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A striking feature of the vedic verse or mantra is that it
yields several widely different interpretations. This is possible
because both common nouns like go, ashvaĥ, adri and the
proper nouns like Agni, Indra, Vŗtra, Vala, etc., yield two or
more meanings. Thus one can get different interpretations for the
same verse by assigning appropriate specific meanings for the
common and proper nouns occurring in the verse. This is true for
many verses, not just isolated ones. This feature is absent in
most languages. The appendix at the end of the book discusses this
aspect in some detail. For the vedic sages, every aspect of the external nature is a
symbol of an aspect of the supreme spirit, called as ekam sat,
That One. For instance go in common usage is the quadruped
animal cow. But for the vedic sages each go represented a
distinct ray of Light of the Supreme. Recall that root meaning for
deva deity is div, to shine. Thus even in later
literature, the animal cow was supposed to be the home of all the
Light or all the deities; so much so that even today in the
temples of the supreme deity Vişhņu, a cow is the first one every
morn to have the vision darshan of the deity Vişhņu
symbolizing that all the other deities want to have the darshan
of the Supreme One.
Similarly ashva is the horse which symbolizes strength and
all our vital energies, the energies associated with our
life-force prāņa.
Adri is commonly a hill or a mountain. Also it is a synonym
of cloud. It is the standard symbol of something that is hard and
unchanging, specifically a symbol of the forces of ignorance and
falsehood.Again take Sūrya, also known as savitŗ. Its
ordinary meaning is the physical sun in the sky, the solar orb.
But for the vedic sages, Sūrya represents the supreme deity, the
source of all Light, spiritual and physical, the deity who
supports the entire cosmos.
Again take the word rava, which means a sound or a cry. For
the vedic sages, it is the symbol of the primordial sound, mantra
which destroys all the forces of darkness.
Agni ordinarily means physical fire or the deity associated with
the fire. Psychologically it represents the Divine Will in man. In
the purāņa Indra is viewed as a nature-God, the God who
gives the rain by breaking the clouds denoted by Vŗtra. In the
symbolic sense, Indra is the lord of the divine mind who destroys
the demon of falsehood Vŗtra and releases all the energies or
waters, āpaĥ trapped by the demon. Ordinarily vajra
means the thunderbolt with its Light and sound occurring on a
rainy day. In the spiritual sense, it is the power of divine Light
and Sound which destroys falsehood and releases on the earth the
trapped divine energies.
Sri Aurobindo recovered the symbolism in Rigveda and published
them in the journal arya during 1914-1919. Now we will
give some specific examples using only phrases of verses.
Verse (1.7.3)gobhiĥ adrim airayat
go: cow, water (Sāyaņa), ray of knowledge
adri: cloud, force of ignoranc
airayat: destroy
Translation 1: (Indra) destroys the forces of ignorance with the
knowledge.
Translation 2: (Indra) charged the clouds with water [Sāyaņa].
Translation 3: (Indra) smashed the hill for getting the cows
[Griffith].
Translation 1 is the esoteric interpretation. It is difficult to
understand the translation 3. Supposedly the cows are hidden in
the caves by robbers. By smashing the hill, even the cows are
destroyed along with the hill. Translation 2 is acceptable but
where is the wisdom in it?
Verse (1.53.4)
nirundhano amatim gobhir ashvina;
nirundhano: dispel
amatim: ignorance, poverty [Sāyaņa]
gobhir: Light, cows
ashvina: Life-energy, horses
Translation 1: Dispel our ignorance using the Light and Life
energies.
Translation 2: Dispel our poverty by (giving us) cows and horses.
(Sāyaņa)
Sāyaņa does not tell us how he assigns the meaning poverty
for amati.
Verse (1.36.4)
O Agni, the Gods Varuņa, Mitra and Aryamān fully kindle you.
(Sāyaņa)
This verse clearly implies that Agni is not a physical fire
kindled by the human priests, but is kindled in a human by the
cosmic powers Mitra and Varuņa, the lords of harmony and vastness.
We
have focused here on isolated phrases. The question is: does the
spiritual interpretation or the naturalist interpretation give
coherence for the entire verse or the entire hymn having several
verses. We show in the next section that when we analyze all the
alternative interpretations, the coherence of the spiritual
interpretation is impressive.
Summing up, the meaning of these mantrās is twofold. The
inner which is psychological or spiritual, is in reality the true
meaning. This secret was known to the rişhis and to their
disciples who were initiated by great rişhis and instructed
in the inner yajňa occurring in the subtle body through
disciplines of inner purification etc. Consecrating all of
themselves to the Gods and receiving their gifts in return, by
their progression into the summits of the spirit they obtained the
riches of knowledge that pertain to the worlds and those that
relate to the Gods devāĥ.
The outer meaning acts as a cloak for preserving the inner meaning
from exposure to the persons not prepared for that practice.
It follows that we accept the interpretation of the great
commentator Sāyaņa as giving the exoteric side or the externals of
the vedic worship and deities; we do feel that in many places the
explanation of a phrase, a line or a rik given by Sāyaņa is
not useful even for his own purposes.
In the appendix we have several essays on the relation between a
word and its meaning, the development of the multiple meanings for
the same word and related topics.
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