cause of unity, this does not deny the multiplicity of the individual manifestations. In another sense, we could say that the ṛṣis were too full of life and joy in their constant realization that they didn't want to write a textbook, but rather compose songs, each one different from the next, but each one linked to the rest behind the notes - like various flowers strung together by the single thread.
The next stage was that of collecting and collating. This was the work of the Vyāsa, the Divider, which is actually a title and not a personal name. Once this habit of collecting and collating started, I think the Vedic people slowly began to lose the original vision of the ancient seers. Now, even in the earliest hymns of the Rig Veda, there is mention of forefathers, the ṛṣis who came before - "naḥ pitaraḥ - our fathers, the Aṅgiras and Bhṛgus, Navagvas and Daśagvas). Aṅgirā and Bhṛgu are said to be the originators of the Vedic tradition and metaphysics - almost every seer in Rig Veda can be traced back to either of these two; however, not one hymn of either of them has survived. This does not imply that the younger sages didn't respect the older ones - their reference in the hymns proves otherwise - but they hadn't lapsed into the habit of idolizing persons and their creations. The idea, the metaphysics, the tattva was what mattered, not the fixed arrangement of words by their forefathers. They learned the tattva from their forefathers, and made the realization (sākṣātkāra) their own, and composed their own songs in joy of it. In any case, we must be grateful to the later sages who preserved the earlier hymns for posterity, otherwise, we would not have had this glorious and extensive storehouse of knowledge.
In the next stage, as is wont to happen, the inner vision is gradually replaced by outer ritual. As we know even today, it is harder to meditate than to worship; it is harder to philosophize than to pray. Similar transformation started taking place in Vedic society. The earlier simple outer ritual of yajña was only meant to symbolize the underlying theory and beliefs, for, the real yajña was only performed on our behalf by Agni mentally - RV 1.77.2 "स चा बोधाति मनसा यजाति - sa cā bodhāti manasā yajāti". The ritualistic school developed to such a complex level, that the entire theory of ritual needed a systematizing codification. Hence the Mīmāmsā Sūtras by Jaimini were born.
In parallel to the development of the Pūrva Mīmāmsā school of ritualism, there were sages who were attempting to simplify the inner doctrine of the Vedas by introducing new terminology and getting rid of the intricate symbolism of the Samhitā hymns. Modern scholars tend to separate the Upaniṣads from the earlier hymns, and call them a "revolt" against the ritualism of the hymns. However, the earliest, and most authoritative, Upaniṣads - Aitareya, Chāndogya, Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Taittirīya, Īśa - all take the ritual for granted, and express their theories through the language of yajña. What the Upaniṣads say that is differently worded than the hymns is their use of a single word - Ātman, Brahman - to denote the all-encompassing unity principle of the hymns. What was denoted by many different names in the hymns is all now a single word. The "Ekam sat" of RV 1.164 is now "Satyam jñānam anantam brahma" of Tait. Up. 2.1. The only difference is that the Rig Veda maintains the reality of two levels - multiplicity and unity. The Upaniṣad says, "yes, we know of the two levels of reality, but we don't want to distract our students with the multiplicity, lest they never reach the unity." So for all we can see, the hymns are the songs of joy of the Siddha, the Accomplished, whereas the Upaniṣad is the textbook for the Sādhaka, the Path-finder, the one who is striving to become accomplished. A final proof that the Upaniṣads are in agreement with the hymns is the fact that they quote from the hymns. I shall provide detailed references in a future post.
Once again, when the Upaniṣadic literature itself grew unwieldy, along comes Bādarāyaṇa to codify all the essential doctrines in a systematic treatise called the Vedānta Sūtras of the Uttara Mīmāmsā school of Aupaniṣada Darśana, or metaphysical insight.
Thus, from the Rig Veda to the Vedānta Sūtras, we see a condensation, compaction and simplification of the same basic metaphysics. The poetic-mystical symbolism is reduced, and a more formulaic pedagogy is used. Eventually, great Vedanta teachers like Gauḍapāda, Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, Madhva come along, and their emphasis on the Upaniṣads and Vedānta Sūtras distanced the folk more and more from studying the Rig Veda and other Vedas for their intrinsic and original insight. The Samhitās were now seen as the Karma-kāṇḍa, in fact, as something almost bad for the final fate of the soul. I do realize that these teachers were all working within the frame of their society, when only Brahmins were allowed to perform yajñas and, therefore, to reduce the social inequality, they preached the non-essentiality of rituals for mokṣa.
In the modern era, several eminent persons have attempted to revive the Vedas by the Samhitā, Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka texts, with partial successes. Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Aurobindo and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy are three that have influenced me. The first, Dayanand Saraswati, I felt went a little too extreme in cutting out the texts other than the Samhitās. In fact, for his purpose of commenting on the Samhitā, the Brāhmaṇa texts are the most ancient and more authoritative commentary. They have preserved the original spirit of the Vedic metaphysics. Aurobindo, on the other hand, although he brought much enlightenment on the general greatness of the Vedic literature, was fond of quirky psychological interpretations of the gods in the Rig Veda. Such interpretations are a far deviation from the traditional Vedic theory. In this regard, I have found Ananda K. Coomaraswamy to be the closest to the spirit of the Vedas. His highly scholarly synthesis of various sources from the Samhitā, Brāhmaṇa, Āraṇyaka and Upaniṣad texts, all the while providing penetrating insight into the deepest symbolism is a treat to read in his works. I shall also write more about his conclusions in future posts.
