O God, grant us of boons the best, a mind to think and a smiling love, increase of wealth, a healthy body, speech that is winsome and days that are fair.
RV II, 21 615
The last section of Part I brought to our attention certain tokens of Emerging Life: Ushas, the cosmic phenomenon of Dawn, janman, the biological phenomenon of Birth, and shraddha, the spiritual phenomenon of Faith. The three themes of the next section in Part II are linked in a homologous manner to these phenomena, for the Sun follows Dawn and Breath follows Life, while the discovery of the temporal can be made only against the awareness of the nontemporal 16 which follows the appearance of faith.
The moment that human consciousness becomes conscious of itself, the question of the origin of things arises. Man may not necessarily be investigating the chain of cause and effect, but the moment he becomes conscious of his own existence, he no longer takes the existence of the things he sees around him for granted. He begins to question their origin: first he asks “whence” and then “why.”
The Vedic Revelation depicts now Man’s environment, that is, the little portion of reality man experiences every day, as being a gift of the Gods, the result of divine blessings. It would be catastrophic, and thus wrong, to interpret this Vedic awe and wonder at the works of the Gods as simply the primitive attitude of an unscientific mind. The myth of the Gods may be more sophisticated than the myth of science; furthermore, the Vedic Gods are not considered to be extrinsic beings bestowing upon Man their favors according to whim or wisdom. The same cosmic venture in which Gods and Men are engaged is hierarchical rather than democratic, and both perform in their proper way the recreating and restorative sacrifice of time and space and of all that they contain. “Prajapati [i.e., the total reality] is both Gods and Men.” 17
The texts of Part II urge us to accept reality and, in concrete terms, to recognize human reality as a gift. These texts are only a selection from the vast treasure-house of the shruti concerning this world view. It would be naive to interpret the hymns that follow as expressions of an uncritical mind begging the Gods for blessings that could be obtained in no other fashion. The main thrust of this type of mantra is to awaken the consciousness that life itself is a gift, and that all that comes with it or that makes it really alive, and thus worth living, is also a gift, that is, a “coming,” something that “happens” to us, in the happening of which we are constitutively involved, though each in a different way. This type of hymn stresses cosmic solidarity in a markedly anthropological way. The world of the Gods overarches that of mortals; the Gods are bridges between Men. Men fight one another, but then they discover that both sides are invoking the same God; Men tend to think of themselves as the center of the universe, and then they realize that the breath of life is common to all living beings; Men are really united when they look in the same direction, contemplating the marvels of the divine. The discovery of time brings with it a realization that it is like a net that not only draws together the different moments of a Man’s life but also ties him up with all other temporal creatures. Man may, furthermore, experience a depth in his own being which does not belong to the sphere of temporal reality: all are blessings of the Lord, graces and favors that form the warp and woof of human existence. The fundamental meaning of a blessing is, perhaps, that it communicates life by means of an action, generally embodied in word or gesture. Recognition and acceptance of the fact that there is a blessing at the source of all that we are and have and do are both signs of an already mature spirituality.
Where there are blessings, there may also appear curses. In later periods, and especially in some of the hymns of the Atharva Veda, we find an ample repertoire of curses, but they are then used on another level, on the level of the human word which may be employed either for good or for bad purposes. Indeed, the human word is always powerful, because it is more than just a sound, a wish, or a thought; it is a partial incarnation of the primeval dynamism of the Word. Here, however, we are dealing not with utterances, or with the effort of Man to divert the flow of cosmic energy in one direction or another; we have to do with the very structure of human and divine reality and with the discovery of one of the fundamental “laws” governing the relation between Men and the Gods. This relation is not physical or psychophysical or dialectical; it is specifically religious. Prayer enters at this point and blessing is one of its main categories.
Desire for happiness is a basic human urge, but dissatisfaction with every achievement of it is equally human. It seems as if bliss and well-being are ever elusive, never absent and yet never fully grasped. Mangala, the word summing up this subsection, expresses in itself the ideal of beauty, goodness, and happiness. 18 This felicity, which is elusive or transient in spite of much patient waiting for auspicious moments, is influenced by the conviction that happiness is a divine prerogative, coming to men only as a free gift. In any event true human happiness not only comes from on high, but is also of a “higher” nature.
Those gifts in the Vedas are simple: Savitri, Indra, prana, kala. The Gods and certain “divinized notions” represent the embodiment of human longings, though they are by no means merely subjective projections of unfulfilled desires. The fundamental human values that make life the gift par excellence are, at the same time, the most simple and universal.
This subsection enumerates only a few of these values, of which one of the most precious is the ability to recognize the existence of the ideal, the reality of beauty, the realization of happiness; in short, the sublimity of Savitri, one of the most comprehensive divine symbols.
A fundamental human experience is that of being neither alone nor a multitude, but rather of being jointly under the influence of a power that embraces what to us appear to be incompatible. Indra is invoked by those who fight one another. Human enmity is not ultimate, and there is an archway over our heads which links together friends and enemies, and thus also good and evil. There is no ontic excommunication, as it were. Encompassing the whole of the universe there is something greater than Man.
Third, Man is conscious of life throbbing within him; he is aware that he is living and discovers his own vital power. This discovery is not the intellectual discovery of a principle, but the experiential encounter with life itself in its most concrete form: in our lungs, in our organs, in our brains. We observe it ebbing and flowing, increasing and decreasing, and are able to experience its rhythm and even to control its flow: the word for this is prana.
Man can be happy here on earth if, finally, he realizes both the reality and the value of his temporal structure and also the nontemporal dimension that accompanies temporal life all the “time.” The awareness, not of our historicity, not of the accumulation of time in our lives or in the life of our group or of the whole species, but the awareness of elemental time, of the harmony of our rhythms, of the moments in and through which we really live, the realization of the temporal nature of our being, the experience of the flowing of our own life according to a mysterious pattern which we call time this is a fundamental human experience. Significantly enough, this experience of the reality of time within ourselves, the realization of our temporal existence, of its passage along the temporal shore, goes hand in hand with the more obscure but no less real intuition of an element incommensurable with time and yet inseparable from it: this is akala the timeless. None of these gifts can be totally snatched from Man as long as there is life. Living with them he discovers that happiness is neither a mere idea, nor just an ideal, but part and parcel of his life.
1 It would be misleading to say that Savitri is the divinization of the Sun, that is, the Sun as a personified Deity. It would be equally misleading to affirm that they have nothing to do with each other. The angle of vision from which modern Man may be tempted to consider either statement leads him into confusion. Savitri is indeed the name of a divinity, celebrated in eleven hymns in the Rig Veda alone and mentioned there some one hundred and seventy times; of this divinity the Sun is the symbol, while the reverse is also true, for the Sun, the golden disk in the sky, is itself symbolized by Savitri. This interchangeability reflects the fact that by “Sun” is always understood more than just the sun and that by “God” is always understood less than God. The whole reality of the Sun or of God cannot possibly be contained by what we think or imagine, let alone by what we measure or experiment with, in relation to the Sun or to God. The sun in the sky leads us to the supreme Godhead, but this leading is not the leading of one who points out the way and afterward vanishes; God without the creatures is no longer God, because he is, precisely, God of the creatures. To mix God and the creatures would be pantheism; to separate both amounts to idolatry (or atheism if we eliminate the divine). The relation is more intimate than any causal thinking may incline us to suppose. It is not, for instance, that God through the Sun gives us his blessings, warmth, light, and life, as if a higher being were utilizing an instrument. It is rather the awareness that the “Sun” is more than what we may call and think of as the sun, and that God is no stranger to it. 19
1. His golden arms Godhead has extended
in potent blessing toward the sacrifice.
Like a grave young priest, he lets the chrism drip
from his hands onto the airy spaces.
2. May we enjoy the vitalizing force
of God, the radiant; may he grant us wealth!
He is the God who sends to rest and wakens
all life that moves on two feet or on four.
3. With kindly, never failing guardian powers
protect our house, O Savitri, today.
O gold-tongued God, preserve us in the right path.
Let no ill-wisher have us in his grasp.
4. God Savitri, friend of our homes, gold-handed,
has risen to meet the evening. With iron cheeks
and honey-sweet tongue the God, worthy of praise,
imparts good gifts to every worshiper.
5. Like mediating priest, the God has extended
his golden arms so lovely to behold.
The heights of Heaven and Earth he has ascended
and made each flying monster speed away.
6. Grant favor today, Savitri, and tomorrow.
O you who own an ample treasure store,
enrich us daily by your life-bringing power.
May this our song now set us in your grace.
1. Godhead: Savitri.
In potent blessing: lit. full of wise efficacy (sukratu), toward the libation(savanaya). Grave: sudaksha, skilled liturgically.
Chrism: ghrta, fatness, cream, sacred and consecrating oil.
2. The radiant: Savitri
3. Right path: suvita. The meaning could also be: keep us in ever-renewed joy, welfare.
4. Cf. RV I, 35, 10 (§ I 22); II, 38, 1.
Good gifts: bhuri vamam.
5. Lit. like an upavaktr (cf. Sayana’s commentary), like a mediator, i.e., like a mediator with a priestly function.
Flying monster: patayat... abhvam; most probably the terror of the night.
6. Favor: vama, wealth, from the root van-, to love, to desire, to strive after, to worship. Vamabhajahsyama, may we share in your grace, favor, reward (by this our song), or, may it impart to us your grace.
2 The verbal root underlying the name of Savitri, like that of Surya is su-, meaning to impel, to enliven, and to beget Savitri impels the movement of all beings, arousing and enlivening them; he begets new consciousness, the light of the intellect; Savitri illumines not only our physical eyes, but principally our spiritual vision. Savitri is the awakener or rather the enlightener, the great stimulator. Our vision, surely, is different once the light of dawn has given way to the refulgent radiance of the sun. No longer is there “morning” or initial knowledge-matutinal consciousness--but the fullness of light which Savitri brings to us--zenithal awareness. This does not come solely from without, of course; our own eyes must be ready and open. Savitri must also be in our own eyes, in our own inner beings, so that we may really enjoy the fullness of vision which he bestows.
Savitri is obviously connected with truth and cosmic order. 20 He enlightens us according to truth and the dynamic realities of things. Savitri himself observes the cosmic laws (v. 4). He is the Lord of all that moves and of all that moves not (v. 6). He has been identified thus with Prajapati (v. 2) and also with Pushan. 21
This hymn is a wonder of poetry and balance. Nothing has been omitted. Savitri is the sustainer of heaven and earth and the arouser of all creatures; he brings life and warmth to everything: following his own course, he comes nigh when the seasons change. Finally the poet expresses the thought that the life of Men must likewise be attuned to that cosmic order of which Savitri is both the revealer and the observer.
1. From Savitri the God, wise supreme Spirit,
we crave that gift most worthy to be sought,
by which he grants his worshipers protection.
His rays vouchsafe to us the great God’s boon.
2. Sustainer of the Heaven, Lord of the cosmos,
this sage puts on his golden-colored mail.
Clear-sighted, far-extending, filling the heavens,
Savitri has brought us bliss our lips must praise.
3. Amply he fills the realms of Earth and Heaven;
in tune with his own being he sings the hymn.
The God, with arms outstretched, all creatures fosters,
arousing, lulling all life with his rays.
4. He lights up all things, guards each holy ordinance.
None can deceive him, the great God, the radiant.
He has stretched out his arms to all earth dwellers.
Maintaining his own laws he runs his course.
5. With his own greatness Savitri has filled
the three domains of space, three worlds, three heavens.
He moves the threefold Heaven and threefold Earth.
With ordinances three he himself protects us.
6. Most gracious God, life-stirrer, bringer of slumber,
controller of all, what moves not and what moves,
may Savitri the God vouchsafe us shelter
and security, distress held thrice at bay.
7. God Savitri comes nigh with changing seasons.
May he enhance our stock of food and sons!
May he grant strength through days and nights to follow
and may he send us wealth with progeny.
1. Supreme spirit Asura. Though Asura is used here as the name of a class of Gods, we have translated it according to the word’s etymological meaning: spiritual, incorporeal, divine (from asu, spirit, breath, life).
2. Lord of the cosmos: bhuvanasya prajapatih.
3. In tune with his own being or in accordance with his own tune he creates the hymn: svaya dharmane.
4. Ordinance: vrata, the divine order (also in v. 5).
Maintaining his own laws: dhrtavrata, vrata meaning law by personal resolve.
5. Three is here the symbol of fullness and perfection, expressing a quality rather than a quantity.
6. The last line is a metaphor from warding off wild animals.
3 If human life were lived merely on the horizontal two-dimensional level, not only would forgiveness be impossible (for what has been done, has been done), but also prayers and entreaties would be pointless. Furthermore, the gratuitous blessings that revive life, strengthen Man’s hopes, and sustain his expectations would be inconceivable. Of this openness Savitri, again, is the living symbol. It is he who bestows blessings, 22 which he can do because he is not entangled in the two-dimensional world, but is on high overseeing both Men and cattle, keeping an eye on every creature, not in order to punish or to judge, but in order to bless, for he is the Lord of all wealth (v. 3). A blessing cannot be something “due,” nor can the act of blessing be termed a “duty.” A blessing is not an automatic action or the fruit of any kind of regular process. Blessings belong to the realm of spontaneity and freedom. No one has a right to a blessing, for a compulsory blessing would cease to be a blessing. Prayer is an actualization of human freedom, as many a chant of the shruti discloses to us. When you pray for a blessing it is not that you try your luck with the Gods on the chance that they may be well disposed toward you; it is rather that you dare to enter and even to interfere in their internal unrestricted sphere and participate in it. Prayer is a joyous and free interplay between Gods and Men, the results of which are always unpredictable. Who is going to win? Will Men make the Gods human or the Gods make Men divine?
1. May God Savitri, chariot-borne, come hither,
filling the heavens, rich in treasure divine,
dispenser of everything that makes man happy,
lulling to sleep, then stirring all that breathes
2. His arms are far-extended, mighty, golden.
They reach as far as the utmost limits of Heaven.
Now is his greatness highly to be praised.
3. Now may this God Savitri, the strong and mighty,
Lord of all wealth, vouchsafe to us his riches!
May he, extending his far-spreading luster,
bestow on us the food that nourishes men!
4. These songs praise Savitri of gentle speech,
whose arms are full, whose hands are beautiful.
Preserve us evermore, O Gods, with blessings.
1. Chariot-borne: lit. driven by horses.
2. Limits of Heaven: divo antan, the ends of the sky.
Sun: surya. Here again Savitri is not identical with the sun. Cf. RV I, 35, 9 (§ I 22).
Course: apasya, lit. activity.
3. Nourishes: rasate, gives taste to men.
4. Of gentle speech: lit. the honey-tongued one.
4 Indra, whose power is praised in more than three hundred hymns in the Rig Veda, that is, in more than a quarter of the whole corpus, possesses all human virtues in superlative degree; he is the Hero, the Man-God, of Vedic times. It is natural that it is his prerogative to bless Men in all their enterprises, for power and guidance lie with him.
The hymn we give here recapitulates nearly all the characteristics of Indra. The text starts with an acclamation of praise to Indra who from the moment of his birth establishes his power and fills the whole universe with his incomparable deeds. Then follows a description of these same deeds and of the characteristics of Indra with a wealth of praise, expressions of awe, and petitions.
Indra organized the whole universe (vv. 2, 7). It is he who has fixed in their places the earth and the mountains, who has measured out space, stretched out the sky, and created both sun and sunrise. The establishment of the universe is one of his functions, for Indra is the Lord especially of space.
He is the hero of sundry exploits (vv. 3, 11-12). The most famous and most frequently recounted is that in which he killed the dragon or “serpent,” Vrtra, who was holding the waters captive. Etymologically vrtra means resister and hence “enemy,” “obstacle,” “upholder.” In the Rig Veda Vrtra is usually interpreted as a demon representing drought, but he has also sometimes been regarded as the personification of darkness. It is by defeating him that Indra imparts light to the whole world. It is not improbable that these struggles with various demons allude to both historical and cosmogonic acts. In myth cosmogony and history converge, and if worship or liturgy is more than sheer magic it is, among other things, because it offers a platform where they can meet. The regeneration of the world is both the cause and the effect of the regeneration of Man.
On another occasion Indra freed the light (called here “cows”) that a demon, Vala, had imprisoned in his cavern. In this exploit Indra is called the “powerful bull.” The Rig Veda says in several passages that it was after liberating the waters that Indra produced the Sun, the Sky, and the Dawn:
When, Indra, you had slain the chief of dragons
and overcome the charms of the enchanters,
then you gave life to Sun and Dawn and Heaven
and found no single foe to stand against you. 23
Indra is chief of warriors, endowed with matchless power (vv. 4, 7-9). He was a warrior from birth. 24 As protector of warriors and princes he is hailed as commander in chief in the struggle of the invading Aryans against the original inhabitants of the land. Men on all sides, at least among the Aryans, call him to their assistance in battle, for without his help none can be victorious. There could hardly be a better metaphor to express his transcendence. His weapon of war is visible in both east and west: the vajra or thunderbolt is the mythical name for lightning. He destroys sinners and all evil (v. 10). His zest in combat is directed toward victory over his foes, and particularly toward victory over all evil demons. He is uncompromising and relentless toward the proud.
Indra is the drinker of Soma, helping and encouraging those who sacrifice (vv. 6, 13, 15). He is famous for his passionate love for the Soma juice and it is thanks to Soma that he can accomplish his extraordinary feats. 25 However we may assess or explain the use of intoxicating agents, one feature may be stressed and pondered here: immortality, strength, and courage come from the outside, that is, from an external agency and through the use of a material substance, not from a merely endogenous procedure.
Our hymn, we may note, makes scant reference to the beauty of Indra, so many aspects of which are acclaimed in other hymns. Here he is, rather, the “terrible,” concerning whom Men are seized by fears and doubts. “Where is he?” “where, he who is the God of all the spaces?” Some may even say that he does not exist. Yet “believe in him,” says the text (v. 5) without equivocation, though only at the end is doubt overcome by the experience that he really is (v. 15).
The following stotra will make the personality of Indra more familiar.
He is everywhere:
RV VI, 47, 18
i) He became the original form of every form; It is his form that is everywhere to be seen. 26
He is all-powerful:
RV I, 100, 15
ii) The limits of his power cannot be reached; neither by Gods, albeit divine, nor mortals, nor yet the waters.
RV II, 46, 3
iii) Utterly has he outshone both Heaven and Earth. This radiant one is greater than all the Gods.
He is full of compassion:
RV I, 165, 9
iv) Before you, O compassionate, all falter; among the Gods not one is found your equal.
He inspires ardent devotion:
RV III, 53, 2
v) O mighty Indra, with the sweetest songs I catch your garment’s hem as a child his father’s.
RV VIII, 1, 5-6
vi) For any price, O Indra, I’ll not sell you, not for a thousand or ten thousand pieces!
O Indra, you are more to me than a father. I count a brother naught compared to you. You and a mother, O bountiful, vie with each other in generous giving and in bestowal of joy.
1. He who from birth was chief of the Gods, the wise one,
protecting with his might the other Gods,
before whose energy and mighty exploits
the two worlds tremble: he, Men, is the Lord!
2. Who stilled the quaking of the mighty earth
and set at rest the agitated mountains,
who measured out the middle regions of space
and gave the sky support: he, Men, is the Lord!
3. Who slew the dragon and loosed the seven rivers,
who drove the cattle out of Vala’s cavern,
who brought forth fire from between the rocks,
victorious ever: he, Men, is the Lord!
4. Who can, if he so choose, make reel this planet,
who humbled and drove off the inferior race,
who, like a gambler, rakes in all his winnings
from vanquished foeman; he, Men, is the Lord!
5. The Terrible, of whom they ask “Where is he?”
(though sometimes men dare say of him “He is not”),
who, as at dice, sweeps off opposing stakes
believe in him; for he, Men, is the Lord!
6. Who encourages all, the strong and feeble alike,
enheartening also the priest who sings his praise;
the handsome one, who helps the presser of juice
and him who adjusts the stones: he, Men, is the Lord!
7. In whose control are horses and all chariots,
all cattle and all habitations of men;
by whose power Sun and Daybreak come to birth,
who leads the Waters: he, Men, is the Lord!
8. Who is invoked by both sides in the battle,
the warriors close by and those far distant,
entreated differently even by two men mounted
in the selfsame chariot: he, Men, is the Lord!
9. Without whose aid men never win in battle,
whose succor they continually implore,
who proves himself for everyone a match,
who moves the immovable: he, Men, is the Lord!
10. Who, long before they know it, shoots his darts
to slay the unnumbered gang of guilty sinners,
who gives no pardon to the arrogant,
who slays the demons: he, Men, is the Lord!
11. Who once discovered in the fortieth autumn
Shambara lurking in the mountain hideouts,
who slew the demon, confident in his prowess,
as he lay on the waters: he, Men, is the Lord!
12. The powerful seven-reined bull who freed the seven
torrents to flow abundantly, the God
whose thunderbolt caused Rauhina to totter
as he scaled the heavens: he, Men, is the Lord!
13. Before whom Earth and Heaven both bow down,
before whose very breath the mountains tremble,
famed drinker of the Soma juice, the wielder
of flashing thunderbolt: he, Men, is the Lord!
14. Who with his aid assists all those who press
the Soma, boiling it, chanting or performing rituals,
whose soul expands by prayer, by dint of Soma
or through the gifts they offer: he, Men, is the Lord!
15. You who grant booty seized from fearsome foeman
to soma presser and cooker, you truly ARE.
May we be ever well-beloved by you!
May we with verve intone your ritual praises
1. He, Men, is the Lord sa jana sa indrah. This phrase is repeated at the end of each stanza. We translate Indra by the Lord. About the birth of Indra, cf. RV III, 48; IV 18. In RV X, 90, 13 (§ I 5), it is said that “Indra was born from the mouth of the purusha”
2. Cf. RV VI, 69, 5 where Indra and Vishnu are said to “stretch the spaces for us to live” and to “expand the universe.” In several other hymns the great actions of Indra are extolled: RV II, 15, 2; III, 31, 15 III, 49, 4; VIII, 12, 30.
3. Reference to the legends of the release of the waters and of the cows by Indra.
Vala: a mythical cave and a demon who holds back the waters.
4. The inferior race: dasam varnam the color of the diasa, probably the darker color of the pre-Aryan clans. Varna, however, not only refers to color but also connotes a category of beings. Later it refers to the four classes (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra) that form the backbone of the caste system.
5. Cf. RV VIII, 1, 7: “Where are you? Whither are you gone? For in many places is your mind.”
10. Demons: dasyu, name of a class of demons. The name denotes enemy, barbarian impious man stranger, and is related to dasa, slave demon, infidel, somebody from a foreign land, and later those who are not twice-born (dvija). Cf. the name appearing in v. 4.
11. Sambara: name of a demon whom Indra evicts from the mountain where he is hiding himself and terrorizing men.
12. Rauhina: name of another demon, a drought demon.
13. Heaven and Earth: dyu and prthivi here regarded as two divine beings.
14. With his aid assists: avati . . . .uti, favors.
Whose soul expands by prayer: yasya brahma vardhanam.
15. You truly ARE: sa kilasi satyah, you are as such true, or you are truth, truthful, you are real, reality. This is the climax of the hymn.
5 Wind, Breath, and Life form a triad which modern Man has broken asunder, but which Man some millennia ago still experienced as a whole, for he viewed these three not as identical but as deeply related and belonging together. Movement is a common feature to all three. Movement is not seen here as a metaphysical riddle for our minds, but as a physical datum of our world. The phenomenon of movement may confound our reason (for we may not find a rational explanation for it) but it quickens our being (for without it we would die). Movement is the soul, that is, the life-principle, of every phenomenon in the three worlds. Wind is not just air, but air in movement. Breath is this same movement of the air within living beings. Life is intrinsically movement; it is something that somehow moves without being moved. There is no need to connect this vision with a primitive cosmology or an undeveloped physiology, though the expressions used to describe it may be clothed in the language of the time. The experience takes place at a deeper level of reality, a level where that fatal dichotomy between matter and spirit has not yet occurred. The fear of one extreme should not precipitate us into the other.
Is it possible for contemporary Man to reenact that primordial experience without becoming archaic, primitive, regressive, or even pathological? No amount of intellectual indoctrination, even if it manages to inculcate conviction, will succeed. It is obviously not a question of reverting to an undifferentiated outlook and to an almost animistic level of experience, but rather of viewing things with an integrated and integrating insight which is something more than mere poetic feeling.
Life is an all-pervasive vector in the structure of reality. Something without life is dead, that is, it is nonbeing. The wind reveals to us how alive the earth is, and there was no need to wait until the discovery of the electronic spin to discover self-motion. Breath discloses to us the intimate connection between life and matter, and there was likewise no need to wait for psychosomatic medicine or “vital philosophy” in order to come to this conclusion. Life itself is a mere abstraction if there is no living being. But being too is nothing if it is not being, that is, alive. Hell, death, and nonbeing together compose a challenge which is certainly threatening, but which is also evocative of victory and joy as the unfailing concomitants of life.
The hymn given here combines in a masterly way all the different aspects of this world view. The wind gives life to plants and also brings comfort to the animal realm. The plants breathe in and out and perform an ecologically essential purifying function. This Breath of Life, however, is not the wind alone, nor simply the movement of masses of air in one direction or another owing to differences of pressure caused by changes of temperature. This Breath of Life is the symbol of life itself, that is, life as it manifests itself in living beings. For this very reason it is also death and fever, the rain, the sun and the moon, and is not separated from the Father of all beings. Does not life require death in order to assert itself?
Would there be Being if there were no Source witnessing its very being, its flow? A difficult line in the last stanza seems to suggest that the mystery of personal consciousness is bound up with the identification of the person with this same Breath of Life: I am that very Life. I pray that I may clasp to myself this very Breath of Life, so that I may live: “You are indeed I.” The conquest of immortality is the realization both that Life is Life, thus that it does not die, and also that I am insofar as I realize my own identity with Life. We are here at the threshold of the Upanishadic vision. 27
1. Praise to the Breath of Life!
He rules this world,
master of all things,
on which all things are based.
2. Praise, Breath of Life, to your uproar!
Praise to your thunder!
Praise to your lightning!
Praise, Breath of Life, for your rain!
3. When Breath of Life with his thunder
roars o’er the plants,
then, pregnant with pollen,
the flowers burst forth in abundance.
4. When Breath of Life in due season
roars o’er the plants,
all things on earth
rejoice with great rejoicing.
5. When Breath of Life the broad earth
with rain bedews,
the cattle exult:
“We shall have plenty,” they say.
6. The plants converse with this Breath,
drenched by his moisture:
“Our life is prolonged,
for you have made us all fragrant.”
7. Praise to you, Breath, when you come
and praise when you go!
When you stand up
and when you sit still, to you praise!
8. Praise to you, Breath of Life, breathing
both in and out!
To your turning this side
and that, to the whole of you, praise!
9. Grant us, O Breath, your dear form
and the one dearer still
that we may live!
Give us your healing power!
10. Breath of Life clothes all beings with care
as a father his son;
master of all things,
whether they breathe or breathe not.
11. Breath of Life is death, is fever,
revered by the Gods.
In the highest world
he sets the man who speaks truth.
12. Breath of Life is Queen, is Guide,
revered by all things;
he is sun, he is moon;
he is also the Father of all.
13. The two breaths are rice and barley,
Breath the ox that pulls.
In barley resides i
inbreath; out-breath is called rice.
14. A man breathes in, he breathes out,
within the womb.
Quickened by you,
to birth he comes once more.
15. The mighty Wind they call him, or Breeze.
The future and the past
exist in him.
On Breath of Life all things are based.
16. When you, Breath of Life, quicken them,
then the plants of the Atharvans and Angirases,
of Gods and of Men, come to birth.
17. When Breath has poured down with the rain
upon the vast earth,
then plants come forth
and herbs of every sort.
18. The one who knows you thus, O Breath,
and that which forms your support,
to him will all offer
tribute in yonder highest heaven.
19. Just as all creatures owe tribute
to you, Breath of Life,
so may they bring it
to the one who hears you, O renowned!
20. He moves among the Gods, an inner seed;
becomes, is, is reborn.
He has entered the son
he, the father, who was, is, and shall be!
21. If the sunbird, rising, extracted
his foot from the sea,
neither today nor tomorrow
would exist, neither night, day, nor dawn.
22. The eight--wheeled moves on one rim,
to and fro, thousand-syllabled.
With one half it engendered
all creation. Of its other half what sign?
23. Of all that is born is he Lord,
of all that moves.
Of swift bow like the rest,
to you, O Breath of Life, homage!
24. Of all that is born is he Lord,
of all that moves.
Untiring he, steadfast;
may my prayer bring Breath to my aid!
25. Erect he keeps watch among the sleeping.
he falls not prone.
None ever heard
that he among the sleepers should slumber.
26. Breath of Life, do not forsake me.
You are, indeed, I.
Like the Embryo of the Waters
I bind you to me that I may live!
1. Breath of Life: prana, throughout.
12. Queen: viraj, the shining One. Cf. RV X, 90, 5 (§ 15) and the hymn dedicated to her in the AV VIII 9, d. also AV XIII, I, 33.
Guide: deshtri an epithet of a Vedic divinity. Lit. she who shows me direction thus the guide.
Father of all: Prajapati.
13. Even the products of agriculture are related to prana.
15. Mighty Wind: Matarishvan.
Breeze: vata.
16. Of the Atharvans and Angirases: i.e., the herbs used in rites of the AV.
20. Obscure verse. Prana appears as the life-principle of even the Gods, and it is he who is born again in every being. He is both the child (embryo, seed: garbha) and the father; i.e., he is immanent in all things.
21. Sunbird: hamsa, swan, here referring to the sun. What the sun is in the sky, so breath is in man: time depends upon it. (Translation shortened.)
22. This verse also refers to the sun. The question is about the invisible half of the sun’s course.
Sign; ketu, banner, light, symbol.
23. Of swift bow: kshipradhanvan.
24. Prayer: brahman.
26. Allusion to hiranyagarbha; cf. RV X, 121, 1 (§ 14).
6 Prana, the Breath of Life of the preceding pages, has been translated in this section simply as Life, in order to indicate the interiorization and ontologization of the same experience. this universe is not a dead universe. Life is its most striking feature, while its deepest one is consciousness. The passage from the one to the other is realized in the Upanishads by a peculiar transmythization of the Vedic motifs.
From an ecstatic attitude of joy and thankfulness for the gift of life as expressed in the Vedas, the Upanishads lead us on to an enstatic discovery that this life is within us and that we not only enjoy it but also share in it as a treasure--even that we are this life. Fullness of life implies a knowledge that I am alive. Life in the four Vedas means the biological fact of movement, growth, and nonreflective consciousness; it is that cosmic life in which all beings, from God down to the particles of earth, share; it is the breath of the universe, breathed also by Men. Life in the Upanishads means something more. We enter with them into a new phase, that of self-conscious interiorization. Man ceases to be a mere spectator or even a part of the cosmic play; he becomes the focal point and the very center of operation of the whole of reality. Life is consciousness; consciousness is self-consciousness and self-consciousness is consciousness of the Self.
Two fragmentary examples of the Upanishadic adventure are given here. The Prashna Upanishad develops a theory of prana as the principle of life through six questions (prana) posed by six students to the great master Pippalada. To the first question, regarding the origin of life, how things in fact came to be, the master replies with some ancient wisdom presented in a new way. He invokes the old myth of Prajapati but goes on to say that the Father of all creatures brought into existence two principles, Matter and Life, so that they became the origin of all. Rayi, which is a common word for wealth in the Vedas, 28 becomes here the stuff, the food, the matter or material principle which enters into the composition of all beings; while prana, which is the word used for the vital breath of Men and animals, here possesses an ontological rather than a physiological function. The terms are given a cosmological symbolism: matter is the moon; life is the sun. Matter is the formed and unformed structure of reality. Life is not that which gives form, but that which gives existence.
To the second question, concerning the powers that support a creature and which of these is the foremost, the master replies that the foremost is life. He gives a proof based on the dependence of every other human faculty on. the Breath of Life. If this withdraws, no other power can sustain the body.
To the third question, regarding the origin of this life, the master hesitates to reply. At last he reluctantly proffers his deepest doctrine, saying that life has its origin in the atman, the Self, and that life is as it were the shadow of the atman. It is not the atman, but at the same time it is inseparable from it. It is its first manifestation. 29 The discovery of Life leads to immortality. This sounds like a tautology, and it is precisely the qualification of this statement which is one of the fundamental intentions of the Upanishads. As long as we do not know who we are, as long as we walk in darkness or in ignorance, we shall not fulfill our humanness. Once we know it, we are it; or, as our text puts it: “Whatever is one’s thinking (citta), therewith life comes.” 30 If we discover Life, then, in a real way, we are Life, so long as this discovery is not merely an intellectual operation.
The three other questions, which we do not translate here, reveal once again the everlasting desire of Man to penetrate deeper and deeper into the mysteries of life. The fourth question concerns the subject, enjoyer of life in the state of dream and who is the deva, the master of the dreams. 31 The fifth query regards the nature of the yonder world which one reaches meditating on om. 32 And the final problem deals with the mystery of the purusha, the complete person (of sixteen parts) which is immortal in spite of the fact that all the parts disappear “like running rivers rushing toward the sea.” 33 The Kaushitaki Upanishad goes a step farther than Pippalada. Life is Brahman. This is again a statement that needs to be qualified if it is to be understood in its true meaning. Brahman is consciousness, according to one of the great utterances of the Upanishads. 34 The main message of the Kaushitaki Upanishad is the affirmation that life is the conscious atman.
These texts should provide a healthy corrective to some merely speculative comments of a certain type of popularized Vedanta. The experience of the Upanishads is not only intellectual; it is also vital and, one is tempted to say, primarily existential. Life is to be lived to the full.
PRASN U I, 1; 3-5; 8
i) 1. Sukesha, son of Bharadvaja, Satyakama, Son of Sibi, Gargya, grandson of Surya, Kausalya, son of Ashvalayana, Bhargava of Vidarbha and Kabandhi, son of Katyayana, all of whom made Brahman their highest goal, were established in Brahman and searching for the supreme Brahman, approached the venerable Pippalada with fuel in their hands, thinking “He will explain to us everything.”
3. Then Kabandhi, son of Katyayana, approached him and asked: “Tell me truly, Master, whence have been created all these creatures?”
4. The sage replied: “The creator, out of desire to procreate, devoted himself to concentrated ardor. Whilst thus devoted to concentrated ardor, he produced a couple, Matter and Life, saying to himself, ‘these two will produce all manner of creatures for me.’ ”
5. Now Life is the Sun; Matter is the Moon. Matter, indeed, is all this, the formed and the formless. Hence, [whatever has form] is simply matter.
8. All forms has he, the golden one, the all-knowing. He blazes, final goal and single light. Emitting a thousand rays, in a hundred movements proceeding, the Sun arises, the Life of all creatures!
PRASN U II, 1-13
ii) 1. “Tell me, Master, how many powers support a creature? Which of them make him manifest and, again, which is the foremost?”
2. “These powers,” he replied, “are space, wind, fire, water, and earth; also speech, mind, sight, and hearing. All these, having made the creature manifest, say, ‘It is we who prop up this body and support it!’
3. But the foremost of them, Life, said: ‘Do not deceive yourselves. It is I who, dividing myself into five parts, prop up this body and support it..’ ”
4. They did not believe him. So Life, his pride upset, made as if to leave the body, and when he rose up all the rest of them rose up, and when he settled down they all settled down with him. Just as bees rise up after their queen when she arises, and all of them settle when she settles again, even so do speech, mind, sight, and hearing behave with life. They, being now satisfied, offer him homage.
5. He is the Fire that burns, he is the Sun.
He is the plenteous Rain, he is the Wind.
He is the Earth and Matter and God,
Being and Nonbeing he the Immortal.
6. Just as spokes are affixed to the hub of a wheel,
so are all things established in Life,
the Rig-and Yajur-and Sama-Veda,
Sacrifice, the nobility, and also the priesthood.
7. Lord of creatures, you stir in the womb;
it is you yourself that are born again.
To you, Life, creatures bring their offerings,
to you, who dwell in their vital breaths.
8. Chief mediator between Gods and men
are you, and first offering to the Fathers.
You are the truthful Way of the sages,
the Atharvans and Angirases.
9. You, O Life, by your splendor are Indra
You are Rudra, being a protector.
In the vault of heaven you move as the sun,
the Lord of all lights.
10. When you send rain upon the earth,
then the creatures breathe and live.
When there is food to their hearts’ content,
they dwell in happiness.
11. You are primordial, O Life, the sole Seer,
Lord and consumer of all that is.
We are the givers of your food.
You are our Father, O mighty Wind!
12. That form of yours which resides in speech,
which resides in human hearing and seeing,
which constantly resides in the mind of men
make it benevolent! Do not depart!
13. This whole universe, whatever exists
in all three heavens, is subject to Life.
Protect us, O Life, as a mother her son,
and grant us happiness and understanding!
PRASN U III
iii) Then Kausalya, son of Ashvalayana, asked him:
1. “Tell me truly, Master, whence is this Life born?
How does it come into this body?
How does it distribute itself and how does it settle down?
By what means does it go away?
How does it relate to the external world?
How does it relate to the internal self?”
2. To him he replied: “You are asking very difficult and lofty questions. However, as you are firmly committed to Brahman, I will therefore tell you.
3. “This Life is born of the atman. As his shadow is to a person, so in this case is Life to the atman. By the action of the mind it comes into the body.
4. “As an earthly ruler commands his subordinates, saying: ‘Supervise such and such villages,’ even so Life assigns to the vital breaths different functions:
5. “The downward breath is in the organs of excretion and generation, while the life-breath itself is established in the eye, the ear, the mouth, and the nose; the distributive breath is in the middle, and it carries all the food offered in a balanced way. From it arise the seven flames.
6. “In the heart is the atman. Here are the hundred and one arteries to each of which belong a hundred other arteries, and to each of these belong seventy-two thousand small branches: in those moves the diffused breath.
7. “The upward breath rises up through one of these arteries and leads [at the time of death] to the world of goodness in consequence of goodness, to the world of evil in consequence of evil, or to the world of men in consequence of both [good and evil].
8. “The sun rises as the external [manifestation of] Life, and it supports the life-breath of the eye. The power that is in the earth supports the downward breath of a person, and that which is in the atmosphere the distributive breath; wind is the diffused breath.
9. “Fire, in truth, is the upward breath. Therefore those whose fire of life is extinguished are reborn with their sense organs merged in their mind.
10. “According to one’s thought one enters into life. Life united with fire and accompanied by the atman, leads a man to whatever world his thought has fashioned.
11. “If a man knows Life thus, his offspring will not fail and he will become immortal. On this there is the following verse:
12. When he knows the origin, the mode of entry,
the dwelling place, the fivefold lordship, the dependence
of Life on the atman whoso knows this,
attains immortality attains immortality!”
iv) “Life is Brahman,” said Kaushitaki. “The messenger of Life, of Brahman, is the mind, its watchman is the eye, its herald is the ear, its servant is speech . . . . To this Life, to Brahman, all the powers bring tribute, even without being asked. So too all beings bring tribute to the one who knows this, even without being asked.”
KAUS U III 2-3
v) 2. Indra said: “I am Life, the conscious Self. Reverence me as temporal life and also as immortality. Life is temporal life and temporal life is Life. Life is also immortality. For as long as Life remains in the body there is temporal life. By Life man attains immortality in this world and by consciousness true thinking. Whoever reveres me as temporal life and as immortality--Lives out in this world his full life span, and attains immortality and indestructibility in the world of heaven.” On this point people say that the vital breaths merge into a unity, for otherwise nobody would be able to make known a name simply by speech, or a form by the eye, or a sound by the ear, or a thought by the mind, but because the vital breaths have become one, they make known all these [perceptions] one by one. When speech speaks, all the breaths speak along with it; when the eye sees, all the breaths see along with it; when the ear hears, all the breaths hear along with it; when the mind thinks, all the breaths think along with it; when breath breathes, all the breaths breathe along with it. This is how it is,” said Indra. “Yet there are degrees of superiority among the vital breaths.”
3. One may live without speech, for we sometimes see dumb people. One may live without sight, for we sometimes see blind people. One may live without hearing, for we sometimes see deaf people. One may live without mind, for we sometimes see witless people. One may live with arms or legs cut off, for we sometimes see people without limbs. But it is Life, the conscious Self, which takes hold of this body and makes it stand erect. Therefore one should meditate on this as a praise. By means of Life everything is obtained. Life is consciousness and consciousness is Life. For these two reside together in the body and together they quit . . .
This is the theory and understanding thereof: when a person is asleep without seeing any dream, then he is absorbed into Life alone. Then speech together with all names is absorbed, the eye together with all forms, the ear together with all sounds, the mind together with all thoughts Then, when he wakes up, just as sparks spring forth in all directions from a burning fire, similarly from this atman all the vital breaths proceed to their proper places and from there to the senses and from the senses to the sense objects. This Life consciousness, seizes the body and makes him rise. Therefore one should meditate on this as a praise. By means of Life everything is obtained. Life is consciousness and consciousness is Life. This is the proof and understanding thereof: when a sick person is about to die, having become very weak, he loses consciousness. People say of him: “His mind has departed, he neither hears nor sees nor speaks words nor thinks; then he is absorbed into Life. Then speech together with all names is absorbed, the eye together with all forms, the ear together with all sounds, the mind together with all thought And when he departs from his body, he departs together with all these.”
i) 1. Pippalada was a great master of the AV to which this U belongs.
With fuel in their hands: samitpanayah a sign of humility in approaching a guru, implying the disciple’s readiness to serve him.
2. Cf. § I 37.
3. there is a pun here, kutah whence, prajah (these) creatures, prajayante, have been born.
4-5. The “couple” consists of Matter, rayi, which has also been interpreted as food and is connected with the Moon as its symbol, and prana, energy, the Sun, translated throughout this passage as Life. Tradition has also speculated on the fact that rayi is feminine and prana masculine. For the description of the Sun, cf. MaitU VI, 8. There is a relation between prana (life-force), aditya (light-force), and agni (the force of the fire).
6-7. Cf. § III 6.
8. He: i.e., the sun.
He blazes: tapantam, giving heat, blazing.
ii) 1. Powers: devah, supporting divinities, or deities presiding over man’s activities, i.e., his senses and organs The question is: which constituent parts or component forces make visible, bring to the light, make manifest, or illumine a creature? Cf. the root div-, to shine, from which comes deva, divinity power.
2. Mind: manas.
4. Queen (of the bees): lit. “king.”
5. Plenteous Rain: Parjanya. The equations of the Upanishads are in triads: prana-agni-surya: prthivi-rayi-deva; sat-asat-amrta; Parjanya-Maghavan (Indra)-Vayu. There may also be a correlation between the corresponding member of each triad, viz. prthivi-sat; rayi-asat; deva-amrta.
6. The nobility the kshatriyas.
The priesthood: the brahmanas brahmins.
7. Lord of creatures: Prajapati Cf. a similar idea in AV XI, 4, 19 (§ II 15).
8. Chief mediator: vahnitama, superlative, “best carrying,” “best vehicle.” Cf. YV XXXI, 19-20.
Truthful Way: caritam satyam, moral conduct.
9. By your splendor: tejasa or sharpness.
Lord of all lights: jyotisham patih.
10. They dwell in happiness: anandarupas tishthanti.
11. Primordial: vratya, a noninitiated person; i.e., one who has not received the sacramental consecration, the samskaras which make him a full member of the community. Through a so-called nindastuti, a figure of speech in which a word of contrary meaning is used to express what is intended, vratya has been here interpreted as one who does not need ceremonial initiation because he is already totally pure and purified, thus “ever pure,” primordial. Historically speaking the vratyas are thought to have been Aryans living outside the Brahmanical culture. Cf. the whole AV XV dedicated to them.
Lord: satpatih, lit. true Lord.
Consumer: lit. eater of all.
Mighty Wind: Matarishvan.
12 Benevolent: shiva, auspicious
13. Happiness and understanding shri (success prosperity) and prajna (intelligence and wisdom)
iii) 1. Internal self: adhyatma.
3. By the action of the mind: manokrtena, though Deussen reads mano’krtena and thus translates: “ohne Zutun des (bewussten) Willens.”
5. Downward breath: apana.
Distributive breath: samana.
In a balanced way: i.e., the samana distributes the food in the body.
Seven flames: cf. the conception of food as a sacrifice, hence the allusion to the seven flames of Agni (cf. MundU I, 2, 4; § III 27) applied to the “fire of digestion.”
6. Artery: nadi. Cf. CU VIII, 6, 6, and BU II, 1, 9 (§ VI 4).
Diffused breath: vyana.
7. Upward breath udana.
Goodness: punya.
Evil papa A reference to the new conception of transmigration (cf. also PrasnU I 9).
8. The anthropocosmic relations are: sun-eye-prana, earth-apana, akasa-samana, vayu-vyana.
9. Fire: tejas, heat or energy.
10. Thought: citta, state of mind. Continuation of the idea in v. 8. Cf. CU VIII, 14 1.
12. Fivefold lordship: the fivefold division of the one breath of life.
iv). Cf. BU III, 9, 9 (§ VI 2), for prana as brahman and also TU III, 3 (§ II 11).
Powers: devatah.
5. Cf. § III 28.
v). 1. Cf. § IV 21.
2. Life: prana.
The conscious Self prajnatman over against prajna as mere consciousness Cf. KausU II, 14.
Temporal life: ayus, the accent being on fullness of temporal life.
Immortality: amrta. Ayus and amrta are often linked together in the B and U. Correlation: prana-prajnatman: ayus-amrta, on the one hand and prana -ayus; prajanatman-amrta on the other.
This world: the other world according to recension A.
True thinking: satya samkalpa true conception, true desire purpose, will, the totality of a persons thoughts and feelings in tune with truth. Satya samkalpa is prajna or rather, by prajna the samkalpa becomes satya. Cf. CU VII, 4, 3 (§ VI 3). vital breaths: prana. The plural here has undoubtedly this meaning.
3. Cf. BU VI, 1, 7-14; CU V, 1, 6-15 on the superiority of prana.
Makes it stand erect: utthapayati.
Praise: uktha; cf. KausU II, 6. Play of words with uttha(payati), cf. BU V, 13, 1. For an allegorical interpretation of uktha cf. AA II, 1. Cf. also SB X, 6, 2, 8.
Consciousness: prajna.
For these two: omitted in recension B.
Theory: drshti, seeing, vision
Senses: devah “gods.”
Sense objects: “worlds.”
This passage has some variants in the two standard recensions A and B.
7 The poet-sages of the Rig Veda do not mention the term “time” 35 nor do they try to elaborate on the nature of time; yet they are not only living in time, but also “living time” and speaking of a most temporal way of existence. They earnestly pray to “live a hundred years,” to live “forever,” and they are certainly conscious of the temporal nature of existence, that life is ever fleeting and always too short. They wish to halt the march of time by means of cultic acts, but they encourage Men to live in accordance with the rhythm of nature: day and night, the seasons, the year, the human cycle. Hardly ever can one detect an attitude of escapism from time into the timeless. All three worlds are temporal.
The Atharva Veda, which places so much stress on the cosmic rhythms, 36 contains, however, two speculative hymns on the subject of time. In these hymns there is an exaltation of time as that which cannot be transcended and thus must be glorified and divinized. Time is at the beginning and time will be at the end: nothing escapes time, for only in time can beings be.
Hymn XIX, 53, starts with an involved metaphor in which time is pulling a chariot, thought to represent the sun. This vast chariot, whose wheels are composed of all existent creatures, is drawn by time in the shape of a horse. We are thus introduced straightway to an all-inclusive vision that is cosmic in range and metaphysical in tone. The next verses, under the cloak of ascribing honor to time, tend in fact to emphasize the absolute character of temporal relativity. Time created everything, even the Creator himself, not perhaps metaphysically in a timeless ontology, but certainly in our temporal reality, for lordship over temporal creatures can be meaningful only if it is temporal. Prajapati, insofar as he is the Father of temporal beings, is temporal in his fatherhood. Time is a concomitant dimension of everything under and above the sun.
There is one enigmatic verse of particular interest in this hymn of incomparable beauty and extraordinary suggestive force: “Above Time is set a brimful vessel.” Time is said to replenish itself from a full vessel which, in spite of all efforts, can never be emptied. If from the full one draws away even the full, the full remains, says the famous invocation of the Isha Upanishad. Unlike the Upanishads, the Vedas seem to interpret this principle as the inexhaustible reality of time; the vessel set upon time is so full that, however much is drawn from it, time will never empty it. Every text can be twisted and interpreted according to what we read into it, but the clear impression given by the two following hymns is not that of a world-denying spirituality. It is not the timeless, but the “timefull,” which wins Vedic approbation.
1. Time drives like a horse with seven reins,
a thousand-eyed unaging Stallion.
Him the inspired poets mount.
All beings are his chariot wheels.
2. Time draws this chariot with seven wheels.
Seven are the hubs; its axle is nondeath.
At the head of all beings Time proceeds
unceasingly, the first among the Gods.
3. Above Time is set a brimful vessel.
Simultaneously we see Time here, there, everywhere.
Set face to face with all existences,
Time is throned, men say, in the loftiest realm.
4. Time has gathered together all beings that are;
he has passed through all the gathered beings.
He who was father has become their son.
There is no glory higher than his.
5. Time generated the Sky above
and this vast Earth. The passing moments
present and future, by him set swinging,
are reckoned out in due proportions.
6. Time brought forth fate-filled chance.
In Time the Sun shines and burns.
In Time the eye spies from afar.
In Time all existences are.
7. In Time is consciousness and life,
In Time is concentrated name
By Time, when he draws close at hand,
all creatures are with gladness filled.
8. In Time is energy, in Time the highest good.
In Time is the Holy Utterance.
Time is the Lord of all that is,
the Father, he, of the Creator.
9. Sent forth by him, from him all this
was born. On him is it established.
So soon as he has become Brahman,
Time supports the highest Deity.
10. Time created the creatures.
Time created in the beginning the Lord of creatures.
From Time comes the Self-Existent.
Energy likewise from Time derives.
1. The image of the horse and the seven reins is taken from the symbolism of the Sun in the RV. Cf. RV 1, 164, 2. Cf. AV XIII, 2, 38, where the Sun is homologized to Time. The seven reins may represent a perfect number, or the rainbow, or they may stand for the seven regions of space or, more probably the seven parts of the year, viz. six double months and one intercalary month. Cf. AV X, 8, 5 (§ VII 27)
Unaging Stallion: or, abundant seed (of which the stallion is the image).
3. A brimful vessel: purnah kumbhah, the full jar set upon time. Cf. AV X, 8, 14-15; 29 (§ VII 27).
We may relate v. 29 to the often repeated topic of fullness in BU V, I (§ Vl A Antiphon) or the IsU.
Invocation (§ VII 6) Cf. also the “golden vessel” covering the face of truth; BU V, 15, 1; IsU 15 (§ Vll 31);
Realm: vyoman, firmament.
5. Time is here regarded as the axis around which future and past revolve.
Set: vitishthate: vi-stha- (kale ha- stands for kalena) means spread (or diffused) over (or through), or inserted at different positions or proportions. In time are set the past and the future in rotation (in a recurrent series).
6. Several readings are put forward: Time created either bhuta, i.e., reality, what is, or bhumi, the earth, or bhuti prosperity, auspicious time chance, in the sense of the Greek word kairos which means propitious or appointed time and is perhaps etymologically connected with kala.
7. Consciousness: manas, mind.
Life: prana , or life-breath.
The name, naman, seems to survive beyond the time of the individual. Cf. BU III, 2, 12 (§ V 12).
8. Energy: tapas , also in v. 10.
Highest good: jyeshtha, summum bonum.
Holy Utterance: brahman.
Lord: ishvara.
Creator: Prajapati.
Because of AV X, 7, 24; 32-34 (§ 13), and XI, 5, 5; 23, some relate jyeshtha to brahman and the text would then read: In Time is distilled the All-powerful brahman.
9. Sent forth by him: i.e., by Time.
All this: i.e., all that exists, the whole universe.
Brahman: holy word.
The highest Deity Parameshthin, the Highest the most exalted One, the Sovereign: a cosmic principle and a personified God, or another epithet for Prajapati. Cf AV IX, 3, 11 (§ II 32); IX, 7, 1; X, 2, 20.
10. Self-Existent: Kashyapa, a sage, sometimes said to be the husband of Aditi (the primordial Goddess) and also Identified at times with Prajapati; Kashyapa is svayambhu, self-existent.
8 Hymn XIX, 54, which originally may have formed a unit with the preceding one, uses the same cosmic imagery and speaks of the sacrifice that time set in motion. 37 It is here that later speculations have seen the first signs of a nontemporal transcendence. 38 Through sacrifice Man overcomes his human condition in order to have access to the divine existence. Now, the problem is whether this superior form of existence is temporal or whether it transcends time. Our hymn seems unequivocally in favor of a rather secular not profane interpretation. By means of Brahman, the Holy Word, by means of sacrifice, time conquers this world--not another--and marches on.
A more powerful affirmation of the supremacy of Time would be hard to find. Everything is temporal and time stands at the beginning of everything. These two hymns are endeavoring to stress as emphatically as possible that even the “beginning,” to which the more specifically metaphysical Vedic hymns allude, cannot escape the clutches of time, for agre, “in the beginning,” becomes a temporal concept. 39
1. From Time came into being the Waters,
from Time the Holy Word, Energy, and the regions.
By Time [each day] the Sun arises,
in Time he goes to rest again.
2. By Time blows the cleansing Wind,
through Time the vast Earth has her being.
The great Heaven has his post in Time.
3. Their son Time long ago engendered
the things that were and that shall be.
From Time came Scripture into being
and formulas for Sacrifice.
4. By Time was Sacrifice inaugurated,
inexhaustible oblation to the Gods.
In Time live the spirits ant the nymphs.
Upon Time all the worlds repose.
5. In Time are set this Angiras
and Atharvan who came from Heaven,
both this world and the world above,
all holy worlds and holy interspaces.
6. Having conquered the worlds by Holy Word,
Time, the God supreme, goes on.
1. Holy Word: brahman also in v. 6.
Energy: tapas.
2. There are some variants in the Berlin and Bombay editions.
The cleansing Wind: vatah pavate lit. the Wind cleanses, purifies; this stresses the metaphor of movement.
3. Their son: i.e., Earth and Heaven’s.
Scripture the rc verses.
Formulas for Sacrifice: yajus, sacred prayers.
4. Spirits and nymphs: Gandharvas and Apsarases. Cf. AV XII, 1, 23 (§I 19).
9 There is a kumbha, a jar, a vessel that is above time, 40 the Atharva Veda tells us. This pitcher is so full that it is the origin of time inexhaustible. The Upanishads attempt to peep into and take possession of the jar in its entirety. The Vedas themselves had suggested the method: breaking the jar by means of sacrifice.
The Upanishads now assert that this sacrifice must be an internal and spiritual one. Here is something new and different. Man now is curious; he is concerned to see the jar and not only to enjoy the flow of time that streams from the jar. The jar, that is to say, the container of time, the source of time, cannot also be temporal. We are here approaching one of the most momentous periods of human history: the breaking of “the brimful vessel above time.” Perhaps failure will be the outcome of this effort and all that will remain will be the broken pieces of the broken jar, which Man will then have painfully to reconstruct. Maybe the ancient seers had seen our time also.
The adventure of living starts, according to the Upanishads, with a twofold discovery, namely, that interiorization is the means of grasping reality, and that nontemporal reality consists of pure transcendence. This epoch-making discovery, while it has led some people to the highest peaks of human experience, has also been the cause of a strange degeneracy when Man is not capable of living and breathing on such heights The Upanishhads begin with a criticism of time. Time is contingent, the earth dissolves, time is folded up. They follow with extolling the intemporal. God alone remains.
The Shvetashvatara affirms that which is above time, that in which everything begins and ends, is God. He is the Lord, indeed the very maker of time, 41 for time is also a creature. Here it is, the lord of happiness, that Men should know.
The Maitri Upanishhad endeavors to build a bridge and speaks of two kinds of Brahman, of two aspects of ultimate reality, one temporal and the other nontemporal. The former is cosmological, it is thus related to the sun and to the year and belongs to that famous one-fourth of reality which is manifest and graspable. The latter is that which remains when all else falls into ruin, the Brahman without qualities, pure apophatic transcendence.
Later on the Bhagavad Gita put this into simpler words in the mouth of Lord Krishna: “Time am I, world destroying and mature.” 42 Yet Krishna had already identified himself with “imperishable time,” 43 so as to stress equally the transcendence and the immanence of the Lord. Never has there been a time, the Bhagavad Gita also declares, in which creator and creatures did not exist. 44
Between these two aspects of reality the temporal and the timeless, oscillate not only the whole of Vedic wisdom but also the universal thinking of mankind. Monodimensional Man, as also monodimensional reality means death and stagnation. Indeed, the balance is not easy to maintain and a dichotomy is no less harmful than a monistic vision. A subtle form of such a dichotomy, and perhaps one of the most harmful consists in confirming upon the nontemporal some of the characteristics of temporality, so as to imagine for instance that “eternal life” comes “after” this temporal one or that it is “beyond,” “behind,” or whatever other spatial or temporal word we may use to approach that which by very definition transcends both space and time.
The experience of movement is totally absent in the Upanishadic discovery of the nontemporal. Thus it is not an extrapolation in either a vertical or a horizontal direction which leads to eternity. You can always go deeper and always beyond; you can always postulate a “fore-beginning” and an “after-end.” In this procedure you may be inclined to postulate other worlds, other times, births and rebirths, but you will never reach the nontemporal. The way to it is not the dynamic movement of our mind or the onward thrust of our will, but the static quiet, the acquired rest of our entire being in our inmost depths, the total extinction of desires, thoughts, and movements, both inside and out. Nothing could be more harmful than pretending that we have reached with our mind that which can only be “reached” without mind, or that we have discovered as “something” that which can be neither “attained” nor “desired” nor “thought.” To the dialectical question as to how, then, we talk about this ineffable, the only correct answer is that in fact we do not talk about it. “It is not understood by those who understand it; it is understood by those who do not understand it.” 45 Is not this also a blessing of the Lord? There is no dynamism leading to the timeless. Stasis here “stands” before dynamis. This is yoga in a single sutra.
i) 1. Some sages say that inherent nature, others
that time is this world’s cause. Both are mistaken.
It is the grandeur of God within this world
by which this wheel of Brahman is made to turn
2. By whom the universe is ever encompassed, the Knower,
the Author of time, possessor of all qualities, omniscient.
Ruled by him, the world of creation unfolds--
that which is regarded as earth, water, fire, air, and space.
3. When he has performed this work of creation he ceases,
then enters into union with Being by means of his Being,
by one, two, three or eight categories, by time
or the subtle qualities that appertain to the atman.
4. Having begun with works accomplished by the qualities,
he assigns a destiny to all existent beings.
So soon as these cease to be, the work done is destroyed.
At the work’s destruction he continues, essentially other.
5. He is the beginning, the cause of this world’s cohesion,
to be viewed as transcending the three times--also as partless.
Worship him first as the Adorable of many forms,
the origin of all existence, in his own thought subsisting.
6. Higher and other is he than all that this world-tree
and time produce. From him this world evolves.
Know him as the bringer of good, the remover of evil,
the Lord of happiness, established within your own atman,
the immortal whose abode is the universe.
MAIT U VI, 116
ii) 14. It has been said elsewhere that food is the origin of this whole world, that the origin of food is time and, again, that the origin of time is the sun. The form of time is the year, which consists of twelve months and is composed of moments and other measurements of time. Of this one half belongs to Agni (when the sun moves northward) and the other half to Varuna (when the sun moves southward). The course from the sign of Magha to half of Shravishtha belongs to Agni while the course from the sign of Sarpa to half of Shravishtha belongs to the moon. Concerning the year, each of its (parts) consists of nine parts, according to the corresponding course of the sun. Because of the subtlety of time (this course of the) sun is a proof, for only by this is time proved to exist, and without proof there is no ascertaining of the thing to be proved. The thing to be proved, however, may be proved because it is distinct and because it reveals itself. About this it has been said: As many divisions of time as there are, in all of these moves yonder sun. From the one who reveres time as Brahman time recedes far away. For thus has it been said:
From time all beings emerge.
From time they advance and grow.
In time, too, they come to rest.
Time is embodied and also bodiless.
15. There are, we aver, two forms of Brahman: time and the timeless. That which is prior to the sun is the timeless; it has no parts. That which begins with the sun, however, is time and this has parts. Now the form of this latter which has parts is the year. From this year, to be sure, are creatures produced; through the year, to be sure, they grow and in the year they disappear. The year, therefore, is assuredly the Lord of creatures, is time is food, is the abode of Brahman, is the Self; for, as the saying goes:
It is time that cooks all created things
in (the vast cauldron of) his great Self.
In what, however, is this same time cooked?
He who knows this, knows the whole Veda.
16. This embodied time is the royal ocean of creatures. In it stands he who is called Savitri the impeller from, whom the moon stars, planets, the year, and everything else is begotten. And from them comes the whole world, as well as whatever is good or evil in this world. Therefore Brahman is the self of the sun. Indeed one should revere the sun under the name of time. Some, in fact, say: “Brahman is the sun.” Moreover, it has been said:
The priest, the enjoyer, the offering, the sacred word,
the sacrifice itself Vishnu and Prajapati,
all these are the Lord, the Witness, the one
who shines up yonder in the orb of the sun.
i) 1. Inherent nature: svabhava.
2. Author of time: kalakara.
Ruled by him: teneshitam, of the beginning of KenU: Keneshitam . . . (“directed by whom . . . ?”), KenU I, 1 (VI 3), although the two verbs are from different roots.
The work of creation unfolds: karma vivartate. Cf. the later Vedantic theory of “creation” as vivarta.
3. Union: yoga. Only the part of reality which corresponds to the Reality of the Creator can be united with him.
Being: tattva “thatness,” reality.
Categories: one, i.e., nature; two, i.e., the manifest and unmanifest; three i.e., the three qualities of nature (guna); eight, perhaps the five sense organs and three aspects of the “inner organ.”
4. Karman, consisting of the gunas, shapes the destiny of all beings, yet it is controlled by the Lord. The work done is destroyed: krta-karma-nashah, liberation from karman is emancipation Cf. also MundU II, 2, 9 (§ VI 11).
Essentially other tattvato’ nyah, the purusha who is “the other” by definition (in Sanmkhya).
5. Traditionally the three times have been interpreted as past, present, and future. The origin of all existence bhavabhuta having become all that has become.
In his own thought subsisting: sva citta stha, established in his own consciousness.
6. World-tree: cf. KathU VI, 1 (§ V 5).
Lord of happiness: bhagesha.
Whose abode is the universe: vishva dhama.
7-9. Cf. § I 28.
10-13. Cf. § VI-2.
ii) 10a-13. Cf § II 11.
14. Cf AV XIX, 53 and 54 (§§ II 7, 8).
Origin: yoni, womb, source.
Belongs to Agni: agneya, because of the heat of summer.
Varuna: because of the rainy season (Varuna is the God of the waters).
Concerning the year . . . : another translation of this sentence reads: “In this (reckoning) every single (month) of the (year) itself amounts to nine quarters after the fashion of (reckoning) by the progression of lunar mansions” (Van Buitenen). The nine parts are nine quarters, arrived at by the division of the twenty-seven constellations (nakshatra) through the twelve months. Time is embodied and also bodiless: kalo murtir amurtiman i.e., with and without form.
15. Lord of creatures: Prajapati.
Self: atman. Cf. the saying of the Mokshadharma: “time matures all beings by itself. But no one here on earth knows him in whom Time is matured” (MB XII, 231, 25; Edgerton’s translation).
16. Cf. CU III, 19, 1 for the quotation “Brahman is the sun.”
The Lord, the Witness: prabhuh sakshi a reference to the purusha in the sun.
17. Cf.§ VI 2.
Human life, in order to exist, to grow, to develop, depends upon food, Where there is no food there are hunger, famine, and death. Food, indeed, is the source of life. These are simple platitudes, but Vedic Man succeeded in elevating them into lofty intuitions without divorcing them from the elemental earthly realities to which they refer. Food is not only a condition for life, so that life must eat in order to live. Food is the very stuff of life. One type of life will require one type of food and another type another, but food will be indispensable for its support all along the way. Do not despise food, say our texts; reverence food, worship food, discover that food is sacrifice and that food is Brahman. Food is our life, says the Rig Veda. 46
The Soma spirituality, or the theology of Soma, if we prefer, is also a speculation about the mystery of food; 47 nor is there any reflection on the nature of sacrifice without mention of the essential part that food plays in it. The Shatapatha Brahmana recalls the primordial sacrifice of Prajapati and addresses Agni, the firstborn of the mouth of Prajapati, as a consumer of food. 48 It relates how Prajapati, because there was no other food than himself, had to reproduce himself. 49 “Sacrifice is the food of the Gods,” says another text. 50 It is for this reason that food is the highest offering and that, when one offers food to the father, the husband, the family, the guests (whether friends or monks or mendicants), one performs not only a social but also a religious act, for man reenacts the primordial sacrifice and shares in that highest commerce through which the world subsists. This would also be the deeper explanation of a saying that is something more than an exhortation to hygiene: “If your food is pure, your whole nature will be pure.” 51 Your being will be pure because your being is made out of and comes from food, not only in a physical but also in an ontological sense: creation is a cosmic metabolic act.
The first text of the subsection is Hymn I, 187, of the Rig Veda in which we may be surprised to discover that, unlike later Indian traditions, the act of eating is not only sacred but also social, an expression of communion not only among Men but also between Men and the Gods. We may recall here that “he who eats alone is all sin,” 52 or, as the Bhagavad Gita says: “Those who prepare food just for themselves are sinful: they eat sin.” 53
Although Soma is mentioned in verse 9, it is not certain that this hymn is addressed to him. Food imparts both physical and spiritual vigor and is appropriate even for the Gods, to whom it is offered in ritual sacrifice (v. 11). Indeed, any real food, that is, any nourishment that strengthens soul and body, is sacrificial food. This hymn has a very elaborate structure with well-planned parallels intended to stress the unifying character of food. Food, it says, keeps the body together and, even more, it keeps Men together in the deep fellowship of a shared table (v. 3) This is not all; food is viewed also as a sacred banquet in which the Gods are brought together to partake with Men. Friendship, human and divine, implies a sharing in that which constitutes our basic and common ground, for through food we assimilate, make our own, what was until now on the periphery of our beings. There is no friendship without a common morsel of food. 54 Eating is a sacred act because food is in itself a holy reality, as is disclosed in the Vedas.
From this text we are led on to the Upanishads where there are deep and involved dissertations on the subject of food. The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad takes the student right back to Prajapati, the Father of creation, who produced for all their proper food, one food common to all beings, food for the Gods, namely the sacrificial fire and the offerings, food for Men and animals, namely milk, and a threefold form of food for himself: mind, life, and word. “For, my dear,” says another Upanishad, “the mind consists of food, life consists of water, and the word consists of glow.” 55 We may remember that this trilogy is the basis of the Upanishadic anthropology. Man is a unit of mind, life, and word, or of food, water, and glow.
We could equally well call these seven forms of food the seven elements at the basis of everything; but these elements are not like static bricks out of which the building of creation is made. 56 They are, on the contrary, dynamic particles that have to be “eaten,” assimilated, transformed, in order that the construction of the world be maintained.
Then an important question arises: since food is always being consumed, assimilated, how does it come about that it does not dwindle? The answer is given here only in a cryptic way. He who knows the imperishableness of food goes to the Gods, and there he shares in the dynamic process of a continuous creation. Food and life go together, affirms the following text. There is an interdependence between them, so that neither alone can be said to be Brahman, but only the two combined.
The Chandogya Upanishad, in a text given later, after reflecting upon the nature of sleep and of the breath of life, inquires into the origin of hunger and thirst. A man becomes hungry because what he consumes is forthwith digested. How then do we explain the fact that life continues? The conclusion is reached we are a sprout and there is no sprout without a root. “What else could the root be other than food?” 57 From food a connection is traced to water, from water to fire, from fire to being (sat), and from there the text introduces us to the knowledge of the atman by means of the famous formula tat tvam asi, “that you are.”
A proper introduction to the remainder of the texts given here would require a whole treatise on Vedic cosmology and anthropology. We must therefore content ourselves with noting the stupendous crescendo of the texts and their theanthropocosmic connections. All is related and interdependent. The way to Brahman is not like a ladder whose earlier steps we may forget once we have reached a higher one. Brahman is not confined to the top but is in immediate contact with everything, and the mystery of food accompanies us all along the way. There is a process of assimilation, a cosmic metabolism which begins in the lowest strata of reality and continues up to the highest. The culmination is that extraordinary mystical song: “I am food, I am food, I, who am food, eat the eater of food!” There is no deeper unity than that produced by the eating of the other, just as there is no better love than that of being the food of the lover. The tension between jnana and bhakti, knowledge and love, is harmoniously solved in the symbol of food. Even more, in the eating and preparing of food, human action and divine action are both required; the karma-marga, the way of action, is also integrated into the mystery of food. Matter and spirit are united in the food by which they subsist.
He consists of mind, is the leader of body and life,
and reposes on food, directing the heart. 58
It is again the Bhagavad Gita which sums it all up with terse simplicity:
From food all creatures come to be:
from rain comes food;
from sacrifice is rain derived
and sacrifice from works. 59
10
1. My song shall be of Food, producer of strength,
through whom the Keeper of nectar smote the Demon.
2. O savory Food, Food of sweetness, you are our chosen
for whom we long. Come, be our strong defender!
3. Come to us, Food our delight, bringing pleasurable refreshment.
Be our friend, source of bliss and brotherhood.
4. Your flavors, O Food, are spread throughout space,
high like the breezes they are scattered.
5. Those who share your sweetness with others are truly your friends. Those who keep your fine taste to themselves are stiff-necked wretches!
6. On you, O Food, is fixed the great Gods’ desire.
Great deeds were done under your sign, the Serpent slain.
7. If you have proceeded on high to the splendor of the mountain,
even from there, sweet Food, return for our enjoyment.
8. From waters and plants we imbibe the choicest portion.
Therefore, O Body, thrive; attain full stature.
9. We drink you, Soma, brew of milk and barley.
Therefore, O Body, thrive; attain full stature.
10. You herbs and wheaten cakes, be wholesome and strengthening
Therefore O Body, thrive; attain full stature.
11. We sing your praises O Food. From you we obtain
as butter from a cow, our sacrificial offerings.
O you, convivial feast of Gods and Men.
1. Food, pitu, nurture, including both food and drink.
Keeper of the nectar. Trita, a water Deity conqueror of demons, in particular of Vrata(the demon).
Cf.RV I 52, 5; VIII 7 24.
3. Source of bliss and brotherhood: Lit. cause of joy, not of repugnance bringer of enjoyment, free from malevolence.
4. Flavor: rasa, juice essence.
The text has two significant parallel locatives: as in heaven (high) so on earth (spaces, regions).
6. On you is fixed, etc: or, in you resides the spirit of the great devah, the longing of great souls.
Sign: ketu, symbol, ensign.
The Serpent slain: reference either to Indra or to Trita as in v. 1.
7. Mountain: parvata which may also mean cloud.
8. O Body: vatape, vocative of vatapi: vata plus api, which may mean friend of Vata, or wind-swelled fermenting one (Soma) and, according to Sayana, the body.
8-10. The triple invocation refers to the two constitutive elements of Soma, one liquid (water, milk, mixture of sap) and one solid (herbs, plants) and it refers also to the ritual, sacramental act of nutrition.
10. Convivial feast: sadhamada.
11
i) 1. From the seven kinds of food
which the Father produced by intellect and ardor,
One of his foods was common to all beings,
two he assigned to the Gods,
three he made for his own use,
one he bestowed upon the animals.
On this everything is based:
both that breathes and that which does not.
How is then that these foods do not dwindle
when they are constantly eaten up?
He who knows this permanence
eats food with his mouth,
he goes to the Gods
he lives on power.
(Thus the verses)
2. “From the seven kinds of food
which the Father produced by intellect and ardor”
--that means that the Father produced it by intellect and ardor.
“One of his foods was common to all beings”
--that means that one of them, that which is eaten here, was common food. He who worships this food is not free from evil because it is mixed.
“Two he assigned to the Gods”
--that means the fire offerings and oblations. This is why one offers the fire offerings and the oblations to the Gods. Or else they say, they are the sacrifices of the new, and the full moon. Therefore one should not sacrifice in view of any gain.
“One he bestowed upon animals”
--that is milk, for on milk live men and animals in the beginning. This is why they first feed a newborn child with ghee or give him the breast. They call a newborn calf “One who does not eat grass”
“On this everything is based: both that which breathes and that which does not”
--this means that on milk everything is based, both that which breathes and that which does not. There is a saying that he who for a year makes oblations with milk will escape recurring death. One should not understand this to be the case. For he who knows this, on the very day he makes the oblations he overcomes recurring death, because he offers all food to the Gods.
“How is it then that these foods do not dwindle
when they are constantly eaten up?”
--this means that the person is permanent, for it is he who again and again produces food.
“He who knows this permanence”
--this means that the person is permanent, for he produces food by constant meditation and sacred works. Food would be exhausted if he did not do this.
“Eats food with his mouth”
--this means that the mouth is the face, and he eats with his mouth.
“He goes to the Gods, he lives on power.”
--this is a the praise.
3. “There he made for himself.”
--this means mind, word, and vital breath, which he made for himself. There is a saying: “I had the mind elsewhere, I did not see; I had the mind elsewhere, I did not hear.” It is indeed by the mind that one sees, by the mind that one hears. Desire, conception, doubt, faith, unbelief, endurance, weakness, shyness, meditation, fear--all these indeed belong to the mind. This is why even if one is patted from behind one knows it through one’s mind. All that is sound is word. The word is by its intention, but is not in itself. The in-breath, the out-breath, the sustained breath, the up-breath, the middle-breath--all this is vital breath. Indeed the atman is made of word, mind, and vital breath.
BU V, 12, 1
ii) Some say that Brahman is food. This is not so, however, for food decays without the vital force. Others say that Brahman is the vital force. This is not so either, for the vital force fades away without food. Only when these Deities unite together do they reach the highest state.
CU I, 11, 8-9
iii) Which is that Deity?
“Food,” he (Ushasti Cakrayana) said, “for all beings on earth live by absorbing food. That is the Deity referred to by your part of the recitation, and if you had chanted it without knowing this, despite my telling you, your head would have fallen off.”
CU VII, 9, 1-2
iv) 1. Food, most certainly, is greater than energy. For if a man were to abstain from food for ten days, even though he might still be alive, he would not be able to see, hear, think, be aware of anything, act, or understand. Once he resumes eating, however, he will again be able to see, hear, think, be aware, act, and understand. Meditate then on food.
2. He who meditates on food as Brahman attains the worlds of food and drink. His freedom will extend to the limits of the realm of food, he who meditates on food as Brahman.
“Is there anything greater than food, sir?”
“Yes, there is something greater than food.”
“Then please, sir, tell me about it!”
AU I, 3, 1-10
v) 1. He considered: “Here are the worlds and the guardians of the worlds. Let me create food for them.”
2. He brooded over the waters and from the waters, thus brooded over, there emerged a form. That which was produced as that form is, indeed, food.
3. Having been so created, it wished to flee away. He sought to grasp it by speech. He could not grasp it by speech. If indeed he had laid hold of it by speech, merely by talking [about food] one would have been satisfied.
4. Next he sought to grasp it by breath. He could not do so. If indeed he had laid hold of in by breath, merely by breathing [over food] nor would have been satisfied.
5. Next he sought to grasp it by sight. He could not do so. If indeed he had laid hold of it by sight, merely by seeing food one would have been satisfied.
6. Next he sought to grasp it by hearing. He could not do so. If indeed he laid hold of it by hearing, merely by hearing [about food] one would have been satisfied.
7. Next he sought to grasp it by the skin. He could not do so. If indeed he had aid hold of it by the skin, merely by touching food one would have been satisfied.
8. Next he sought to grasp it by the mind. He could not do so. If indeed he had laid hold of it by the mind, merely by thinking [about food] one would have been satisfied.
9. Next he sought to grasp it by the generative organ. He could not do so. If indeed he had hid hold of it by the generative organ, merely by emitting food one would have been satisfied.
10. Then he sought to grasp it by the out-breath. He grasped it. The grasper of food is what wind is. The one living on food is in truth what wind is.
TU II, 2
vi) From food, indeed, are creatures born.
All living things that dwell on the earth,
by food in truth do the live
and into it they finally pass.
For truly food is the first of all beings
and therefore it is called the universal remedy.
Those who worship Brahman as food
assuredly obtain all the food they need.
For truly food is the first of all beings
and therefore it is called the universal remedy.
From food are all things born,
by food, when born, do they grow and develop.
Food is eaten by beings and itself eats beings
Because of that its name is food.
TU III 1-2; 6-10
vii) 1. Bhrgu, the son of Varuna approached his father Varuna and said: “Sir, instruct me about Brahman.” He explained to him, saying: “Food, breath, sight, hearing, mind, word.”
He said further: “That from which truly all beings are born, by which when born they live and into which finally they all return, that seek to understand; that is Brahman.”
He disciplined himself and, having disciplined himself,
2. he realized that Brahman is food; for from food assuredly all beings are born, by food when born do they live and into food finally they all return.
6. He realized that Brahman is joy, for from joy assuredly all beings are born, from joy when born do they live and into joy they finally return. This is the wisdom of Bhrgu, son of Varuna, which was firmly based in the highest heaven and he who knows this has himself this same firm basis [in Brahman]. He becomes a possessor of food, a consumer of food. He becomes great in offspring and cattle, in the splendor of sacred knowledge and in renown.
7. Do not disparage food. That is a sound precept. Breath, assuredly, is food; the body consumes food and is itself based on breath, while breath is likewise based on the body. So food is based on food. He who knows that food is based on food, has himself a firm basis [in Brahman]. He becomes a possessor of food, a consumer of food. He becomes great in offspring and cattle, in the splendor of sacred knowledge and in renown.
8. Do not despise food. That is a sound precept. The waters, assuredly, are food. Light consumes food and is itself based on the waters, while the waters are likewise based on light. So food is based on food. He who knows that food is based on food, has himself a firm basis [in Brahman]. He becomes a possessor of food, a consumer of food. He becomes great in offspring and cattle, in the splendor of sacred knowledge and in renown.
9. One should produce abundant food. That is a sound precept. The earth, assuredly, is food. Space consumes food and is itself based on the earth while the earth is likewise based on space. He who knows that food is based on food, has himself a firm basis [in Brahman]. He becomes a possessor of food, a consumer of food. He becomes great in offspring and cattle, in the splendor of sacred knowledge and in renown.
10, 1. Let a man not deny hospitality to anyone. That is a sound precept. Let him therefore lay in a large store of food in whatever way he can. Of such a man people will say: “Food just seems to accrue to him.” If this food is prepared in an excellent way for others, it is prepared in an excellent way for him who gives. If it is prepared in a mediocre way, then it is prepared in a mediocre way for him. If it is prepared in in a miserable way for others, then it is prepared in a miserable way for him.
10, 5. He who knows this,
having quit this world,
having come to the self that consists of food,
having come to the self that consists of mind,
having come to the self that consists of breath,
having come to the self that consists of understanding,
having come to the self that consists of pure joy,
wanders through these worlds
eating food to his fancy,
assuming forms to his fancy;
he stays still and sings the mystic chant:
Oh marvel, Oh marvel, Oh marvel!
10, 6. I am food, I am food, I am food!
I am an eater, I am an eater, I am an eater!
I am a poet, I am a poet, I am a poet!
I am the First-born of Cosmic Order,
before the Gods were, from the womb of eternity.
He who gives me to another, he alone preserves me.
I, who am food, eat the eater of food!
I have overcome the whole wide world.
He who knows this has golden radiance within.
Such is the hidden doctrine!
MUND U I, 1, 8-9
viii) 8. By the power of ascetic fervor Brahman
expands and thence is food produced.
From food comes life, from life mind, thence truth,
the worlds and the immortality of works.
9. The one who is all-knowing and all-wise,
whose ascetic fervor is his wisdom,
from him this Brahman comes to birth,
composed of name and form and food.
MAIT U VI, 10a-13
ix) 10a. Now there is still more to be known. There is a further modification of this sacrifice to the Self, namely, that which concerns food and the eater. This is the further explanation: the conscious Person is in the midst of matter. He is an enjoyer, for he enjoys the food of nature. Even this physical self is food for him, its agent being matter. Therefore that which is to be enjoyed has three qualities and the enjoyer is the person who resides within. The observation [of our senses] is a clear proof of this. Since animals spring from a seed and as seed is food, by this is explained the fact that matter is what is to be enjoyed. Residing within it, he enjoys. The food derived from matter by means of that transforming process owing to the distinction of the three qualities, from the intellect down to the separate elements, is the sign. By this, furthermore, the fourteen fold course is explained. This world called pleasure, pain, and delusion is made up of food. Now there is no apprehension of the type of a seed [cause] unless there is an offshoot [effect]. And even in its three states it [i.e., the seed] has the nature of food, that is, in childhood, youth, and old age. It has the nature of food owing to transformation. When matter becomes manifest, it can be perceived. In order to apprehend this manifestation, intelligence and other faculties such as determination, imagination, and ego sense develop, and in order to apprehend objects the five sense organs and the actions of the motor organs arise. Thus the manifest is food and the unmanifest is food. The enjoyer is free from qualities, but inasmuch as he is an enjoyer, it is evident that he possesses consciousness. Just as Fire is the eater of food among the Gods, and Soma is their food, so he who knows this eats food by fire. The physical self is called Soma. He who has the Unmanifest as his mouth is called Fire, because of the saying: “The person, indeed, with the Unmanifest as his mouth, enjoys the three qualities.”
11. The highest form of Self is certainly this: namely food, for the breath of life is made of food. If a Man does not eat, he becomes a nonthinker, a nonhearer, a nonfeeler, a nonseer, a nonspeaker, a nonsmeller, a nontaster, and he loses his breath of life. If, on the contrary, he eats, he becomes full of life-breath, he becomes a thinker, a hearer, a feeler, a speaker, a taster, a smeller, a seer. Because of this it has been said:
From food, indeed, are creatures produced,
all living things that dwell on the earth.
Moreover by food, in truth, do they live
and into it they finally pass.
12. Now it has been said elsewhere: all creatures here set to busily every day out of eager desire for food. The sun absorbs food through his rays and thereby diffuses heat. When supplied with food, living creatures digest it and it is by consuming food that fire also burns. Out of a desire for food Brahman fashioned this universe. Therefore a Man should reverence food as the Self. For thus it has been said:
From food created things are born;
by food, once born, do they grow and develop.
Food is eaten by beings and itself eats beings.
Because of that its name is Food.
13. Now it has elsewhere been said: that form of the blessed Lord which is called “the Supporter of all things” is nothing other than food. For the breath of life is the essence of food, mind of life, the understanding of mind, and bliss of the understanding. The Man who recognizes this will come to possess food, life, mind, understanding, and bliss. Recognizing this, he will eat the food of as many creatures here on earth as eat food, for he will abide in them.
For food, assuredly, prevents decay;
food is worshipful, so they declare.
Food is the life of animals, supreme;
food is a healer, so they say.
i) 1. Father. pita.
Power: urjas, nourishment, strength, fullness. Cf. YV I, 1
2. Worships: upaste.
Is not freed from evil: because the sacrificial food is not the one eaten by all, for this latter is polluted, mixed. Only sacred food is a protection against evil and sin.
In view of any gain: ishta, an offering made with the desire of obtaining something.
Recurring death: punarmrtyu.
Person: purusha.
Permanent: a-kshiti, imperishable, undecaying.
Praise: prashamsa.
3. Mind, word, and vital breath: manas, vac, prana.
Intention: anta, end. The word differs from the sound by its intention or contents.
Not in it self: esha hi na, it (the word) is not. This is a cryptic sentence. Unlike a mere sound, the word cannot be separated from what it “words” or expresses.
ii) Vital force: prana, breath of life.
Deities: devate, super human powers.
iii) Note the play on words. Absorbing: pratiharamanani.
Recitation: pratihar, a part of the Sama recitation. A spiritual interpretation is generally given to the last part of this text, viz., that without knowledge the ritual is dead.
iv) For the rest of CU VII and all the ref., cf. § VI 3 (v) and notes.
v) 2. Form: murti.
3. Speech: vac.
4. Breath: prana.
10. Out-breath: apana, digestive breath.
Wind: vayu.
One living on food: annayu.
vi) Food is called anna, eatable, “eater,” because beings both eat it and are eaten by it.
3-5. Cf.§ VI 7.
6-7. Cf.§ I 7.
8-9. Cf.§ VI 7.
vii) 1. Cf. § VI A b Introduction.
2-5. The rest of 2 and following relate to tapas, manas, vijnana and ananda in a similar way.
6. Firmly based: pratishthita.
Sacred knowledge: brahman.
7 Sound precept: vrata.
Based on the body (and similar expressions): pratishthita.
10, 1. Excellent way, mediocre, and miserable: lit. beginning, middle, and end.
10, 2-10, 4. Omitted.
10, 6. Lit. 1, food, eat the eater of food.
Hidden doctrine: upanishad.
viii) 8. Ascetic fervor: tapas.
Life: prana.
9. Name-and-form: nama-rupa, i.e., individuals.
ix) 9. Cf. § III 28.
10a. This text is not only difficult, but is also corrupted (cf. van Buitenen’s Vulgate).
Matter: pradhana, lit. that which is put forward, hence, important or chief thing, but also chaos, unevolved nature, matter in this sense.
Nature: prakrti.
The conscious Person: purusha.
Physical self: bhutatman.
Even this physical self is food for him: i.e., the body is the “material” for the spirit.
Three qualities: triguna, in Samkhya philosophy the constituents of prakrti (nature), namely sattva (purity), rajas (activity), tamas (inertness, darkness).
The enjoyer: again according to Samkhya, the purusha as the spiritual principle essentially different from nature.
Agent: kartr, maker.
Enjoyer is the eater and the enjoyed that which is eaten.
Sign: linga, here in the logical meaning of an effect that leads to a cause (cf. also KathU VI, 8; § VI 11).
Fourteenfold course: the five sense organs, the five motor organs, and the four aspects of the “inner organ.”
Pleasure, pain, and delusion: sukha, duhkha, moha.
Ego sense: abhimana (here not ahamkara, which is the usual term).
Just as Fire . . . here the new (Samkhya) anthropology is related to Vedic theology, and the following correspondences arise: Gods (conscious enjoyers), Agni (mediator, consumer of the oblations), Soma (food of the Gods), and, on the other side: the enjoyer (i.e., the conscious purusha), fire (the medium of transformation from matter to spirit), and food (the enjoyed, nature, matter).
Unmanifest: avyakta, i.e., matter (pradhana).
10b. Cf. § III 28 11.
Highest form of Self: param va etad atmano rupam.
The lines quoted are from TU II, 2 (vi).
12. Digest it: lit. cook it.
The lines quoted are also from TU II, 2 (vi).
13. Blessed Lord: Vishnu.
Food, life, mind, understanding, and bliss: anna, prana, manas, vijnana, ananda.