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

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

thou didst beget all that is and shall be,” Rg Veda, X, 55, 2, wording (vac) is indeed his Word (vac), Byhaddvanyaka Up., I, 1,1, Cf. Rg Veda, i, 163, 1, ‘‘ Thy great birth from the Pleroma (purisa) and from the sea (samudra), O Steed, is to be magnified, in that thou didst neigh (akranda) when first born, whose are the wings of the falcon and the limbs of the deer”; and Taittiviya Samhita, IV, 2, 8, ‘When first thou didst cry on birth, arising from the sea, the foam, that is thy famed birth, O Steed.” “In the beginning this (universe) was unuttered (avyahyta)”’ Maitri Up., VI, 6; but by that utterance (vyahyti) of Prajapati’s, in which all things are called by their essential names,®? their existence was poured forth (asygvam),®* “for all these existences are Principles (manas, “ Intellect ’’),84 Pavicavimsa Brahmana, VI, 9, 14, 20. “ One should know that all these verses (yc), all these Vedas, all sounds, are merely one Utterance (vyahytt), verily Spiration (prdna), Spiration verily the verses,” <Aztareya Aranyaka, Il, 2, 2. Just as in Christianity, “‘God spake never a word but one,” Eckhart, I, 148, “in this only Word he spoke all things,” I, 377, for “‘ the Word of the Father is his understanding of himself,’ I, 146, “ the Father spoke himself and all creatures in the Word . . . to all creatures in his Son,” I, 377, or again ‘‘ First out of the Father there leaps forth the Son, small but so puissant in his Godly strength that it is he who causes the whole emanation. The second sally is the premier angel, following hard upon the first event. It speeds apace . . . so charged with power that given a thousand or more worlds they would be wanting in capacity ere the first issue had been spent. . . . One unique throw with the world a sheet of water and the water would fail ere the circles died away,’’ Eckhart, I, 130.

He, Death, bethought himself, “ Verily, if I shall intend against him, I shall make the less food for myself.”’ With that Word, by that Self, he poured