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Rigveda Samhita has been ignored or vigorously criticized by
several groups, based on mistranslation or misrepresentation of
isolated verses in the Rigveda. According to one group, Rigveda
Samhita is a book of rituals with only occasional wisdom in it;
only the Upanishads can be termed as the earliest books of
Hinduism to deal with wisdom. This group includes several
traditionalists and also distinguished academics like
Radhakrishnan and Zehner who do not claim to be experts in the
Veda. My reply is as follows; None of the critics can point to a
single hymn in RV out of its 1017 hymns which gives the details of
a rite or ritual. For instance, Agni, which is translated as fire
in the altar, is mentioned in several hundred verses. If we read
carefully all these verses and study all the descriptive epithets
in them, we see that Agni is a cosmic power who performs all the
actions as stated in RV (1.1.1). There is no mention of human
priests lighting Agni. The hymn (1.44) explicitly states that the
cosmic powers Mitra and Varuņa kindle Agni, a psychological
power in the subtle body of human beings.
Regarding the Upanishads, it is interesting to note that many of
the famous quotations of Upanishads are contained in the Rigveda.
The most famous concept of Upanishads namely ekam sat, the
One Existence, is already found in RV (1.164.49). The famous verse
of Mundaka Upanishad comparing the human soul and the
Divine to a pair of birds is found in RV (1.164.45). The phrase,
“all human beings are children of immortality, amŗtasya putrāĥ”,
quoted frequently by Swami Vivekananda is often ascribed to
sveteshvatāra Upanishad.
But it actually
occurs in RV (10.13.1). We shall add more information
later.
The second group of critics traces the problems of modern Hindu
society such as untouchability, casteism etc., to this ancient
book. This criticism has absolutely no support from the text of
the Rigveda Samhita or any other Vedic book; SYV (26.2) and the RV
(9.63.5). As a matter of fact, the Vedic books explicitly state
that the Vedic knowledge should be given to all including
Shūdrās and strangers.
Moreover, in every society all over the globe, there is a huge gap
between the ideals propounded by various religions in these
societies and the actual practices. Attacking only the scriptures
of Hinduism on this basis but keeping silent on the gap between
the theory and practice in other religions in other societies is
nothing but intellectual dishonesty.
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