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

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

dvedha-pata. “‘ One became Two,” viz., Yin and Yang, Tao Té Ching, Il, 42.

On the other hand, their common Son, Agni BrahmaPrajapati, etc., being consubstantial with the Spirit (prdna)*? is at once unborn in the same sense, and born by a generation from the conjoint principles.t* Only the latter birth can be thought of as an “‘ event ”’ taking place at the dawn of a creative cycle, in the beginning, agve.

With respect to kam, ‘Delight,’ “ Affirmation ” : Will (kama) or Fiat (sy@d) are the moving power (daksa, veriva) in all procession (krama, prasarana), kama is the will-to-life, ““so great indeed is kama,’ Brhadaranyaka Up., 1, 4, 17. Will, kama, is an essential name of God ; it is by his Will that his intrinsic-form (svaviipa) signs and seals intrinsic-nature (svabhava), Nature for her part desiring form. So the single Willin Deity may be regarded from two points of view, with respect to essence as the Will-spirit, and with respect to nature as the Craving**: as Gandharva and Apsaras (= Urvasi, Rg Veda, VII, 33, 11, and Apya, X, 13, 4, Kamadeva and Rati, Eros I, 8, 20 and 33, where Narayana is ‘“‘ love” (kama, lobha, vaga) and Sri-Laksmi is “ desire ” (iccha, tysna, ratt).

These two aspects of the Will are plainly seen in the Vedic ‘‘legend”’ of the Birth of Vasistha,1® and the Pancavimsa Brahmana passage cited below, p. 8. In the first case Mitra-Varunau is quite literally seduced by the fascinations of the Apsaras Urvasi ; in the second, the Waters are literally ‘‘ in heat.”’ God thus affirms himself because it is his nature so to come forth: existence is his knowledge of himself, that is his eating of the fruit of the tree, for to eat is to exist. In other words, the possibility of existence necessarily involves the fact of existence : that is precisely His omnipotence who is without (unrealised) potentialities and is never idle though he never works. Nor does he act unwittingly, he drinks the poison (visa) and objectivity (visamata) of existence as well as its delights ; whereby his throat is scorched and blackened.

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