Veda: The age of philosophy and enlightenment

One of the hobbies my daughter and I enjoy is to observe the night sky and try to guess what planet or star is being seen in the horizon. We use an App on the iPad called Starwalk to locate the planets and stars. But, as you may have noticed, the night sky is not very clear for those of us who live near big cities. The city lights interfere and mask many of the stars. Where as, if you go more to the country side and away from city, you are more likely to get a better view. Very similar is the case with philosophy and deep questions about life. They are difficult to consider and clarify  if one is completely embroiled in the noise of  everyday life!

As the Hindu people started settling down into small towns and villages, performance of the rituals became a common practice. The chiefs and kings were great sponsors of the rituals and with their sponsorship, these rituals continued to get more and more elaborate. And, obviously associated negativity of competition,  favoritism, greed and positioning would have also started to develop. Few of the ascetics chose to withdraw from this environment to the forest for quieter environments and contemplation. They were the authors of what came to be called as the 'Aranyaka' i.e 'forest' part of  the Vedas. Some times,  few of the chiefs and kings also joined these Rishis in forest to engage in philosophical dialog. The Rishis of Aranyaka did not completely give up the ritual parts. In fact they had even incubated many new ones which were later elaborated by others. The significant difference was that the philosophical leaning of the Aranyakas helped to lay foundation for the wonderful  scriptural texts called Upanishads. 

The Vedas thus came to be structured into three parts, Samhitas, Brahmanas and Aranyakas. The Samhitas had the original hymns of the Rishis in poetry, Brahmanas the ritualistic elaborations in prose and the Aranyakas, a mixture of rituals and philosophical dialog done as a mix of poetry and prose.  To these were added the very distinguishable text of Upanishads. Mostly the Upanishads  appear in the Aranyaka part but are also found in the Samhita and Brahmana parts. The 19th century German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer described the Upanishads as 'the production of the highest human wisdom'.  That should give you an idea of how revered the contents of Upanishads are, even among  the extremely critical western philosophers!

The word Upanishad can be interpreted in two ways in Sanskrit. One, it means to sit next to someone, like students sitting next to a teacher, to learn. Second, it can also mean 'where all doubts get eliminated'. Both interpretations appear to be accurate since the mode of instructions in the Upanishads is very personal and at an individual level. The instructions are also geared towards conclusively answering all kinds of questions one may have about life, world, God etc. 

But, why did the Rishis create the Upanishads in the first place? What made them dwell on such boring questions as to the meaning of life? The reason is that even after accomplishing the best one can have in life, when it comes to facing one's own death at old age, the question on the meaning of life becomes unavoidable. And, at that point one would realize that life could have been lived better if the truth about it and its purpose were known in the beginning. You will find that most of the students depicted in the Upanishads were young adults who had completed their formal education and were  getting ready to start the family life. Having understood the limitations of the education received, they had sought out the the Rishis  to find answers to their unanswered questions. There is an excellent display of great innocence and courage,  very typical of young adulthood, in their mode of questioning. To make it less boring for you all, the Rishis have also embellished the Upanishads with many interesting stories!

Same time, the truth was that there were only a few who would  make the choice to delve into the Upanishads and philosophy. The majority were in fact more engaged with rituals. (You will see he same trend even today. While a big crowd may turn up for a puja, only a handful will show up for an Upanishad discussion!) There were many different schools that came up during this time, educating large number of students on the Veda and rituals. The works of these schools were integrated back into the Veda texts as different saakha or branches. Each of the Vedas thus came to have more than one saakha for the Brahmana and Aranyaka parts. Unfortunately a good number of these different works are now lost forever as they were never written down but passed from generation to generation, orally.

During this period, the Hindu population had started to settle down in the banks of rivers like Yamuna and Ganga. These settlements were called as Janapada.  In the Janapada, the Hindu civilization were increasingly coming in contact with the indigenous population that existed prior to their arrival. A slow assimilation of culture both ways started happening during this time. The indigenous population had many legends and myths with them and were practicing deity worship. The Hindu population had the Vedic divinities they were propitiating through the sacrificial rituals. The confluence of the two cultures resulted in another wonderful phenomena where the imaginations of poets were literally set on fire! And, from this explosion of imagination were born the amazing literature of Purana (stories of Gods) and Ithihasa ( Epics) that continue to be dear to the hearts of many. We will see more of this age of wonderful imaginations and how they helped to fuse two cultures without violence, in the next blog post.

Veda: The Age of Sacrifice and Rituals

Which is that one day in a year that makes you most happy? Your birthday, right?  Now, tell me this, what exactly makes you happiest on a birthday? Is it the gifts, the fun time, becoming the center of attention for the day or just the love and affection shown by family and friends?  (All answers are right, including 'all of the above'!). The answers will vary, especially depending on your age. As one grows up in life, the latter things in the list are likely to become more important than the former. So, by the time you are my age and reasonably successful in life, the primary factor that makes you happy will most likely be the demonstration of genuine love and affection.

I can completely attest to this having been very fortunate to be touched by such an experience recently, celebrating my fiftieth Birthday! My family and friends had organized this grand birthday party, a total stealth operation, to give me a wonderful surprise. My joy had no bounds that day. But, here is one other thing that I observed. Those who had worked so hard to create this surprise, they actually appeared to have a greater joy in it than I did! So, the next time you receive a gift that you value for your birthday, do remember that the joy of the person who gave it to you is likely to be much greater than yours!

The human nature of finding happiness in doing things for others or even sacrificing oneself to save someone else is extremely puzzling to scientists. You must have heard stories of courageous soldiers who have sacrificed their life to save the lives of their colleagues. If we strictly applied Darwin's theories of evolution to human kind, something like this will not be possible. Instead, we would have all been more focused on self-preservation and never be altruistic at all. The Biologists use a term called 'group  selection' for this behavior and are still trying to know more about it.  The fact that sacrifice is more fulfilling than pleasure is a truth that the Rishis had discovered many centuries ago.

The ancient Hindu civilization, when they moved further from the northwest India towards the central plain, had conquered a lot of land and experienced tremendous success. There was an abundance of food and wealth and great excitement in the society about the material prosperity awaiting them. There were also the perils of migration like deaths in battle and from diseases. The Rishis, who were great thinkers, were not overwhelmed by all this. They had in fact started asking questions like what is that makes people happy or unhappy, what is true joy and how does one get it?

To understand how the Rishi's answered these questions, we need to first look into what makes us unhappy. There are many things that could be on that list but we can put all of them into four buckets:

1. Bad things happening: Physical injury, loss of things or people, accidents, disease etc. and brooding over them
2. Anxiety: Worry and fear of what may happen, what if something happens or doesn't happen etc
3. Disappointments: Defeat, failure, not living up to expectation, not getting what you expected etc.
4. Negative emotionS: Jealousy, arrogance, isolation, delusion, guilt etc.

(These are the BADS of life. Can you think of something outside this? Let me know if you do)

If we can minimize or eliminate these BADS, then we have a better chance of seeking what is joy. For this the Rishis came up with a set of practices that included the following:

1. Yagna (Worshipful action): There are two parts to worshipful action, Prarthana (Prayers) and Prayatna (Effort seeking success).  As you know, there are always a lot of things that are out of our control in everyday life. Prayer is the way to connect with the uncertainties of universe so that we can be less anxious about them. Prayer also helps us to steel our resolve with positive thinking so that one may overcome adverse situations if they happen in life. This is why you will find a number of  prayerful hymns in the RigVeda. Prayatna is a commitment to apply 100% of oneself to achieve life's goals. A life without goals very quickly dwindles into a meaningless meander. Again, you will see a number off hymns in the Veda, celebrating life and calling on the warrior to march forward to bring back success. 
2. Dharma: (Ethical Living) A commitment to live a self-restrained ethical life founded on values and virtues. Unbridled engagement with the world will only lead to disappointments and ruin. A self-restrained, ethical living ensures an avoidance of future suffering as well as creates a sense of fulfillment of a greater purpose. Again, you will find detailed instructions in Veda enumerating the different values and virtues as well as do's and don'ts.
3. Dhaana (Sharing): What should one do when success is achieved? Hoard it for  future, enjoy it mindlessly, foolishly waste it out of arrogance? The Veda advocates that for a greater joy that lasts, share the success. There is more joy to be had being in the position to give and share rather than hoard and enjoy
4. Thapa (Contemplation):  'I think, therefore I am' is a famous quote from the 16th century philosopher Descartes. The Vedas encourage us to always take some time to think about why we do, what we do. Also, many of our sources of unhappiness originate from a lack of understanding or misconception. Contemplation helps to correct these.

If these are the four practices to do to avoid unhappiness, then where is the joy of life? The Rishis answer to this was that the real joy of life is in achieving peace and contentment and not in pleasures. Therefore, you will see the vedic hymns always ending with 'Om Shanti Shanti Shanti', where 'Om' indicates the state of 'poornatha' or perfect contentment and 'Shanti', peace.

You may find these as difficult concepts to understand. You are not alone and the semi-nomadic society of Hindu civilization in the second millennium of BC would have been no different either . Therefore, the Rishis developed a scheme of rituals that encapsulated these concepts. For example, they prescribed prayers that were to be performed 3 times in a day; at day break, after-noon and end of day. These rituals were meant to remind that to reduce anxiety, one should pray before undertaking any task, at the peak of performing it and again when concluding the task .

Other elaborate rituals like Aswamedha (the horse sacrifice) involved letting a war horse run through the country, bringing those parts of the country covered by the horse under the rule of the King owning the horse. When the horse returned to the starting point, it was sacrificed to the Divinities. While this sounds gruesome, the intent was to create a metaphor on seeking success and sharing the results. At the end of sacrifice, everyone partook a drink called Soma that was also offered to Divinities. This drink was a metaphor for the contentment of a person who has achieved the goals and shared the results with others.

However, over the next few centuries the meaning of the metaphors behind the rituals fell off from people's mind and only the mere performance of rituals remained. A kind of darkness fell over the Hindu civilization during this period when rituals were performed devoid of their meaning. But, soon few enlightened people managed to resurrect the original thoughts of the Rishis. Thus was born the age of philosophical enlightenment. We will see more of this next time.Meanwhile, wish you all the happiness in life!

(Image courtesy to sources on Internet including yuvasakthibanaras.wordpress.com for the yaga image)

Veda: The Age of Wonderment

"Let's now speak with wonder of the births of the gods - so that some one may see them when the hymns are chanted in this later age" 

(RigVeda - Translation by Wendy Doniger)

Thank God that spring is finally here, bringing an end to the long winter and its many snow storms. Maybe some of you have started thinking of doing a camping trip this spring or summer. Can anything beat that great feeling of being outdoors and sitting around a camp fire? Just imagine the bliss of lying down on a sand dune and watching the clear night sky with its thousands of stars and the beautiful full-moon. Wouldn't a sense of wonderment come over you then?  Where did all these stars and planets come from? What is out there in this large galaxy? How in the world did we, human kind, come to be here on Earth?

This ability to wonder and explore is unique to being human. Unfortunately some of us tend to lose this inborn ability to be dismayed about nature as we grow up, letting the grind and rush of everyday living to overcome it. If you have this sense of wonderment within you, please do make sure to hang on to it tight because one day you will come to realize how precious it is!

As we discussed last time, in the beginning of the second millennium of BCE, the Hindu civilization had started making its journey crossing the mountains of Himalayas into the plains of India. There were some highly insightful thinkers among them, known as Rishis, who happened to have a great sense of wonderment. They probably camped outside throughout this journey and had plenty of time to ask some of these big questions themselves. But unlike most of us, they didn't stop with wondering about the world but also thought hard to find the answers. Fortunately for us, these seers of yonder did have the insight required to answer such deep, philosophical questions. Same time, they also hid them in mystic sayings, riddles and symbolic rituals making them hard to decipher. Maybe, like good old grand parents they too wanted to enjoy the pleasure of playing a game with the many grand children to come!

In their wisdom, the Rishis had come to a conclusion that the future of mankind is going to be critically dependent on gaining, organizing and sharing knowledge. Therefore, they collected and organized their wisdom into books that they named as 'Veda' which means 'what is known'. The Vedas are essentially  the books of knowledge of the ancient Hindu civilization.

The Veda are also the Hindu religion's oldest scriptures. There are four of them - Rik, Yajus, Sama and Atharva Veda. Though the content of Veda had started to accumulate since around 2000 BCE, or even earlier, their organization into the four books did not happen until around 1500 to 1200 BCE. Obviously, all the content were also not created at one time.

Initially, the content of Veda were probably like a whole bunch of partly assembled Lego pieces lying around. Many hymns were composed by different Rishis who were trying to convey what they knew. The person who took these 'Lego pieces' and assembled them nicely was a great sage named Veda Vyasa. We will get to more on Veda Vyasa later but now to understand about Veda better, let us focus little bit on one Veda that contains the oldest of hymns, the 'Rigveda'

When the Rishis tried to understand the world, they came up with the insight that there were some common underlying principles essential to the world's existence. By 'principle' they meant things like what made water fluid, fire hot and air freely moving. They called each of these principle as 'Deva' or Divinity. They postulated that these principles should have got created before any manifestation based on them got created.  For example, the principle of heat, Agni - the God of Fire, is supposed to have been created before any other source of heat came into being.

But then, who created these principles or 'Deva' ?The Rishis again said that there is this One God from whom the entire universe as well as the different Deva had originated. Most of the hymns in Veda are dedicated to this One God who is called as the 'purusha' and the different Divinities.  Many western scholars have been confused by these multiple Divinities in Hindu religion and wrongly conclude it to be polytheistic, meaning a religion with many Gods. The Hindu religion not only believes that there is One God but also that everything that exists came from that One God.

The most popular of the Divinities mentioned in the Veda are Agni, the Fire God; Varuna, the God of Waters; Indra, the King of Gods;  Surya, the Sun God; Ushas the Goddess of Dawn; Vayu, the Wind God; Prajapati, the Creator God etc.

A number of historians tend to believe that the Hindu divinities originated from the tribal fear of natural forces. Nothing could be farther from truth and an affront to the intelligence of the Rishis. What the Rishis  had done was to embed many ideas that were difficult for the common mind to grasp, within the stories, poetry and rituals. This has helped their great ideas to be preserved for centuries even by those who had no idea what they were preserving!

The entire Veda text is like a rich field of great philosophic wisdom, laid obscure to the unimaginative and skeptical but highly promising to the committed explorer. I hope you will be one of those explorers destined to uncover some of those treasures from Vedas for yourself as well as the world!
(Image courtesies: to the wonderful sources on Internet!)