A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

NOTES

tion’ and “‘ created.’’ For though syj may denote the same as fy, the connotation is quite different, in the first case to “‘ pour out,”’ ‘‘ emanate,” in the second to “‘ make,” “‘ create,’ ““ fashion.’’ Thus syj and ky are the terms proper respectively to metaphysical, and to dualistic parlance, and they should not be confused in translation. For srstz, etc., English ‘‘ emanated,” “ outpoured,” ‘‘ outflown,”’ etc., are immediately available.

The root ksar in the transitive sense of to “ pour-forth ”’ is similarly employed in connection with the notion of Utterance (vyahyit), Aitareya Avanyaka, Il, 2,2: in that he pours-forth (Rsarati) gifts, and none can exceed this his generosity, a syllable is “ aksara.’’ Or ksar being intransitively in the sense of to ‘‘ flow away,’’ or “ perish,” aksava means “ imperishable,"’ and especially “the Imperishable-Word,” OM. “ Creation,” in other words, is fontal, its flux is never diminished : the plenitude (parna, bhiman) of the unity-of-potentiality-and-act is infinite, ‘‘ The yon is all, and this is all, take all from all from, withdrawing all from all, still over and above remains the all,” Satapatha Brahmana, XIV, 8, 1 = Brhadaranyaka Up., V, 1; ci. Atharva Veda, X, 8, 29.

Nor should bhata, literally ‘‘ that which has come into existence,”’ although equivalent to Christian ‘‘ creature,’ be so translated, nor even as “‘ being’; for in the first place, existences are generally spoken of in Vedic texts as ‘‘ emanated,” rather than as “created,’’ and in the second, while it is true that all existences have being, not all being has existence. A common equivalent of bhita as ‘‘ an existence’ is sativa, cf, below, pp. 102-103. Bhi = werden, stha = exstare.

64 Here ‘‘ Principles ’’ seems to convey the sense rather better than “ Intellect,” though both amount to the same thing. We take for granted the definition, ‘‘ Intellect is the habit of First Principles,”’ and Eckhart, I, 74, ‘‘ Intellect is a matter of pure being.” Will and Intellect the gateway (mukha, duadra) of procession (prasarana).

65 Here some further light can be thrown upon the terms corresponding to East and West, Upper and Nether, discussed above, p. 86, Note 48. In the epic account of the Churning of the Ocean, the stallion Uccaih$ravas, the same as our Cosmic Horse, is called Vadaba-bhartri, ‘the Mare’s Husband "’; cf. the Vedic myth of Saranyi = Apya, upon whom the Sun (Vivasvant) in the form of a stallion begets the ASvins (Rg Veda, X, 13, 4, etc., see Bloomfield in J.d.0.S., Vol. 15, pp. 172 fi.). It follows that the Mare’s mouth (vadabamukha) and Fire beneath the Waters at the southern pole (Nadir) must correspond to the Stallion’s fiery mouth in our Upanisad, I, 1, 1, and I, 2, 3. In the first of these passages his front (pivva) part is udya, his rear (apara) part nimlocan, in the second the head is prdci, the tail pratict. The correspondence of puyva and pract, and the equivalence of their various meanings in other contexts, will not be overlooked. In Rg Veda, X, 72, 9, purva is beyond doubt “ above,” as well as “ primordial’ and “‘ ancient,” or even “‘ eternal.’”” Any term representing the antithesis to apara should, further, be equivalent to “ para.” Udya and nimlocan indeed imply the places of the rising and setting of the Sun, and so with respect to terrestrial conditions may rightly be rendered as ‘‘ East’ and “‘ West.” But it is clear from the correspondences tabulated above, and in the previous note, that the Supernal-Sun Aditya, is thought of as ‘‘ rising’ by the Zenith, and “ setting ’’ in the Nadir, as indeed would be required in doctrine of “light and reflection,’ prakasa-vimarsa, as in Kausitaki Up., IV, 2,