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The earliest explanations of the mantra
Samhitās are in the Brāhmaņa books which date at least a thousand
years later (i.e., around 3500 BCE). Even though the Brāhmaņa
books give in general a ritualist explanation of mantrās, in
places they clearly mention the spiritual interpretation. For
instance Aitareya Brāhmaņa declares that "yūpa, the
sacrificial altar (i.e., the altar on which the animals are
sacrificed) is really the yajamāna or the performer himself". The next commentary we have is due to Yāska
(Circa 1000 BCE or earlier). He comments in detail on a hundred
sūktās of Rigveda. He first vigorously answers the critics of
Veda like Kautsa who declared that Veda had no meaning. He then
declares that Veda has at least thrice levels of meaning namely
- the
physical or naturalistic (ādibhautic) interpretation in
which the various cosmic powers like Agni, Indra are regarded as
the physical powers of nature such as fire, rain etc.
- the
interpretation (ādidaivic) of Veda as rituals or prayers
for the popular deities like Agni, Indra etc., here yajňa is
viewed as external rites to please the deities who will give them
favours.
- The
spiritual, psychological interpretation (adhyātmic) in
which everything both within man and cosmos is viewed as one
aspect of the Supreme One.
The next commentator (later than
Yāska) is Shaunaka, author of Brihad Devata which explains some
verses of Rig Veda.
But the most influential person in the first millennium BCE and
later is Jaimini, the famous author of Mīmāmsa sūtrās. He
convinced his contemporaries and later scholars that the purpose
of Veda was the performance of external rituals only. The Veda
mantrās have no other meaning. This view was accepted even by the
great Vedāntin Shankara Āchārya who declared that the wisdom is
contained only in the Upanishad books and not in the Veda mantrās.
Shankara does not mention that some of the famous mantrās of
Upanishads are already in the Veda Samhitās.
The great medieval scholar Sāyaņa
Āchārya (14th Century CE) wrote a voluminous commentary on all the
Veda Samhitā books and several Brāhmaņa books. He focuses entirely
on the rituals and gives detailed quotes from the books which give
the details of the performance of rites like the Bodhayāna Shrauta
Sūtrās etc. He does not deny the spiritual viewpoint, but this is
not his interest. Nowadays most of the English books on the
outline of Hindu scriptures such as those of Rādhakrishnan or
Zehner declare blindly that mantra Samhitās deal only with
rituals.
There are many other commentaries of
Rigveda such as those of Venkatamadhava, Skandasvāmin,
Ānandatīrtha etc., which are ignored by and large.
But the commentary of some interest to us is that by Ānandatīrtha
or Madhvāchārya (13th century CE), the founder of the dualistic
school of Vedānta. His commentary in Samskŗt deals only with the
first forty sūktās of Rigveda. He stresses the ādhyātmic
interpretation which is expanded in the works of the disciples
of his school namely Jayatīrtha and Rāghavendra Swami. Swami
Dayananda Sarasvati (19th Century CE) also wrote a commentary on
Rigveda upholding the idea that Veda deals with dharma. In
the latter part of 19th century we have two complete translations
of Rigveda namely that of Wilson (based on Sāyaņa commentary) and
that of R.T.H. Griffith. Swamy Satyananda published a ten volume
English translation of Rigveda based on the commentary of
Dayananda.
The exegesis and translations of Sri Aurobindo focus on the
spiritual and psychological interpretation. Two of his books on
the Veda are 'The Secret of the Veda' and 'The Hymns to the Mystic
Fire'. The latter book gives the translation of most of the
sūktās dedicated to Agni. Sri Aurobindo has translated over
four hundred sūktās out of the thousand. His disciple T.V.
Kapāli Sāstry gave a Bhāshya or commentary in Samskŗt on the first
121 suktās of Rig Veda focusing on the spiritual
Interpretation. He answers in detail the questions raised both the
medieval critics as well as the moderns like Professor
Radhakrishna.
For the Krişhņa Yajurvedas we have
Sanskrit commentary of Sāyaņa and the Bhatta Bhāskara (who is
prior to Sāyaņa) and the English translation of B. Keith. All of
them are ritualistic. For the Shukla Yajurveda, there are the
commentaries of Uvvata and Mahidara and the English translation of
R.T.H. Griffith, all of them being ritualistic. Swami Dayananda
has given a Bhāshya on Shukla Yajur Veda viewing it as a book of
Dharma. Devi Chand has given a summary translation of the verses
of Shukla Yajur Veda based on Dayananda commentary.
There is the English translation of
Sāmaveda by Stevenson and that of the Atharvaveda by Whitney.
Mention should be made also of the
compilations of Vedic hymns and their translations done by
Raimundo Pannikar, Abinash Bose and Macdonnel. The book of essays
by Ananda Coomaraswamy entitled "An Interpretation of Veda"
focuses on the spiritual meaning of the Veda and offers a vigorous
critique of the some of the Western translations of Veda Samhitās.
M.P. Pandit discusses the problem of Vedic interpretation in his
several books. A.B. Purani in his 'Studies in Vedic
Interpretation' gives a detailed comparison of the translations of
Sri Aurobindo and those of Sāyaņa Āchārya.
Professor S.K. Ramachandra Rao has
discussed the problem of Vedic interpretation in great detail in
his ten volumes of 'Rigveda Darshana'. He gives extensive Sanskrit
quotations from the work of Yāska, Shaunaka, Ānandatīrtha, Sāyaņa
and also lesser known works which are very interesting.
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