Vedic Insights Unveiled by Modern Sages

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1 Vol. 13 # 62 May-June, 2017 Vedic Insights Unveiled by Modern Sages How do we express our gratitude to the rishi-s, who have not only revealed to us the mantra-s but also have given us a vision of the ideals which we should pursue? A simple way is to remember some of their names and memorize some of their mantra-s. We should also try to understand the deep meaning of the mantra-s and try to apply this wisdom in our everyday life. This is easier said than done, as clarified presently. We should be aware that we have today many Veda mantra-s easily accessible to us because thousands laboured during several thousands of years in chanting the Veda mantras correctly stressing how to preserve their correctness. Even today we see many traditional schools who focus only on chanting. Many of them are not even aware of their meaning. They are convinced of the utility of the mantra-s used in sandhya-worship but also in popular rituals including birthday celebrations, marriage and funerals. Thus in some sense most of them are not aware of the real power of mantra-s. Reciting the sandhya-mantra-s including the famous Gayatri mantra-s does help them in their everyday life, but they do not go beyond it. They may participate in the complex yajna rituals and get some benefit. This state of affairs has been in existence for several thousands of years. Even Ramayana with its many stories of rishi-s mentions many Yajna-like rituals, but not any mantras. Some opine that the absence of mantra-s may be due to the belief that the mantra-s should not be placed in books which are meant to be heard by persons of all varna-s. It was said that mantra-s should be heard only by brahmins, as mentioned in some obscure books without any authority of the Veda-s. Sri Damodar Satavalekar and Sri Daivarata are two persons who have contributed gracefully in preserving the Veda in the 20th century. (contd. page 2) Ashtanga Yoga (by Susheela Hegde) & Arthritis (by T. K. Jagannathan) book relase, (International Yoga Day) (L to R) Dr. R.V Jahagirdar, Susheela Hegde, Prof. R. L. Kashyap, T.K. Jagannathan, Lalitha Jagannathan

2 For various reasons, Veda-s were considered as dealing with Karma Kanda or the details of rituals. Only Upanishad-s were said to be connected with deeper knowledge. This attitude is present strongly even today in many places. The Vedic society was prosperous in all ways having the ability to repel the foes, face successfully the challenges of every day life and maintain its culture and integrity. The lack of interest in Veda learning lead to the weakening of the society resulting in foreign invasions and subjugation by foreigners for over a thousand years. This has been mentioned elsewhere. The first person in the two millennia (0 CE-2000 CE) to declare that Veda-s have deep knowledge was Swami Anandateertha (or Madhvacharya) ( CE) who was born in Pajaka, Udupi in Karnataka. He is also a great Vedantist, developer of the dualist school of Vedanta (dvaita Vedanta), one of the 3 major schools of Vedanta. He wrote a detailed commentary in Sanskrit on the first 40 sukta-s of Rig Veda involving 489 mantra-s. He stressed that every mantra has a spiritual interpretation, even though it may have other meanings connected with nature such as rainfall, storms, lightning etc. His work is written in long ornate sentences which makes them hard to understand. One of the great teachers in the same dvaita lineage is the Revered Swami Raghavendra ( ). He posed and answered the basic question: How does one assign meanings to the various words occurring in the mantra? First of all, the Vedic Sanskrit is substantially different from the classical Sanskrit familiar to the pandits in this millennia. Secondly since these pandits associated the Veda mantra-s with rituals, they gave automatically ritual based meanings to most words, without giving any deep reason. Madhvacharya was the first one to point out that every mantra has 3 types of meanings, adhi bhuta (physical), adhidaiva (deva) and adhyatma (spiritual) and indicated them for the 450 mantra-s of RV. He also showed hidden spiritual meanings in the words, not related to rituals. Raghavendra Swami expressed his basic ideas on spiritual interpretation in his book, Mantrartha Manjari. Unfortunately most pandits of even the dvaita school completely ignore the work of the masters, Madhva and Raghavendra on the Veda, and concentrate only on their dvaita ideas. There are other well known persons such as Swami Dayananda Sarasvati ( ) who tried to popularise the deep meanings of Veda mantra-s. But the first person to focus on the deep spiritual psychological ideas in Veda was the famous Saint and Yogi Sri Aurobindo (SA) ( ). He wrote extensive essays on the meaning assignments and wrote a series of articles in English in his monthly (contd. page 3) Felicitation SAKSHI felicitated Yoga Guru Smt. Lalitha Jagannathan on to commemorate International Yoga Day. This is in recognition of her dedication to the field of Yoga. She has taught yoga to innumerous ladies and has become an instrument in improving their health. Her speciality is inspiring people to pursue Yoga practice. who ever talks her for half an hour will definitely take interest in Yoga. Smt Lalitha Jagannath is a postgraduate in Political sciences from Bombay university. When the two children moved to secondary school she persued her B.Ed and became a high school teacher for English, History and geography. She has taught in Bombay, Poona schools and finally at Aurobindo Memorial school Banashankari. She learnt Yoga at Swami Yogendraji Institute, Bombay in 1985 and ever since and even now she has been teaching complete yogasana mostly for women. She is actively involved in social service like teaching spoken English to the poor students. She is a trained Carnatic music singer. Her hobbies include extensive reading and writing articles on various subjects. Her moto Each One teach One : Each One feed one: Then In India no one will be an illiterate and no one will be hungry. SAKSHI Newsletter : May-June,

3 journal Arya, the first issue being published in Aug All the essays in English, titled, On the Veda, were published in a book form, with the title The Secret of the Veda, in Sri Aurobindo developed a new method for understanding the Veda. SA mentions several books on Veda in English, but not the great Sanskrit books by Madhvacharya and Raghavendra Swamy. SA translated the 1000 mantras among the 2000 addressed to Agni, later published in 1946 in the book, Hymns to the Mystic Fire. Among the ten thousand mantra-s in Rig Veda, he translated about 3000 of them into English carefully. Most of the translations were published after his demise in His Vedic translations are never mentioned by any Vedic scholar in the West or the academics in India knowing English. Blaming the Indian Sanskrit Vedic pandits for not taking interest in SA books is grossly unfair, since the book by SA on Veda involving his 40- word sentences and obscure words was a hard read even for me. I assumed even 40 years ago that the SA book was written in a great hurry. I was surprised that SA himself agreed with this view in his 1949 letter. Finally, when it was proposed in 1949 to bring out The Secret of the Veda as a book, Sri Aurobindo dictated in reply: The publication of the Secret of the Veda as it is does not enter into my intention. It was published in a great hurry and at a time when I had not studied the Rig Veda as a whole as well as I have since done. Whole chapters will have to be rewritten or written otherwise and a considerable labour gone through; moreover it was never finished and considerable additions in order to make it complete are indispensable. Sri Aurobindo never found time for the necessary revision. Persons who were familiar with Veda and Sanskrit made the following observations, (a), (b) and (c): a) Sayana ( ) in his commentary on all the mantra-s of Rig Veda assigned the meanings of the words based on the rules suggested by the grammarian Patanjali and arrived at his interpretation. How can one say that the assignments of SA are better? b) One of my Vedantic teachers SN said, I am aware of the Bhashya-s written on the metrical Upanishad-s such as Mundaka. Here the commentator handles SAKSHI Newsletter : May-June, each verse one by one. Then for each verse, he gives the meanings in Sanskrit for a group of three or four words. At the end he gives the combined overall meaning in Sanskrit. He may add additional explanation at the end. Has SA done any such thing for any sukta in RV? My answer was a partial yes and a dominant No. The most useful part of the entire book The Secret of the Veda is not the first part of 20 essays, but the second part which gives a detailed commentary on the 13 sukta-s. For each sukta, SA first gives the summary translation verse by verse each involving words. He gives the Samhitapatha, not indicating the individual words. It is our problem to relate the Sanskrit words to his English translation. Next, he gives his commentary on each sukta in 5 to 8 pages, in English. He does not refer to any verse by number. If we know Sanskrit we can assign one or more para-s with each verse. Sometimes he indicates the Sanskrit verse he is discussing via footnotes. There is a wealth of very useful info in the commentary. The question is how to relate them to the specific words in the Veda? The traditional Bhashya-s do it very well. C) SA uses the word secret frequently. Three possibilities are, (i) meaning of a word (ii) the specific power of each deva, i.e., Agni as power of Divine will (iii) Some event like the battle between Indra and Vratra. Secret involves hiding. Who is doing the hiding? Insight is a better word. The last two sentences in the Foreword in p. 357 (written in 1919) which ends with, The secret of the Veda, even when it has been unveiled, remains still a secret is a typical Aurobindo exaggeration. Vasishtha Ganapati Muni ( ) (VGM) is a great saint -savant-scholar of this century. He knew Sanskrit very well, but not English. He was a master of Rig Veda deities. He was aware of the Sayana commentary and its limitations. He wrote several essays, indicating the way to view the Veda mantra-s. His ideas were known only to his disciples. All his writings (collected works of 12 volumes) were published 75 years after his death. One of the great works of VGM is the Indra Sahasranama stotra. A litany of Indra involving 1000 epithets in Rig Veda was revealed to him. It is very (contd. page 4)

4 nice to hear it. But the interesting fact is that he gave the triplet identifier (Mandala, sukta, mantra) to every one of the 1000 names, something like the compilers of Rig Veda. Note that during his time, the extensive indices of Rig Veda were not accessible. T.V. Kapali Sastry (TVK) ( ), a disciple of VGM had heard from VGM his insights on veda. TVK started his own Veda studies from the age of seven, had read the commentary of Sayana and knew its value and its limitations. Slowly a new way of looking at the Veda which emphasizes, both the spiritual and psychological insights, got a form in his mind. Almost by chance, he came across the issues of the Arya Magazine published from 1914 onwards by Sri Aurobindo (SA). He noticed how the interpretation proposed by SA were closely related to his own insights developed in the last two decades. He was a disciple of Sri Ramana Maharshi and joined the Aurobindo Ashram around Since TVK was a teacher in a well known school, he was aware of the criticisms made about the work of Sri Aurobindo on Veda. TVK realised that the view of the SA will be appreciated by Indian pandits only if the book is in Sanskrit, not a book in English which they did not understand. So in 1946, TVK started his commentary on Rig Veda. First he wrote an extensive introduction to his commentary, answering the criticisms not only of Sanskrit pandits but also those of eminent scholars like Dr. Radhakrishnan. Sri Aurobindo blessed his undertaking. TVK decided that he will not use any info from Purana-s. Rig Veda is a vast book and Veda reveals its own secrets. Every secret or insight in the Veda is probably mentioned in several places in various Mandala-s. TVK because of his Vedic mastery could do this cross reference. He also assigned the meanings of the words in the Veda using the Patanjali's grammatical suggestions. The same rules can suggest several meanings for the same word different from those given by Sayana Acharya. TVK also handled the criticisms (b), and (c). His bhashya is in the same format as those of Upanishad-s. Regarding (c), TVK wrote a booklet of about 41 pages in Sanskrit listing specifically the secret or rahasya in the first 1400 mantra-s commented by him, by SAKSHI Newsletter : May-June, taking groups of three or 4 mantra-s. Its complete translation in English is published by SAKSHI (2015), with the title Vedic Secrets. By 1950, TVK completed the commentary in Sanskrit called as Siddhanjana and was printed in 2 volumes (about 1000 pages). TVK handled only the first eighth of Rig Veda involving 121 sukta-s or 1460 mantra-s out of 10,552. A close reading of this commentary gave a person some understanding of the depth of Rig Vedic wisdom and its relevance for modern living. TVK felt (quoted by MPP) that the insights given by him is sufficient for a serious student to complete the translation of the entire Rig Veda! If the task was so easy, TVK could have at least completed the first Mandala, writing on 70 more sukta-s. Sri M.P. Pandit, the chief disciple of TVK, who published the Sanskrit Bhashya, collected all the manuscripts of TVK, printed and published them as Collected Works of TVK, in 12 volumes. He also got the complete translation into English the extensive introduction of TVK on Veda known as Bhumika (partially done by TVK himself). The praise lavished on the original Sanskrit work of TVK by the great scholar S.K. Ramachandra Rao (SKR) ( ) opened the eyes of many to appreciate the Veda. Note that SA or TVK do not touch the other 3 Veda-s. For more details, see the book compiled by SAKSHI, Exploring the Mystrey of the Veda by SKR and other great savant scholars. SKR encouraged the SAKSHI staff to bring out the complete translations of all the four Veda-s in English and their rendering into Indian languages such as Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. All the English translations of the four Veda-s were made available in The Kannada translations of all four Veda-s are available now (2017); The Tamil and Telugu translations will be completed in SAKSHI sells every year about 30,000 books on Veda only in English and 8 Indian languages. Now, at least there are a few thousands who have some appreciation of the Vedic insights and their utility for modern life.

5 Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute 1107-B/1, Shivajinagar, Pune Date : 20th June 2017 Dear Shri. R. L. Kashyap I thankfully acknowledge the receipt of your monumental work of translation of Veda-Samhitas into English. The enormity of your work is mind boggling. The dedication is really immense. This is indeed hugely praise worthy work of you. No praise will be sufficient for your contribution in bringing to light the eternal wisdom to the people of our era. Generations to come in Bharata Varsha will be indebted to you and the whole team behind you. It is a great presentation as well. Please convey our sincere congratulations to SAKSHI and the Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture, Bengaluru. Thanking you, Yours truly, Prashanth S. Iyengar (S/o Padmabhushana BKS Iyengar) To Managing Trustee, SAKSHI It is with great honor we would like to bring to your attention that our Surabhi Foundation Trust has been recognized and appreciated for our efforts on World Against Child Labour Day as one of the key contributors in grassroot level for the eradication of child labour by the Ministry of Labour - Karnataka. We take this opportunity to sincerely Thank you! for all your efforts - without which we would have fallen behind in our efforts. We accept this appreciation on behalf of all of you! and promise to continue our work to reach many many more needy kids. Many thanks again for all your efforts and invaluable time! Best Wishes, A.S Patil and Team Surabhi Foundation Trust SAKSHI Newsletter : May-June, Dear Dr. Jahagirdar, Delighted to read your & the events hosted by you & SAKSHI. I am glad to hear you organizing the Purohits workshop & that 85 purohits attended. Glad to note that Prof gave lectures to them. As we all knew, these purohits, who went to Patasalas when they were young were only taught to chant and perhaps the gross or external meaning - but not the spiritual or psychological meanings! It is thus clear to us that the task ahead is much more deeper and more complex and more Herculean than our worst imaginations! But we keep on doing what we can do. I applaud SAKSHI s work in many multi-directional ways. Kind regards, R. Narayanaswami, Ph. D. Scientist (NASA, USA) Dear Sir, Many thanks for SAKSHI News Letter which I received today. The note from Dr. Kashyap sir, Yoga in modern times made me spell bound by its depth and comprehensiveness. I particularly cherish the sentence One should focus not only on one s own development but also on helping the nighbours to lead a helthy and prosperous life. I only wish this article should be given as wide a publicity as possible, particularly in view of International Yoga Day on 21st of June. yours sincerely M.J. Lakshmana Rao 1/8th Demmy Pages : x + 78 Price : ` 90/- J U S T R E L E A S E D Arthritis Yoga Pranayama : A Fusion therapy T. K. Jagannathan 1/16 th Demmy Pages : vi + 57 Price : ` 20/-

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