Apart from the famous Gāyatri mantra, the Sandhya worship mantrās and the Puruşha sūkta, the most popularly known part of all the four Vedas is the litany to Rudra-Shiva, shatarudrīya or namaka hymn in TS (4.5). Its glory is praised in many Upanishads and it is regarded as an Upanishad in the list of 108 Upanishads.

If the most famous part of Kāņda 4 is the litany in Prapāţhaka 5, i.e., (4.5), then why is it not placed in the beginning? The explanation of the ritualists is that the first four Prapāţhakās (4.1) through (4.4) describe the ritual of the construction of the fire-altar with bricks of various types. Only after the fire-altar is ready, can the ritual involving (4.5) be performed. For the ritualists, there is nothing special about the ritual involving the Prapāţhaka (4.5). The commentator S regards all the mantrās in (4.5) as addressed to Agni.

But the explanation given by the ritualists for the Kāņda 4 is very superficial. For instance what can we make of the statement occurring in (4.4.1) namely, “may these bricks (işhţaka) become milch-cows (dhenavaĥ)''; this passage is repeated in many places. How can bricks become cows?

The focus in this book is the antar-yajňa or internal yajňa occurring in our body all the time. From the view of internal yajňa, what is the overall message of the Kāņda 4? What is the essence of each one of the seven Prapāţhakās in it? Is there a justification for the appearance of the Shatarudrīya in the fifth Prapāţhaka instead of in the beginning? All these questions will be answered here.

Essence of Kāņda 4

All mantrās of the TS, specifically those of Kāņda 4, espouse a special type of yoga called here as the Vedic yoga, whose essence is the inner yajňa. TS mentions in many places that this yajňa is a journey.

A common synonym for yajňa is adhvara which means a journey (adhva: path, ra: movement). The aim of the Vedic yoga is to establish an all-sided perfection in both the individual and the society. The focus here is on the development of the inner potential, i.e., that connected with inner physical body, with the prāņa energy, those connected with our mental and supramental energies. From the inner development follows the development of our outer physical body and the outer aspects visible to the eyes and the senses. This perfection cannot be instantaneous. This upward journey involves seven steps or stages, each Prapāţhaka is one step in the journey.

Who journeys? It is the soul of the seeker with all the associated prāņa energies and the subtle bodies which travels to the World of Light (svar). In the Veda, the standard symbol for the soul is the bird (shyena, hawk). It is the bird that goes to the heaven, perfects all its energies and organs and returns to earth in its divinised condition.

The anuvāka (4.1.1) quotes RV (10.13.1) to stress that each one of us is a child of immortality. Attaining the divine perfection is our birthright.

Method: What is the main tool in this inward journey?

A fundamental idea in the Veda is the creative power of the Vedic word or mantra. The entire manifestation of the cosmos was the result of the mantrās. Similarly ŗşhīs realised that every mantra recited with the appropriate metre (chhandas), rhythm or chant along with the understanding of its meaning results in a creative act with a high degree of perfection. That is why the ŗşhīs were called as world-builders (loka kŗt, RV 9.86.21, 10.133.1). See (4.3.10) and (4.3.11) in this Prapāţhaka.

There are many varieties of chants or recitation. A mantra of Rig Veda is called a ŗk mantra and it is in one of several metres (such as Gāyatri, Anuşhţub etc.). The total number of syllables in it determines each metre.

A Sāma Veda mantra is a ŗk mantra with more elaborate reciting notation. A Stoma is a chant of the Sāma mantra with additional syllables added and sung in an elaborate way according to specific rules. If a ŗk mantra recitation takes one unit of time, the same text sung as a stoma may take ten to twenty units of time. Sri Aurobindo labels these stoma chants as hymns of affirmation because they affirm or complete the development initiated by the ŗk mantrās.

These chants play an important role in the development of the subtle body and its powers.

Note that a mere mechanical chant will not yield any results. A CD player plays the chant perfectly, it will remain a CD player and will not become divinised. Only a person who chants with faith knowing its meaning and focussing his awareness makes progress. A person makes mistakes in chanting because he is partly unconscious during the process. Recall that Rig Veda states that there are four levels of speech namely para, pashyanti, madhyama and vaikhāri. The human ear hears the last one. But for the power of the word to manifest in us, the speech must originate in the higher levels, madhyama and above.

Brief overview of the seven Prapāţhakās

The cosmic power who leads our journey is Agni, the power of aspiration. The whole Prapāţhaka (4.1) deals with the method of establishing Agni with us and stabilising his presence.

The body and mind have to be prepared to bear the force of the Agni being kindled; otherwise the body may break like an unbaked jar (atāptatanu) as stated in RV (9.83.1). The Prapāţhaka (4.2) deals with the various steps needed for this stabilisation process. The titles of the eleven anuvākās give clues to their contents. The kindled Agni is compared to the swan (hamsa). The symbolism of hamsa is described in the famous hamsa mantra (4.2.1).

The Prapāţhakās (4.3) and (4.4) deal with the development of our subtle body. Currently our abilities and the qualities of the tasks we perform are limited because the relevant psychological powers like sustained attention, creativity, inspiration, memory, discernment and discrimination etc., have not developed to a great extent. Development of the subtle body means the development of abilities to manifest these powers and hold them within.

These two Prapāţhakās synthesise a variety of knowledge including the role of cosmic creation, the four yugās, the ŗşhīs, the four types of wealth etc. The names of yugās or ŗshīs are not the same as in the popular purāņās. They are summarised in the four tables (4.3.2), (4.3.3), (4.4.2) and (4.4.3). The details about the development of subtle body given here are found nowhere else in the entire Hindu spiritual and religious literature.

The fifth Prapāţhaka (4.5) is the famous Shatarudrīya or namaka hymn to Rudra-Shiva.

Again the recitation of this part introduces new energies into the subtle body and the body has to be stabilised to hold these energies. This is the purpose of the sixth Prapāţhaka (4.6). This section has a natural division into two parts. The first part consisting of six anuvākās deals with the manifestation of the Gods both in the universe and within us. The suktās RV (10.81) and RV (10.82) dealing with creation are reproduced here. By hewing new paths, Agni guides our ascent to the higher levels of consciousness; finally Agni's work is complete. Yajamāna manifests in himself the ŗtam (the Truth in movement). The Gods literally attend on the yajamāna.

The last three anuvākās, constituting the second part, deal with the perfection of the life-force, prāņa, in us. All the mantrās of the two sūktās of RV namely RV (1.162) and RV (1.163) dealing with the praise of the life-force, Ashva, is given here; clearly from all the epithets, the Ashva is not a four legged animal but the life-force. RV (1.163) begins with the statement, ‘You are born in the Sun'. Verse (163.12) states that the life-force is meditating and wants to reach the world of Gods, become purified and then return to earth. There is no question of the killing the horse.

After the recitation of the Rudra litany in (4.5) and carrying out the strengthening of the subtle body and the life-force through the hymns in (4.6), we are ready for the final goal of the Kāņda 4 namely achieving all-round perfection. This is achieved in (4.7) in two stages. The first stage consists of the first eleven anuvākās termed vasor-dhara or chame hymn, i.e., the shower of the riches of various vital and mental powers.

The first eleven anuvākās (4.7) give a list of qualities or powers, each of which ends with the word cha me; the phrase yajňena kalpatām occurring in the ninth and tenth anuvākās is understood to be applicable for all; cha me yajňena kalpatām means, “May that quality or property or power become manifest in me or become perfect in me''. Clearly yajňa here is not a mere outer ritual. The root word yaj has the meanings of worship, gathering or developing, giving. By performing the inner yajňa, we gather or develop in us the powers associated with cosmic Gods like Indra, Agni. By giving, we mean self-offering, the offering (symbolic) of all we have to the divine. Thus by this continuous interaction of giving and receiving with the cosmic powers, all the psychological powers in us develop and become perfected. See also (1.6.6) and (1.6.12) in volume 1 on the role of yajňa in attaining perfection.

The second stage consists of the anuvākās 12 and 13 dealing with the birth of the plenitude, the birth of all types of energies in plenty. The program concludes with the prayers of thanksgiving to various deities in anuvākās 14 and 15.

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