The Foundations of Psychological Theory in the Veda (contd.)

Function of the Gods:

Sri Aurobindo found that the systematic symbolism of the Veda was extended to the legends related to the Gods and their dealings with ancient seers and that in all probability had a naturalistic origin.   If this was so, the original sense was supplemented by psychological symbolism.

In Sri Aurobindo’s own words – “The gods I found to be described as sons of Aditi, of Infinity; and without exception they are described as increasing man, bringing him light, pouring on him the fullness of waters, the abundance of the heavens, increasing the truth in him, building up the divine worlds, leading him against all attacks to the great goal, the integral felicity, the perfect bliss”. He says, gods are not personifications of qualities of powers, but incarnations or emanations of conscious forces with whom one can enter into concrete touch. They can help man and show him the way to a divine consciousness and immortal life.

Rig Veda clearly mentions the nature and the role played by the Gods. Through this a deep understanding of spirituality will be possible. By reciting the mantras and performing meditation, human beings can enter into contact with these powers. Literally they can take birth in human beings and guide them from within. The Sanskrit word for the God is deva and this occurs in about 1300 out of 10,552 mantras. The root word here ‘div’ meaning ‘to shine’ or ‘illumine’. They are supra-physical beings without physical bodies endowed with consciousness, knowledge and power. They carry out the actions directly from their consciousness without the need for a body.

Every deva represents an outward aspect and an inner or psychological power. Outwardly, Agni is the physical fire or the fire of digestion. At a deeper level, Agni is the Divine Will. Sri Aurobindo and Sri Kapali Sastry explain that Agni in the esoteric sense stands for the principle of aspiration in man to achieve higher things than his present state. Progress is not possible without aspiration. Hence, only if Agni is active, can he bring other gods or powers and make them manifest in man. Consequently, these powers enter the human being and grow in him or her like a plant. This process of manifestation is called ‘the birth of the Deva’. These are indicated in hundreds of mantras by words like ‘janayan’ or ‘jajna̅na’.   Following table shows the description of the power of some of the Gods:

Agni	Fire; Cosmic power of heat and light. Will power united with wisdom. Human power is a feeble projection of this. Can be strengthened by Rig Vedic chants to Agni.
Indra	Lord of the Divine Mind and Action.  In Indian tradition, mind is not a source of knowledge. It manipulates the knowledge to aid action. Indra battles the evil forces on behalf of humans. He is of luminous intelligence.
Va̅yu	Wind; He is the Lord of all the Life energies. Prana which represent passions, feelings, emotions and abilities.
Ashwins	The Lords of Bliss and Divine physicians. Renders human body free of disease, so that it can accept the divine Prana, the life-energy.
Mitra	The Lord of Love and Harmony.
Varuna	The Master of infinities who cannot tolerate restrictive thinking or actions. Only he can cut the three bonds which restrict the three aspects of every human being, namely – physical, vital and mental.   He is vast and pure.
Saraswati	The Goddess of inspiration.
Ila	The Goddess of inspiration.
Sarama	The Goddess of revelation.
Soma	The delight of life-experience.
Surya	The Supreme Deity of Light and Force.

Difference  between ‘Vedic Gods’ and ‘Puranic Gods’:  In the Veda, all the Gods are pure, harmonious, and devoid of undesirable qualities. Though each Vedic God has a distinct power or personality, they carry the presence of the Supreme, ‘That One’. They work together in divinising the individual person by being born in him. When the age of Vedic Samhita came to an end, several centuries later the Upanishad period started to capture the truths of Vedic period. At a much later period, the Puranas started to state the esoteric truths of the Veda through stories and in a language that was easily accessible to the common man. In this process, the qualities of the Vedic Gods were mixed up with those of the lower Gods of the Prana and vital plane. Here we find that the various Gods, sometimes work together but also compete with one another.

Message of the Rig Veda:  Aim of both the riṣhis and devas is to systematically uplift every human being to higher and higher levels of perfection. The journey never stops till all round perfection is achieved.  This applies not merely to an individual level, but for the level of society at large. The Vedic seers realised that it is not possible to intellectually describe such a radical goal of all round perfection.  According to them there already exists the plane of  satyam ṛtam bṛhat  - the truth, the Right, the Vast -  incorporating the seed of perfect perfection to come, and to attain this state one has to get in touch with the consciousness of that plane. However, they were able to give detailed hints about the paths to be followed. They also realised that such a great task cannot be achieved by human effort only and the Gods must collaborate doing the actual work. 

Every time a human being does a task with some consciousness, he can feel the collaboration of the Divine Powers. Human journey towards perfection is often compared to climbing a mountain from peak to peak or to a journey in the uncharted waters of the ocean in a boat. With dedicated effort a stage will come where the person feels that all the work is done by the Gods themselves.  

Adverse cosmic powers in nature are also common posing obstacles in the path of human seeker. These are forces of darkness and falsehood called as Dasyu, Vṛtra, Ahi, Vala etc. The Veda has many references to the symbolic battles between the Forces of Light headed by Indra and Agni on one side and the forces of darkness on the other. The victory of the Gods is celebrated by the riṣhis through hymns dedicated to the deities.

Every mantra in the Rig Veda is either a prayer or an adoration addressed to a cosmic power or devata like Agni or a call for a Cosmic Power to manifest in the riṣhi or a call for some action by the Cosmic Power. Many mantras are celebrations of the actions of the devata including the gifts of powers of light and might.

In the next Chapter V of ‘The Secret of the Veda’, Sri Aurobindo deals with the Philological Method of the Veda. He realised that a mere psychological interpretation is not fully sufficient and at times must be backed up by a sound philological basis. This will not only account for the new sense, but explain how a single word came to be capable of so many different meanings, the sense attached to it by the psychological interpretation, those given to it by old grammarians and those, if any, are attached to later Sanskrit. We will be looking to all these as we move along further ……….

(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

(Dr K.L.Kashyap is an Honarary Director & Trustee of SAKSI. He has to his credit 6 major books on the Veda and has undertaken a mission of writing a commentary on all the Veda mantras.)

- C. Krishnamurthy (chamathu2003@yahoo.co.uk)