Author: Ranjit Kumar Dash
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: August 10, 2007
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/209523.html
The UNESCO recently placed the Rigveda on
its World Heritage List. Weeks later, in the same country where the UN is
headquartered, it met with a reception that says little has changed in how
the world views the Vedas, UN recognition or no.
It was an eclectic first when the US Senate
opened with recitation from the Rigveda. The priest, Rajan Zed, had barely
begun his 90-second Vedic prayer to mark the opening of the US Upper House,
when a few Christian fundamentalists protested: "Lord Jesus, protect
us from this abomination." Zed just carried on: "Lead us from unreal
to real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality."
What is so unacceptable about these words
and lines? Zed had begun with the Gayatri mantra - a prayer that mentions
no sectarian god-head, a prayer every American who goes to a yoga studio in
the US or an ashram in Haridwar, would not mind saying. The same holds true
for the other prayer, from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: "Lead us from...
(Asato ma sad-gamaya...)" - which is sort of de rigueur at the end of
any traditional yogic session.
Where physical well-being is the focus, there
is no objection to any package where Vedic prayers feature. But the same ideas
and sentiments, rendered into English, turn out to be no-nos - even "evil"
- if their use widens.
While this is not the first time that higher
thoughts from India are stirring interest abroad, obscurantist objections
are inevitable, given the regimentation within organised religions today.
The appeal of this Veda, in the current wave of renewed interest, could possibly
outweigh the kind of hide-bound reactions we saw last month in the US. But
not before a thing or two are addressed. First, there is a general ignorance
about what the Rigveda essentially is.
So how best to focus international attention
on it? As scripture from a prehistoric ethos of sky gods and chants for their
propitiation in what came to be known as brahmanic rituals? Or as a body of
composition to which only a section of the humanity can relate for guidance?
Or, indeed, as the first artefact of intellect where the mind is finding itself
in contemplation, postulating immortality, dwelling upon eternity?
In a world now buried under bestsellers which
survive a week, not many know that the Rigveda is what can be called man's
first footprint on logos. It records the first glimmers of man's cognitive
engagement, as it were, with the world in the making.
No one knows for sure how the Vedas came into
existence. The dates assigned to them vary greatly, their provenance going
back to a formidable oral tradition drawn between 6000 and 1250 BCE. Tradition
has it that the Vedas are ever-existent (nitya) and of impersonal origin (apaurusheya)
- which is to be understood as composition by seers, of anonymous antiquity,
in a state of inspiration.
The Rigveda is the most important for its
scope and originality, the other three - Yajur, Sama, and Atharva - in part
derived from it. While the main body of each Veda is the respective Samhita
(recension), there are massive appendices (of ritual manuals) to the recensions,
known as Brhamanas, and the Upanishads, which are in turn appendices to the
Brahmanas. Together with the mystical Aranyakas, the Samhita, Brahmanas and
the preeminently philosophical Upanishads complete the Vedic corpus.
Being the fount of India's gnostic tradition
of free enquiry, the Rigveda proffers different theories of creation, including
the ex nihilo variety, with their scintillating insights into the nature of
man and the universe in Nasadiya Sukta through Purusha Sukta. The Rigveda
has an overarching monistic world view, where we do meet a skyful of gods;
but the idea of One Ultimate Principle prevails. Here there is not even the
later antinomy between soul and substance - purusha and prakriti.
The Vedas go beyond the scope of the usual
scripture. The Rigveda contains the seeds of the sciences and foreshadows
later schools of philosophy, social ideals and economic concepts. In the book
of life that is the Vedic corpus are thoughts and symbolisms that have cross-pollinated
some of the most celebrated ideas across the ancient world - notably Plato's
theory of reincarnation, his allegory of the cave (maya) and his simile of
the charioteer and the horses for the mode of existence of the soul.
In their own right a rare kind of sublime
poetry, the Rigveda's hymns collapse the mythical past with the ritual present,
and draw the reader into the timeless world of a body of inspirational thoughts
difficult to find elsewhere. Scholars have described the Rigveda as "a
very worldly sacred book". There is none of the wish to renounce the
material world. The worshipper invokes the gods to grant him health, wealth
and long life. The meditations in the hymns are radiantly life-affirming.
In existence since long before the religious
spirit of the land was to be overtaken by orthodoxy, the Rigveda offers us
a universalism whose relevance to the contemporary world cannot be overstated.
The verse, 'may noble thoughts come to us from all directions', emblazons
its core cherishment while the line, 'Hearken, ye the world over, (you are)
the sons of immortality...' is a clarion call. Where would we find such unitive
vision of mankind or the inspiration towards the infinite possibilities that
man is if we keep the Rigveda out of world podiums!
- ranjit.dash@expressindia.com
