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Ŗbhus
The Ŗbhus are
humans who have attained divinity by their askesis. There are
about ten hymns in the RV addressed to the Ŗbhus. It
is said that they are the sons of Sudhanvan Angirasa. Some
say that they are Solar Rays. To us both are acceptable. The
Truth, the Supreme Light, is denoted in the Veda by the
Sun. A human being is inert because of his material body. Rays of
Sun, manifestations of the Consciousness, descending on this field
of Matter, gross and inert, uplift man. And these very Ŗbhus
become special powers of man by virtue of his development; and man
becomes immortal by a Divine Birth, effected by that special
power.
How then are
they spoken of as sons of Sudhanvan? Dhanva is the arid
land, a field with no water, denoting inertness, sheer matter just
as the Hill is the place where cows are hidden or denotes darkness
that covers the Waters. The arid land acquires splendour by
accepting the descending Divine Rays and absorbing the higher
essence. Then it blooms forth the glory of the Ŗbhus as
Sudhanvan (fair arid land).
Having attained
to divinity by virtue of their action and knowledge, these deities
work to help man to attain to divinity. And whatever acts they do
they become divine acts only. The actions of the Ŗbhus are
mentioned in symbolic language only. It is clear that without
resort to the hidden symbolic meaning, it is not possible to
explain in a straight manner these hymns that are like riddles. We
will demonstrate further on.
Ŗbhu, Vibhva,
Vāja{ these three are spoken of. The singular denotes their
collectivity. And due to their association all are indicated by
the word Ŗbhu, the eldest of them. The specialty of each of the
three is celebrated by the name itself. By means of intellect and
activity, Ŗbhu, the eldest, builds the forms conforming to
the qualities of Immortality. Vibhava brings about its
extension. Vāja effects the plenitude of the Divine Light
and Substance. They are called the carpenters, the artisans of
immortality for man.
Artisans of Immortality (RV 1.20)
1. Lo,
the affirmation made for the divine Birth with the breath of the
mouth by illumined minds, that gives perfectly the bliss;
2.
Even they who fashioned by the mind for Indra his two bright
steeds that are yoked by Speech, and they enjoy the sacrifice by
their accomplishings of the work.
3.
They fashioned for the twin lords of the voyage their happy car of
the all-pervading movement, they fashioned the fostering cow that
yields the sweet milk.
4. O
Ŗbhus, in your pervasion you made young again the Parents, you who
seek the straight path and have the Truth in your mentalisings.
5. The
raptures of the wine come to you entirely, to you with Indra
companioned by the Maruts and with the Kings, the sons of Aditi.
6. And
this bowl of Twashtri new and perfected you made again into four.
7. So
establish for us the thrice seven ecstasies, each separately by
perfect expressings of them.
8.
They sustained and held in them, they divided by perfection in
their works the sacrificial share of the enjoyment among the Gods.
COMMENTARY
The Ŗbhus, it has been suggested, are rays of the Sun. And it is
true that like Varuņa, Mitra, Bhaga and Aryamān they are powers of
the solar Light, the Truth. But their special character in the
Veda is that they are artisans of Immortality. They are
represented as human beings who have attained to the condition of
godhead by power of knowledge and perfection in their works. Their
function is to aid Indra in raising man towards the same state of
divine light and bliss which they themselves have earned as their
own divine privilege. The hymns addressed to them in the Veda are
few and to the first glance exceedingly enigmatical; for they are
full of certain figures and symbols always repeated. But once the
principal clues of the Veda are known, they become on the contrary
exceedingly clear and simple and present a coherent and
interesting idea which sheds a clear light on the Vedic gospel of
immortality.
The Ŗbhus are powers of the Light who have descended into Matter
and are there born as human faculties aspiring to become divine
and immortal. In this character they are called children of
Sudhanwan, a patronymic which is merely a parable of their birth
from the full capacities of Matter touched by the luminous energy.
But in their real nature they are descended from this luminous
Energy and are sometimes so addressed, "Offspring of Indra,
grandsons of luminous Force" (4.37.4). For Indra, the divine mind
in man, is born out of luminous Force as is Agni out of pure
Force, and from Indra the divine Mind spring the human aspirations
after Immortality.
The names of the three Ŗbhus are, in the order of their birth,
ŗbhu or ŗbhuksan, the skilful Knower or the Shaper in
knowledge, vibhva or vibhu, the Pervading, the
self-diffusing, and vaja, the Plenitude. Their names
indicate their special nature and function, but they are really a
trinity, and therefore, although usually termed the Ŗbhus, they
are also called the Vibhus and Vajas. Ŗbhu, the eldest is the
first in man who begins to shape by his thoughts and works the
forms of immortality; Vibhwa gives pervasiveness to this working;
Vaja, the youngest, supplies the plenitude of the divine light and
substance by which the complete work can be done. These works and
formations of immortality they effect, it is continually repeated,
by the force of Thought, with the mind for field and material;
they are done with power; they are attended by a perfection in the
creative and effective act, svapasyaya, sukrtyaya, which is
the condition of the working out of Immortality. These formations
of the artisans of Immortality are, as they are briefly summarised
in the hymn before us, the horses of Indra, the car of the Ashvins,
the Cow that gives the sweet milk, the youth of the universal
Parents, the multiplication into four of the one drinking-bowl of
the gods originally fashioned by Twashtri, the Framer of things.
The hymn opens with an indication of its objective. It is an
affirmation of the power of the Ŗbhus made for the divine Birth,
made by men whose minds have attained to illumination and possess
that energy of the Light from which the Ŗbhus were born. It is
made by the breath of the mouth, the life-power in the world. Its
object is to confirm in the human soul the entire delight of the
Beatitude, the thrice seven ecstasies of the divine Life. This
divine Birth is represented by the Ŗbhus who, once human, have
become immortal. By their accomplishings of the work, the great
work of upward human evolution which is the summit of the
world-sacrifice, - they have gained in that sacrifice their divine
share and privilege along with the divine powers. They are the
sublimated human energies of formation and upward progress who
assist the gods in the divinising of man. And of all their
accomplishings that which is central is the formation of the two
brilliant horses of Indra, the horses yoked by speech to their
movements, yoked by the Word and fashioned by the mind. For the
free movement of the luminous mind, the divine mind in man, is the
condition of all other immortalising works.
The second work of the Ŗbhus is to fashion the chariot of the
Ashvins, lords of the human journey, - the happy movement of the
Ananda in man which pervades with its action all his worlds or
planes of being, bringing health, youth, strength, wholeness to
the physical man, capacity of enjoyment and action to the vital,
glad energy of the light to the mental being, - in a word, the
force of the pure delight of being in all his members.
The third work of the Ŗbhus is to fashion the cow who gives the
sweet milk. It is said elsewhere that this cow has been delivered
out of its covering skin, - the veil of Nature's outward movement
and action, - by the Ŗbhus. The fostering cow herself is she of
the universal forms and universal impetus of movement,
visvajuvam visvarupam, in other words she is the first
Radiance, Aditi, the infinite Consciousness of the infinite
conscious Being which is the mother of the worlds. That
consciousness is brought out by the Ŗbhus from the veiling
movement of nature and a figure of her is fashioned here in us by
them. She is, by the action of the powers of the duality,
separated from her offspring, the soul in the lower world; the
Ŗbhus restore it to constant companionship with its infinite
mother.
Another great work of the Ŗbhus is - in the strength of their
previous deeds, of the light of Indra, the movement of the
Ashvins, the full yield of the fostering Cow - to restore youth to
the aged Parents of the world, Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the
mental consciousness, Earth the physical. These in their union are
represented as lying long -old and prostrate like fallen
sacrificial posts, worn-out and suffering. The Ŗbhus, it is said,
ascend to the house of the Sun where he lives in the unconcealed
splendour of his Truth and there slumbering for twelve days
afterwards traverse the heaven and the earth, filling them with
abundant rain of the streams of Truth, nourishing them, restoring
them to youth and Vigour. They pervade heaven with their workings,
they bring divine increase to the mentality, they give to it and
the physical being a fresh and young and immortal movements. For
from the home of the Truth they bring with them the perfection of
that which is the condition of their work, the movement in the
straight path of the Truth and the Truth itself with its absolute
effectivity in all the thoughts and words of the mentality.
Carrying this power with them in their pervading entry into the
lower world, they pour into it the immortal essence.
It is the wine of that immortal essence with its ecstasies which
they win by their works and bring with them to man in his
sacrifice. And with them come and sit Indra and the Maruts, the
divine Mind and its Thought-forces, and the four great Kings, sons
of Aditi, children of the Infinite, Varuņa, Mitra, Aryamān, Bhaga,
the purity and vastness of the Truth-Consciousness, its law of
love and light and harmony, its power and aspiration, its pure and
happy enjoyment of things.
And there at the sacrifice the gods drink in the fourfold bowl,
chamasam chaturvayam, the pourings of the nectar. For
Twashtri, the Framer of things, has given man originally only a
single bowl, the physical consciousness, the physical body in
which to offer the delight of existence to the gods. The Ŗbhus,
powers of luminous knowledge, take it as renewed and perfected by
Twashtri's latter workings and build up in him from the material
of the four planes three other bodies, vital, mental and the
causal or ideal body.
Because they have made this fourfold cup of bliss and enabled him
thereby to live on the plane of the Truth-Consciousness they are
able to establish in the perfected human being the thrice seven
ecstasies of the supreme existence poured into the mind, vitality
and body. Each of these they can give perfectly by the full
expression of its separate absolute ecstasy even in the
combination of the whole.
The Ŗbhus have power to support and contain all these floods of
the delight of being in the human consciousness; and they are able
to divide it in the perfection of their works among the manifested
gods, to each god his sacrificial share. For such perfect division
is the whole condition of the effective sacrifice, the perfect
work.
Such are the
Ŗbhus and they are called to the human sacrifice to fashion for
man the things of immortality even as they fashioned them for
themselves. "He becomes full of plenitude and strength for the
labour, he becomes a rişhi by power of self expression, he becomes
a hero and a smiter hard to pierce in the battles, he holds in
himself increase of bliss and entire energy whom Vaja and Vibhwa,
the Ŗbhus foster.... For you are seers and thinkers
clear-discerning; as such with this thought of our soul we declare
to you out knowledge. Do you in your knowledge moving about our
thoughts fashion for us all human enjoyings, - luminous plenitude
and fertilizing force and supreme felicity. Here issue, here
felicity, here a great energy of inspiration fashion for us in
your delight. Give to us, O Ŗbhus, that richly-varied plenitude by
which we shall awaken in our consciousness to things beyond
ordinary men."
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