Commentaries or Bhāṣhyās on the ‘Vedās’ (contd.)
A tribute to Vedic Riṣhis:
“The Vedic Riṣhis may not have yoked the lightning to their chariots, nor weighed sun and star, nor materialised all the destructive forces in Nature to aid them in massacre and domination, but they had measured and fathomed all the heavens and earths within us, they had cast their plummet into the inconscient and the subconscient and the superconscient; they had read the riddle of death and found the secret of immortality; they had sought for and discovered the One and known and worshipped Him in the glories of His light and purity and wisdom and power.” – Thus spoke Sri Aurobindo, recounting the discoveries of these sages of ancient India who, at the dawn of ages, in sublime verses sang the hidden splendours of man and the odyssey of the soul.
T.V. Kapāli Sāstry - (1886-1953 CE):
Born in a family which, for generations, excelled in Sanskrit scholarship, in the upāsana of Sri Vidya and in the observance of rituals and ceremonials, he was taught, not only to chant the Vedās in the traditional way but also the use of mantrās in rituals. Being a multifaceted personality, he excelled in whatever field he worked. Following the trail of his masters, first of Vāsiṣhṭha Gaṇapati Muni and then of Sri Aurobindo, he unearthed many a truth concealed within the cryptic utterances of the Veda. He has played a significant part in reinterpreting the Vedās to us, along the lines of Sri Aurobindo. There are many readers who respect the spiritual view developed by Sri Aurobindo, but doubt that the spiritual interpretation can be given for all the 10,000 verses. Kapāli Sāstry took up this challenge and has given the deep meaning of the first 1400 verses.
After a life-long study, verification in personal inner life and confirmation in other branches of Indian Wisdom, he began writing his commentary on the Rig Veda in his 60th year (1945). In his Bhūmika, he presents his approach, deriving from ancient riṣhis like Yāska, medieval teachers like Madhvāchārya and modern seers like Sri Aurobindo. His great work ‘Siddhānjana’, commentary on the first Ashtaka of Rig Veda, explores the hitherto neglected psychological and spiritual sides of the ancient hymns. He works out the psychological interpretation guided by the principles of mystic symbolism of the Vedic riṣhis in his verse-by-verse explanation. Being regarded himself as a Tāntrik, he finds astonishing echoes of the Veda in the Tantra, in thought and practice. One of his great contributions, is to dispel the myth that the various Hindu Scriptures like the Veda Samhitās, Upanishads, Yōgās, Tantrās etc., are disparate and do demonstrate that they compliment each other.
Though it has become a practice to see the contents of the Upanishads purely from an intellectual viewpoint, according to the seers of the Upanishads, the truths in these books should be realized by every individual. The process of realization is sādhana, and the hints on sādhana are Vidyās. His work ‘Lights on the Upanishads’ contains detailed discussion of the six Vidyās. He has hinted at several modes of consolidation of sādhana, which will facilitate the sādhaka to evolve himself from mere materiality to super human / super divine levels of super consciousness.
His writings are in four languages namely English, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit. Sanskrit was natural to him. All his writings are collected, published and made available in eleven volumes.
A reflection on all earlier Bhāshyās - Sri Aurobindo (Concluding paragraphs of Chapter 3 (Modern theories) of ‘The Secret of the Veda’)
“The hypothesis on which I shall conduct my own enquiry is that the Veda has a double aspect and that the two, though closely related, must be kept apart. The Riṣhīs arranged the substance of their thought in a system of parallelism by which the same deities were at once internal and external Powers of universal Nature, and they managed its expression through a system of double values by which the same language served for their worship in both aspects. But the psychological sense predominates and is more pervading, close-knit and coherent than the physical. The Veda is primarily intended to serve for spiritual enlightenment and self-culture. It is, therefore, this sense which has first to be restored.
To this task each of the ancient and modern systems of interpretation brings an indispensable assistance. Sāyaṇa and Yāska supply the ritualistic framework of outward symbols and their large store of traditional significances and explanations. The Upanishads give their clue to the psychological and philosophical ideas of the earlier Riṣhīs and hand down to us their method of spiritual experience and intuition. European scholarship supplies a critical method of comparative research, yet to be perfected, but capable of immensely increasing the materials available and sure eventually to give a scientific certainty and firm intellectual basis which has hitherto been lacking. Dayānanda has given the clue to the linguistic secret of the Riṣhīs and re-emphasized one central idea of the Vedic religion, the idea of the One Being with the Devās expressing in numerous names and forms the many-sidedness of His unity.
With so much help from the intermediate past we may yet succeed in reconstituting this remoter antiquity and enter by the gate of the Veda into the thoughts and realities of a prehistoric wisdom”.
Concluded.
References
1. ‘ The Light of Veda – A Practical Approach ’ – by Sri T.V.Kapāli Sastry
2. ‘ A New Light on the Veda ’ – by Sri T.V.Kapāli Sastry
(Originally written in Sanskrit under the name ‘Siddhānjana – Bhūmika’, translated into English by Sri M.P.Pandit and thoroughly revised by the author himself, in 1952. Published by Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture, Bangalore. (SAKSI)).
3. ‘ Agni in the Rig Veda ’ - by Dr R.L.Kashyap
4. ‘ Why read the Rig Veda ’ – by Dr R.L.Kashyap
- Krishnamurthy (chamathu2003@yahoo.co.uk)
A tribute to Vedic Riṣhis:
“The Vedic Riṣhis may not have yoked the lightning to their chariots, nor weighed sun and star, nor materialised all the destructive forces in Nature to aid them in massacre and domination, but they had measured and fathomed all the heavens and earths within us, they had cast their plummet into the inconscient and the subconscient and the superconscient; they had read the riddle of death and found the secret of immortality; they had sought for and discovered the One and known and worshipped Him in the glories of His light and purity and wisdom and power.” – Thus spoke Sri Aurobindo, recounting the discoveries of these sages of ancient India who, at the dawn of ages, in sublime verses sang the hidden splendours of man and the odyssey of the soul.
T.V. Kapāli Sāstry - (1886-1953 CE):
Born in a family which, for generations, excelled in Sanskrit scholarship, in the upāsana of Sri Vidya and in the observance of rituals and ceremonials, he was taught, not only to chant the Vedās in the traditional way but also the use of mantrās in rituals. Being a multifaceted personality, he excelled in whatever field he worked. Following the trail of his masters, first of Vāsiṣhṭha Gaṇapati Muni and then of Sri Aurobindo, he unearthed many a truth concealed within the cryptic utterances of the Veda. He has played a significant part in reinterpreting the Vedās to us, along the lines of Sri Aurobindo. There are many readers who respect the spiritual view developed by Sri Aurobindo, but doubt that the spiritual interpretation can be given for all the 10,000 verses. Kapāli Sāstry took up this challenge and has given the deep meaning of the first 1400 verses.
After a life-long study, verification in personal inner life and confirmation in other branches of Indian Wisdom, he began writing his commentary on the Rig Veda in his 60th year (1945). In his Bhūmika, he presents his approach, deriving from ancient riṣhis like Yāska, medieval teachers like Madhvāchārya and modern seers like Sri Aurobindo. His great work ‘Siddhānjana’, commentary on the first Ashtaka of Rig Veda, explores the hitherto neglected psychological and spiritual sides of the ancient hymns. He works out the psychological interpretation guided by the principles of mystic symbolism of the Vedic riṣhis in his verse-by-verse explanation. Being regarded himself as a Tāntrik, he finds astonishing echoes of the Veda in the Tantra, in thought and practice. One of his great contributions, is to dispel the myth that the various Hindu Scriptures like the Veda Samhitās, Upanishads, Yōgās, Tantrās etc., are disparate and do demonstrate that they compliment each other.
Though it has become a practice to see the contents of the Upanishads purely from an intellectual viewpoint, according to the seers of the Upanishads, the truths in these books should be realized by every individual. The process of realization is sādhana, and the hints on sādhana are Vidyās. His work ‘Lights on the Upanishads’ contains detailed discussion of the six Vidyās. He has hinted at several modes of consolidation of sādhana, which will facilitate the sādhaka to evolve himself from mere materiality to super human / super divine levels of super consciousness.
His writings are in four languages namely English, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit. Sanskrit was natural to him. All his writings are collected, published and made available in eleven volumes.
A reflection on all earlier Bhāshyās - Sri Aurobindo (Concluding paragraphs of Chapter 3 (Modern theories) of ‘The Secret of the Veda’)
“The hypothesis on which I shall conduct my own enquiry is that the Veda has a double aspect and that the two, though closely related, must be kept apart. The Riṣhīs arranged the substance of their thought in a system of parallelism by which the same deities were at once internal and external Powers of universal Nature, and they managed its expression through a system of double values by which the same language served for their worship in both aspects. But the psychological sense predominates and is more pervading, close-knit and coherent than the physical. The Veda is primarily intended to serve for spiritual enlightenment and self-culture. It is, therefore, this sense which has first to be restored.
To this task each of the ancient and modern systems of interpretation brings an indispensable assistance. Sāyaṇa and Yāska supply the ritualistic framework of outward symbols and their large store of traditional significances and explanations. The Upanishads give their clue to the psychological and philosophical ideas of the earlier Riṣhīs and hand down to us their method of spiritual experience and intuition. European scholarship supplies a critical method of comparative research, yet to be perfected, but capable of immensely increasing the materials available and sure eventually to give a scientific certainty and firm intellectual basis which has hitherto been lacking. Dayānanda has given the clue to the linguistic secret of the Riṣhīs and re-emphasized one central idea of the Vedic religion, the idea of the One Being with the Devās expressing in numerous names and forms the many-sidedness of His unity.
With so much help from the intermediate past we may yet succeed in reconstituting this remoter antiquity and enter by the gate of the Veda into the thoughts and realities of a prehistoric wisdom”.
Concluded.
References
1. ‘ The Light of Veda – A Practical Approach ’ – by Sri T.V.Kapāli Sastry
2. ‘ A New Light on the Veda ’ – by Sri T.V.Kapāli Sastry
(Originally written in Sanskrit under the name ‘Siddhānjana – Bhūmika’, translated into English by Sri M.P.Pandit and thoroughly revised by the author himself, in 1952. Published by Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture, Bangalore. (SAKSI)).
3. ‘ Agni in the Rig Veda ’ - by Dr R.L.Kashyap
4. ‘ Why read the Rig Veda ’ – by Dr R.L.Kashyap
- Krishnamurthy (chamathu2003@yahoo.co.uk)
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