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

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

aditye mahat . . . ddayse prativapah, and as discussed on p. 8. It follows that all our terms denoting East and West here, mean Upper and Nether there. Utiava is the superlative of ud, “‘ up.”

It also follows that uttara and daksina, respectively “‘ northern ’”’ and “southern ”’ here stand for ““ Upper,” and “‘ Nether’ there. For as the Mare’s mouth ”’ is daksina, the Stallion’s mouth must be uttava. That not only throws light on the use of these terms in connection with the devayana and pityyana, but shows that uftara yuga in Rg Veda, X, 72, i = purva yuga, ibid., 9, and that both imply the parama vyoman, supercelestial Empyrean. Similarly in the Rg Veda, X, 90, 5, pascad purah is both “‘ from East to West,” and “from Zenith to Nadir’: His body necessarily extends from the Upper to the Nether Waters, for all existence is contained in the intervening-space (antariksa), and we have already deduced that his head is above, and that also appears in that his eye is the Supernal-Sun.

Pirva, by contrast with apirva, “latent,” has also the sense of “immediate,” that is “within you,” ci. brahmam nihitam guhayam parame vyoman, Taittirtya Up., Il, 1, cf. “ when I say the highest I mean the innermost,’’ Eckhart, I, 164. So Daksinamirti, “‘ He whose aspect is turned southward,” and is therefore thought of as looking from the north, implies also ‘‘ He who looks from above downwards ” and ‘‘ He who looks from within outwards.” Cf. also Mundaka Up., II, 2, 21, where again ‘‘ west to east’ and “‘ south to north ” are the same as “‘ below to above;”’ and Atharva Veda, VIII, 9, 8, pascai, «from within.“

All this is in fact far more a psychology of space than a cosmology : from Upper to Nether is from the Within to the Without, from knowing subject to known object, from the centre to the felly of the World-wheel. The “‘ back ” or “‘ surface” of the Waters must not be understood too literally to mean an actually horizontal or anywise oriented plane, for the Waters are all the possibilities of existence on any plane, pervading measureless space in the lotus of the heart. Proof positive that the “cosmology ”’ is a psychology can be found in the Chandogya Up., III, 10-11, where it becomes entirely a question of one’s spiritual condition whether the sun rises in the East, South, West, or North, until for the Sadhyas it rises in the Zenith and sets in the Nadir, and finally “ for those who know the essential-truth (upanisad) of Brahman, the Supernal-Sun, risen in the Zenith, stands there in the middle, neither setting nor rising (a nimloca nédiyaya), but evermore high-noon (sakrd diva),”’ and ibid., VIII, 4, 2, “ ever illumined (sakrd vibhatah) is this Brahma world.’’ Precisely the same point of view is indicated in the Aitaveya Brahmana, III, 44, “ indeed he never sets, union with him and identity of form and world he attains who knows thus.’ Cf. Eckhart, I, 86, ‘‘ the soul mounts up in this light into space, to the zenith at high noon,” the morning light being God, the evening light the light of Nature, and noon the light of their identity: Ruysbroeck, ““ When Christ, the Divine Sun, has risen to the zenith of our hearts...then... He will draw all things to Himself.’’ Just as also in Islamic theology, the eye (hamm) of the heart (qalb = hrd) is variously oriented in men of different spiritual degree, but the heart of the Comprehensor has no face or back, “ these men face with their whole being the whole of the Divine names and attributes and are with God essentially,’ Nicholson, Studies... p. 114, Note 3. Cf. Béhme, Signatura Rerum, VII, 38, “ Now wilt thou be a magus? Then thou must understand how to change the night again into day.”

On the other hand, what is called the “ordinary view” of the

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