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

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BRHADARANYAKA UPANISAD

forth (asyjata) all This, whatsoever: the Rg, the Yajur, and the Sama Vedas, metres, sacrifice, men and beasts.

Whatsoever he poured forth, that he began to eat (ad). Verily he devours (ad) everything: that is the Liberty (adititva) of Aditi. He who knows thus the Liberty of Aditi becomes an eater of all things here, everything becomes his food (anna). 5.

The first part continues the thought of the preceding stanza, and needs little explanation. “ The less food,” 1.e., the less life. ‘‘ With that Word, by that Self,” viz., from the mouth of the Year, Prajapati, and here we must understand a neighing of the Horse.

“That he began to eat’: that is Death, Godhead, began to live, to exist as God: as we have already seen, God’s existent being depends on his existent world no less than its existent being depends on him, each presupposes the other. Not in causal relation, but in reciprocity and simultaneity, here there “ is no distinction save outpouring and outpoured ... they are one God... begetter and suddenly begotten,” Eckhart, I, 72.

It is that same fiery mouth that utters all existences, and whereunto they hasten back; in our Upanisad, I, 1, 1, “ Universal Fire his open mouth,’’®* cf. Maztri Up., VI, 2, “all-devouring Time,’ Bhagavad Gita, XI, 32, kalo’smt . . . lokansamahartum tha pravyttah, “1 am come-forth as Time, for the destruction of the worlds,” and Rg Veda, I, 164, 44, “‘ one of these (Agni) mows down at the end of the year.”

As for the “ Liberty,” adititva, of Aditi: this is the fundamental meaning of the name Aditi, the ancient Mother-goddess, the supreme feminine power in the Vedas (e.g., Rg Veda, 1, 89, 10), second Person of the Trinity, Mahadevi and Sakti of later texts. Aditi is the

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