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.