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Freedom is a key idea in RV; all persons whatever their external
condition-men, women, married couples, householders, wandering
mendicants and so on have a right to tread the paths of
immortality. RV does not impose any rigid external prerequisites.
RV itself does not debar anyone from reading or following RV. RV
even allows the voice of the skeptic who does not believe in the
existence of devās. In RV (8.100.3), a skeptic declares “who is
Indra, who has ever seen him''. The rişhi gives a
reasonable reply in the next verse RV (8.100.4) without invoking
any threat of punishment in this world or the punishment in the
life after death.
RV has no conception of a hell into which all its critics are
cast. There is no great divide between the so called spiritual
life and wordly life as in later times. According to RV, every
being, not just the human being, develops according to his/her own
self-law svadha. RV does not speak of a Cosmic Controller who
controls all beings, himself staying outside of them. Every human
being has to become aware of this self-law and follow the path of
immortality unique to him/her. In this learning process, the help
of the devās is ever there.
Knowledge constitutes the bulk of RV. The range of knowledge
contained in it is so vast and so different from more traditional
types of knowledge found in the books like purāņās making
it very hard to get a comprehensive view of the RV. It reminds one
of the proverbial blind person trying to generalise the physical
form of an elephant touching only one particular part of the
animal like its rope-like trunk, the iron-like tusk, leaf-like ear
etc. As a first step, we can group the verses under several
categories like cosmology and cosmogony, human beings and
psychology, the role of devās like Agni, evil, suffering
and conflicts, everyday life, the paths of immortality and so on.
The knowledge in RV is integral. It is not divided into several
rigid compartments. The knowledge is like a vast net in which each
topic is intimately connected to every other topic. Take any verse
dealing with one of the topics mentioned above.
This verse brings in many other topics also. Similarly
every dominant aspect of human personality is intimately connected
to the corresponding one in the cosmos. All the realms of mental
operations in a man like thinking, intellect, meditation,
concentration and so on, are associated with the cosmic world
dyu, Heaven. Therefore when a person is thinking, he is in
touch with the cosmic world of Heaven. Since all human beings are
in touch with the same world, we see here a neat explanation of
the phenomenon of simultaneous discoveries by persons in different
continents. Again every human action also has a cosmic dimension.
In every action we see the dominant contribution of the devās.
Thus both devās and humans are collaborators or creators in
all activities. Eventually every human being can achieve the
perfection natural to a cosmic power deva. This
comprehensiveness of knowledge distinguishes RV from all other
spiritual books.
Verses like RV (1.10.2) clearly state that the knowledge is
infinite like a vast mountain with many peaks and valleys. The
acquisition of knowledge by each individual is unique. No two
paths are same. As (1.10.2) describes elegantly, we cannot
envision all the details in one step. From one peak only certain
details are available. We have to go to a higher peak to get more
details.
The analogy of knowledge acquisition to mountain climbing appears
for the first time in modern times, in books dealing with the
theoretical Physics only at the beginning of twentieth century.
Such comprehensiveness of knowledge is possible because the
Supreme Divine or God, the One without a Second, pervades all
existence, both living and non-living. There are many verses
describing the spiritual presence of the transcendent God as well
as of the God immanent in all existence. Both RV and the
Upanishads use the same word Vaishvānara, the Universal
Divine Forces, to describe the immanence of God in all aspects of
creation ranging from stone to herbs to man. Again the idea of
devās, the distinct powers and personalities of the One,
conscious of Truth is described both at an individual level such
as Agni, Indra and also at the collective level as
All-Gods Vishvedevāh. |
