Chapter 2Mandala Two
Book 4. Part Four: Vedic Notes
[9]
[RV II.1.1–2]
II.1 1.
Rt
to blaze, shine (cf
), to be bright and so also to be pure; brightness, clearness and cleanness are easily associated ideas. In the Vedic use of
,
, even I think for , the ideas of light and purity are, I think, always or almost always blended. “Thou art he who blazest up with thy lustres”, or, with the idea of purity carried in the action, “Thou art he who burnest out in the purity of thy illuminations.” In the physical sense, the fire of lightning, the fire struck out from the flints or from Indra’s thunderbolt, the fire burning from the fuel or perhaps the forest fire. In the psychological, the fire of the seven sacred rivers, the fire from the thunderbolt of Indra, the fire that feeds on the material of the physical and vital life.
. This may mean “from the stone all round”, but more naturally it means “thou art born about (all round) the thunderbolt”. For
in this sense of [incomplete]
— cf
etc.
may mean men =
, but more probably the gods. Agni is
lord of the divine Purushas, as he is later addressed
, possessor of the divine Prakritis.
2.
S. seems to take this in the sense of
. It is rather the office of Potˆa etc performed according to the right seasons. * . Here is one of the passages in which
may very readily be taken in the sense of sacrifice; but we are bound by the psychological [incomplete]
Thou, O Flame, blazest out into purity, thou with thy illumi-nations; thou from the waters, thou enringing the thunderbolt, thou from the pleasant growths and warmths of earth art born in thy light of purity, O master of the godheads.
[10]
[RV II.5, 3.1–2]
Notes on Veda.
II.5. Important hymn indicating the symbolic nature of the Vedic sacrifice & priesthood. Agni as the sevenfold priest of the sacrifice. The Sisters & the Mother’s sister evident as symbolical figures. Connection of the Brahmans with the Brahman — the Eighth Ray in man the mental being. The Seven Rays & the (Seven) Cows — (sisters) ascending from the domains of the three to the Highest (Varnam .. Varam)
is interpreted by Sayana in its etymological significance, a becoming, creature,
; he does not accept the ordinary sense, world. But to arrive at this original poverty of meaning we have to get rid of the plain & natural sense of other words also & to disregard the connections of thought in the Veda. Eg II.3.1
where the natural sense is that Agni placed in the earth (the physical world) rises up fronting all the other worlds, the Rajas, Div, the other heavens. This sense is confirmed by the second rik.
. Mighty in his manifestation brightening those seats by his reflected lustres (),
, brilliantly luminous in his greatness towards the three heavens. Evidently
..
..
refer to the same conception.
[11]
[RV II.30–34]
II.30. The Enemy — The Patron.
“
” = movement.
= strength cf
army ,
= to cut 2 “ ” rivers —
= to rush, sweep, not tremble. Therefore the Maruts are rushers,
,
, sweepers on of things. “
” goal of movement — — rain or mist cf
(Maruts) VIII.7.4 (
) stone =
— (5) “
” for Vritra, but may here mean Strong one — 4-5 “
” to be killed “
” “
” all by the stone of heaven hurled down from above.
4 ‘ ’ of the ‘ ’ as a name of Indra — not altogether conclusive.
5 “
”
= wealth.
— either force
(will-power) or sacrifice —
- ‘ ’
— “wealthy” or “rapturous” in connection with Soma. ‘
’ in connection with 7 ‘The Patron —
= the god or inner power — of the Sacrifice’ ‘
’ to be darkness or inertia cf 8.9.10. “The Enemy” Saraswati “” slays the enemies of whom the chief is that famous
, evidently Vritra, slain by Indra.
Brihaspati makes visible, manifests or else discerns, distin-guishes
& slays them himself
(
) which can only mean the vajra. He who hurts man is to be exposed on all sides to
. These spiritual enemies are to be slain
(
),
& their wealth brought. Obviously the Cows etc. & the wealth is to be 9 “
” either “trying to conquer”
or to slay or else “constant” or else “trying to save” but this is improbable
cf v. 7 Why
? Because they are
II.32.2 10 ‘
’ cf like the Angiras Rishis, Indra’s fighters.
. Probably
to sweep, drive away — “swept along in rout”
11 ‘
’ here seems to be “the heavenly people”
. We have seen that the heroes are the heroic powers which slay the spiritual enemy. This then means a spiritual wealth full of all kinds of heroic energies — all that are needed for the victory.
must therefore be spiritual offspring of the
, children of our works, &
“having the
or divine hearing, inspiration, knowledge”.
2 Vritra, Aditi, the Waters. 3 Indra, Vritra. 4 Brihaspati, Indra, Vritra. 5 Indra 6 Indra, Soma 7 Indra 8 Saraswati Marutvati, Indra 9 Brihaspati or Indra & Brihaspati. 10 Brihaspati. 11 Maruts.
II.31.
1 Image of the birds around the nest with double meaning — “birds” and “births in the being, souls”
= home, dwelling-place, the nest of the birds, the embodied being of the man.
.
= the call of the birds (cf
), their joyous cries, and the voices of the truth; the divine hearing “sitting on the trees” and “taking up their abode in the delight”.
= Lat. venus — cf
etc.
— “seeking plenty” of the wealth — cf 3.
feet, hooves of the horses, lit. organ of action — to act, deal — cf Tamil
, Gr. ponos, Lat. penis. ‘’ = “path” or “trampling” “ ” cannot mean “protect”, it is “advance upward”
— increasings, not torn to pieces by the ene-mies, the
of II.30.
. S.
; but
surely gov-erns
, and is not its object, perhaps it means, he who cleaves to, embraces the world to enjoy it. Twashtri is the Deva as Maker, Lord and Enjoyer of the world through the female energies,
— the image of the Vrishabha & the Cows, the Lord and the Wife or Wives always present in the Veda. “ ”. Sayana takes as an epithet of
; but it seems rather to be the wife of the A¸cwins, Suryˆa. Otherwise there is no meaning in the
; the A¸cwins, the two husbands, being a hardly possible locution without any indication of the wife.
may be of either gender. It means either “many-thoughted”, (Suryˆa is the daughter or active female power resultant from Surya, the Lord of the Truth, the Light), or “holder of the house”,
, (the house is the embodied being of man).
5 The next three verses present more than one difficulty of both sense & syntax, but Sayana’s solutions seem to be unacceptable. Sayana supposes the hymn to be a prayer to the Vi¸cvadevas to join in and favour with their impelling force an armed expedition with “food” as its object. He takes
,
,
,
all in the sense of food, but is obliged to take
in 7. not as food, but strength since both
&
cannot convey one & the same idea. This is enough to show that he is wrong either about
there or about
in the two earlier verses. None of these words need have the significance he gives it.
as a hundred passages of the Veda prove means wealth, plenty — means “knowledge” that comes to the inner hearing. may mean food, from
to eat, but more naturally “birth, growth, age, manifestation, state of being, wide extension” — cf
,
, etc —
, delight. Wide being, knowledge of the truth, delight (sat, chit, ananda) are the forms of the , the plenty which is the goal of the human journey aided by the divine impulsions
..
.
“
”
.
here is opposed to
in the second pada. Day and Night are the goddesses who impel on their journey those who move; their journey in the chariot is the ascent of the hill,
, the material world being the first level of the three (cf I.10.2.
); the vital and mental worlds follow, when these three open out, are manifested in their wideness
(
), the soul is
, it has the wideness of the three births; but there is also the
, the manifested extension or state of being of the Stable, the Divine who presides over the movement of the earth life; that is now spread out, opened out as a basis for the accomplished higher life. The result is
, the delight cf
in v. 1.
. Possibly
is for
or it may be the indeclinable form used adverbially. Thought (word,
,
) and action (achievement
,
) are the means of the attainment, the chariot.
These activities raised by the labour of the Aryan ( ) to the higher levels — (cf I.10.1, 2.
—
)
— for something new
or
.
The idea is that of the chariot, the Thought & the Action fashioned into a chariot for the divine journey, a common idea in the Veda. The chariot fashioned is the
, the thought and the divine power has to take possession of it as the horse that attains to the goal 1. Mitra, Varuna, Adityas, Rudras, Vasus. 2. Visve Devah. 3. Indra and the Maruts. 4. Twashtri, the “Gna”s, Bhaga, Brihaddiva, Rodasi, Pusha, Purandhi (Suryˆa), A¸cwins. 5. Day & Night, Earth & Heaven. Apam Napat. 7. Visve Devah.
[Several blank lines]
in the sense of rising or raising up.
The Chariot fashioned The Deva as the Horse 32.
S.
, it should rather be the Word that seeks the truth. “ ”.
is absurd, either seeking the truth or performing the rite.
..
.
Probably with a vocative force, “O you who are they affirmed in whom is our life, it is here enlarging itself; seeking substance I place (establish) your largeness.”
“secret harms” or those who do harm, secret enemies
S.
— but in reality it means “that” which we seek, beyond earth and heaven, that which comes by
.
3 “
”. S.
— but it is from
, cf
, and is probably equivalent to
.. in any case
in various passages of the Veda cannot mean
, if
means
or
.
active or intransitive — “nourishing” or “growing fat”. Here active. “
” symbolism of the Horse.
— as the horse is a figure, so
also is a figure — it is the internal “hero” or personal force.
the hero who has the
— S. either
or
in the former case = form.
[8]
From
— therefore a creative Shakti of expression, Sinivali possibly of force (
,
),
of joy cf
. The latter is the giver, the second the producer, the first, the creator by expression, in thought or consciousness, as Sinivali the creator in force.
. Not Indra force for increase, Varuna force for the “good-state”
1. Dyavaprithivi
2.3. Indra.
4.5. Raka.
6.7. Sinivali 8. Gungur, Sinivali, Raka, Saraswati, Indrani, Varunani.
33.
“
” clear instance of
= sight, vision and not form or appearance.
cf
,
and
not “prevail over the enemy”, but prevail or “put forth his force in”
the Horse, the Prana.
cf v. 7 “
”. Proof of the sense of
= may we be born to ourselves in our offspring. Horse, Hero, Praja together.
— cf
(II.32.1) Either drive away dispersingly cf
or adj. of
of various kinds or scattered various ways or adverse, alien to us.
. Probably “confusion of the offerings”
—
—
—
—
must be as in
, “ ” Rudra — elsewhere Agni.
mind or wrath. Probably state of mind, evil or wrong being understood, or simply (inferior) mentality, cause of error in
etc.
S. “
” Evidently “dwell in” or “establish everywhere in the
”
D. [Dutt]
but it must be the same as in 1.
S.
— fanciful etymology 10 “
”
S.
.
— either “destroyest all this shapeless force” of the Vri-tras etc
or “dividest into form the chaos or Night from which the universe is born”
= to give, to destroy. Cf I.10.6.
attack, assail or cast down.
. Probably Agni.
. Here and in I.11.1. associated with wealth — — cf
..
. I.33.
V. 1. Rudra, Pita marutam, Surya 2–5 Rudra.
6. Vrishabha Marutwan.
7–11 Rudra 12. Rudra-Kumara.
13 Maruts
14–15 Rudra 34.
not covering with showers, but probably like etc “
” not “worshipping”; probably “luminous” or else “chanting the hymn” “
”
2 “ ”
.
S. rainers, &
lightnings 3 “
” diffuse, scatter. To sprinkle horses is absurd, so also
= probably “makers”
. S. dative — in that case “for satisfaction, pleasure”, or “for the lord who satisfies, gives
”, even Mitra. It may be locative “in the Priksha, ie the Ananda” “ ” S.
5 “
” gushing, flowing — cf
. S.
, but
is obviously a participial adjective.
. S.
! “ ”
and coupled with
&
but see 8.
. S.
() — why not two wheels or actions?
— is it used as a noun?
10 “ ”
. S.
()
. S.
— rather “desiring”