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

NOTES

Brahmanas, viz., that the Sun is born of the Fire, and sets in the Fire, e.g., Aitareya Brahmana, VIII, 28, refers to the Procession and Recession of the Supernal-Sun as one of the Several Angels of the Trinity, as in Brhadaranyaka Up., I, 2, 2. and 3. Again in Rg Veda, I, 35, 3, where Savitr moves “ by the height and by the depth” (pravata, utyavata), coming ‘‘ hither from afar” (durita), illuminating not merely the earth but all the worlds, and is called the axis of the wheel whereby the angels are supported, it is certainly not the physical Sun that is intended, but the Supernal-Sun ‘‘ whose paths are twain, an inner and an outer,’ as in Maitri Up., VI, 1, translated below. All these risings and settings take place antarbhitasya khe, hydayakase, i.e., “ within you,” “in the heart-space,’’ that is at the same time in the Waters, in the Sea (Rg Veda, IV, 58 1, samudre hydt, cf. Chandogya Up., VIII, 1, 3, ‘‘ everything here is contained within it”) ; and endeavours (e-g., Speyers in J-R.A.S., 1906, 723 f.) to interpret “ scientifically ”’ are beside the mark: the “science” here is not astronomical, but psychological and ontological. Nothing can be Jess scientific than fo assume for Vedic liturgists an interest in natural facts of the same kind as our own. One might as well attempt to explein the stylistic sequences of Asiatic art in terms of a more or less accurate ““ observation of Nature.”

A precisely analogous problem is presented in Chinese “ cosmology,’ cf. Saussure, L. de, La série sepiénaire, cosmologique et planétaire, Journ. Asiatique, XXIV, 1924, pp. 333 £., esp. P- 335, “Le levant et l’occident représentent ainsi la naissance et la mort, le yang et le yin, comme le font également lesud etlenord.’’ With the “ cosmology ”’ of Chandogya Up., Iii, 1-11, cf. Li Tzii’s “ Circulation of the Light . . . according to its own law’’ (Wilhelm and Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 57)Here, just as in India, a metaphysical symbolism is based on both the diurnal and the annual movements of the sun, but with this difference that in China the north corresponds to nature, the south to essence. See also the Appendix.

66 Thus no “ strange fate ’’ has here “ overtaken the Upanishadic Brahman,” as Professor Edgerton believed, The Bhagavad Gita, 1925, Pp. 53-

67 With respect to para and apara, and their equivalents, see p. 86 above. In our Upanisad, I,1, 2, each of the twin Waters, purva and apara samudrau, is spoken of as an * omnipotence,” mahima (f.), a very close parallel to Eckhart’s ‘‘ wherefore he is omnipotent,” I, 371, cited above. That by no means excludes the interpretation of mahima, also as “ sacrificial vessel,” cf. the double significance of dhisana, often in the dual dhisane; for which see Johansson’s admirable pamphlet, Die altindische Gottin Dhisana und Verwandtes, Uppsala, 1910. Cf. Re Veda, II, 45, 3, ‘‘ Even as deep waters, even as kine, thou makest grow 'pusyast) thy will (kyvatum),” and X, 75,1, where “ the craftsman in Vivasvan’s seat shall, O ye Waters, tell of your incomparable allmight (mahimanam uttamam).” Hence also the designation of the “ Rivers” as revati, ‘‘ rivers of plenty,” X, 19, 1, etc.

In all probability the conch and lotus were originally symbols of the twain Waters: this would explain their association, as sources of inexhaustible wealth, with the aSvattha, in the case of the well-known Besnagar capital (my Yaksas, Il, pl. I, right) : and their survival as the principal “ treasures ’ (nidhi) of Kubera, Dhanapati, in whom the progenitive and plutocratic elements of Varuna’s character are so clearly preserved.

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