The Arctic Home in the Vedas c16.27
The Arctic Home in the Vedas c16.27
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I cannot conclude this chapter without briefly examining the bearing of our results on the views entertained by Hindu theological scholars regarding the origin, character and authority of the Vedas. It is a question which has been discussed with more or less acuteness, subtlety, or learning ever since the days of the Brâhmaṇas; and from a purely theological point of view I do not think there remains anything to be now said upon it. Again for the purposes of scientific investigation it is necessary to keep the theological and the antiquarian aspect of the question quite distinct from each other. Yet when our investigation, conducted on strict scientific lines, is completed, we may usefully compare our conclusions with the theological views and see how far they harmonise or clash with each other. In fact no Hindu who reads a book like the present, can avoid making such a comparison; and we shall be lightening his task by inserting in this place a few remarks on this subject. According to the view held by Hindu theologians, the Vedas are eternal (nitya), without a beginning (anâdi), and also not created by a human author (a-pauru-sheya); and we are told that these attributes have been predicated of our sacred books from the most ancient times known to our divines or philosophers. The whole of the third Volume of Dr.
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Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts is devoted to the discussion of this subject, a number of original passages and arguments bearing on which are there collected, including Sâyaṇa's lucid summary in the introduction to his commentary on the Rig-Veda; and more recently the late Mahâmahopâdhyâya Râjârâma Shâstri Bodas, the editor of the Bombay edition of the Rig-Veda, has done the same in a Sanskrit pamphlet, the second edition of which is now published by his son, Mr. M. R. Bodas, of the Bombay High Court Bar. I shall, therefore, give in this place only a summary of the different views of Hindu theologians, without entering into the details of the controversy which can be studied from the above books. The question before us is whether the Vedic hymns, that is, not only the words of the hymns but also the religious system found or referred to therein, are the compositions of the Ṛishis to whom they are assigned in the Anukramaṇikâs, or the ancient Indexes of the Veda, in the sense in which the Shâkuntala is a composition of Kâlidâsa; or whether these hymns existed from times immemorial, in other words, whether they are eternal and without a beginning. The hymns themselves are naturally the best evidence on the point. But, as shewn by Dr. Muir in the second chapter (pp. 218-86) of the Volume above mentioned, the utterances of the Vedic Ṛishis on this point are not unanimous.
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Thus side by side with passages in which the Vedic bards have expressed their emotions, hopes or fears, or prayed for worldly comforts and victory over their enemies, condemning evil practices like gambling with dice (X, 34), or have described events, which on their face seem to be the events of the day; side by side with passages where the poet says that he has made (*kṛi*), generated (*jan*), or fabricated (*takṣh*) a new (*navyasī* or *apūrvya*) hymn, much in the same way as a carpenter fashions a chariot (I, 47, 2; 62, 13; II, 19, 8; IV, 16, 20; VIII, 95, 5; X, 23, 6; 39, 14; 54, 6; 160, 5; &c.); or with hymns in which we are plainly told that they are composed by so and so, the son of so and so, (I, 60, 5; X, 63, 17; 67, 1; &c.), there are to be found in the Ṛig-Veda itself an equally large number of hymns where the Ṛiṣhis state in unmistakable terms that the hymns sung by them were the results of inspiration from Indra, Varuṇa, Soma, Aditi, or some other deity; or that the Vedic verses (*richaḥ*) directly emanated from the Supreme Puruṣha, or some other divine source; or that they were given by gods (*devatta*), or generated by them and only seen or perceived (*pashyāt*) by the poets in later times, (I, 37, 4; II, 23, 2; VII, 66, 11; VIII, 59, 6; X, 72, 1; 88, 8; 90, 9; &c.). We are also told that Vâch (Speech) is *nityā* or eternal (VIII, 75, 6, also cf. X, 125); or that the gods generated the divine Vâch and also the hymns (VIII, 100, 10; 101, 16; X, 88, 8).
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The evidence of the Vedic hymns does not, therefore, enable us to decide the question one way or the other; but if the composition of the hymns is once ascribed to human effort, and once to divine inspiration or to the gods directly, it is clear that at least some of these old Ṛiṣhis believed the hymns to have been sung under inspiration or generated directly by the goddess of speech or other deities. We may reconcile the former of these views with the passages where the hymns are said to be made by human effort, on the supposition that the poets who sang the hymns believed themselves to be acting under divine inspiration. But the explanation fails to account for the statement that the Rik, the Yajus, and the Sâman, all emanated from the Supreme Purusha or the gods; and we must, therefore, conclude that the tradition about the eternity of the Vedas, or their divine origin is as old as the Veda itself. Accordingly, when we come to the Brâhmanas and the Upanishads, we naturally find the same view prevailing. They tell us that the Rig-Veda proceeded from Agni (fire), the Yajur-Veda from Vâyu (wind), and the Sâma-Veda from Sûrya (the sun), and that these three deities got their warmth from Prajâpati who practised tapas for the purpose, (Shat. Brâh. XI, 5, 8, 1 ff; Ait. Brâh. V, 32-34; Chân. Up. IV, 17, 1); or that the Vedas are the breathings of the Supreme Being (Brih. Up. II, 4, 10);
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or that Prajâpati by means of the eternal Vâch created the Vedas and everything else in this world; and the same view is met with in the Smritis like those of Manu (I, 21-23) and others, or in the Purânas, several extracts from which are given by Dr. Muir in the volume above referred to. It is admitted that the Vedas, with other things, are destroyed, at the end of a Kalpa, by the deluge (pralaya) which overtakes the world at the time. But we are told that this does not affect the question of the eternity of the Vedas, as they are repromulgated at the beginning of the new Kalpa by Brahmâ himself after the grand deluge, and by the Rishis, who survive, after minor deluges. The authority generally quoted in support of this view is a verse from the Mahâbhârata (Shânti-Parvan, Chap. 210, v. 19) which says, "The great Rishis, empowered by Svayambhû (the self-born), formerly obtained, through tapas (religious austerity), the Vedas and the Itihâsas, which had disappeared at the end of the (preceding) Yuga."¹ The Rishis are, therefore, called the seers and not the makers of the Vedic hymns; and the personal designation of some Shâkhâs, branches or recensions of the Vedas, as Taittirîya, Kâthaka, &c., as well as the statements in the Vedic hymns, which say that so and so has made or generated such and such a hymn, are understood to mean that the particular Shâkhâ or hymn was perceived, and only perceived, by the particular Ṛishi or poet.
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It is not, however, till we come to the works of the authors and expositors of the different schools of Hindu philosophy (darshanas) that we find the doctrine of the eternity of the Vedas subjected to a searching examination; and, as remarked by Dr. Muir, one who reads the discussions of these writers cannot fail to be struck "with the acuteness of their reasoning, the logical precision with which their arguments are presented, and the occasional liveliness and ingenuity of their illustrations."¹ They all bear witness to the fact that so far as tradition went,—an unbroken tradition of great antiquity,—there was no remembrance of the Vedas having been ever composed by or ascribed to any human author; and taking into consideration the learning and the piety of these scholars, their testimony must be regarded as an unimpeachable proof of the existence of such a tradition, which was considered ancient several centuries before the Christian era. But though a tradition whose high antiquity can be so well established deserves to be seriously considered in our investigations regarding the character of the Vedas, yet it is, after all, a negative proof, showing, it may be urged, nothing more than no human author of the Veda has been known from times beyond the memory of all these ancient scholars.
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Jaimini, the author of Mîmâmsâ Sutras, therefore, further deduces (I, 1, 5) the eternity of the Vedas from the relation or connection between words and their meanings, which he holds to be eternal (autpattika) and not conventional. A word is defined to be an aggregate of letters in a particular order, and its sense is said to be conveyed by these letters following each other in a definite succession. But Grammarians are not satisfied with this view, and maintain that the sense of a word is not expressed by the aggregate of its constituent letters which are transient, but by a certain super-sensuous entity, called sphoṭa (i. e., manifester, from sphuṭ), which supervenes the aggregate of the letters as soon as they are pronounced, and reveals their meaning. Jaimini denies that there are words in the Vedas which denote any transient objects, and as the Vedic words and their sense are eternal, it follows, according to him, that the Vedas are self-demonstrative, or that they shine, like the sun, by their own light, and are, therefore, perfect and infallible. If particular parts of the Vedas are designated after some Ṛiṣhis, it does not, we are told, prove those sages to have been their authors, but merely the teachers who studied and handed them down.
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Bâdarâyaṇa, as interpreted by Śaṅkarâchârya (I, 3, 26-33), the great leader of the Vedânta School, accepts the doctrine of the eternity of sound or words, but adds that it is the species to which the word belongs, and not the word itself, that is eternal or indestructible, and, therefore, though the names of deities, like Indra and others, which are all created and hence liable to destruction, are mentioned in the Veda, it does not affect the question of its eternity as the species to which Indra and others are said to belong is still eternal. In short, Vedic names and forms of species are eternal, and it is by remembering these that the world is created by Brahmâ at the beginning of each Kalpa, (Maitr. Up., VI, 22). The Veda is, therefore, the original WORD the source from which every thing else in the world emanated, and as such it cannot but be eternal; and it is interesting, as pointed out by Prof. Max Muller in his Lectures on Vedânta Philosophy, to compare this doctrine with that of Divine Logos of the Alexandrian Schools in the West.
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The Naiyâyikas, on the other hand, deny the doctrine of the eternity of sound or word, but hold that the authority of the Vedas is established by the fact of their having emanated from competent (*âpta*) persons who had an intuitive perception of duty (*sâkshâtkṛita-dharmâṇaḥ*, as Yâska puts it), and whose competence is fully proved by the efficacy of such of the Vedic injunctions as relate to mundane matters, and can, therefore, be tested by experience; while the author of the Vaisheshika Sûtras clearly refers (I, 1, 3) the Veda to Îshvara or God as its framer. The Sânkhyas (Sânkhya Sûtras, V, 40-51) agree with the Naiyâyikas in rejecting the doctrine of the eternity of the connection of a word with its meaning; and though they regard the Veda as *pauruṣheya* in the sense that it emanated from the Primeval Puruṣha, yet they maintain that it was not the result of a conscious effort on the part of this Puruṣha, but only an unconscious emanation from him like his breathing.
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According to this view the Veda cannot be called eternal in the same sense as the Mîmâmsakas have done, and, therefore, the texts which assert the eternity of the Vedas, are said to refer merely to "the unbroken continuity of the stream of homogeneous succession," (*Veda-nityatâ-vâkyâni cha sajâtîyânupûrvî-pravâhânuchcheda-parâṇi*).¹ Patanjali, the great grammarian, in his gloss on Pânini IV, 3, 101, solves the question by making a distinction between the *language* (the succession of words or letters, *varṇânupûrvî*, as we find it in the present texts) of the Vedas and their contents (*artha*), and observing that the question of the eternity of the Vedas refers to their sense which is eternal or permanent (*artho nityaḥ*), and not to the order of their letters, which has not always remained the same (*varṇânupûrvî anityâ*), and that it is through this difference in the latter respect that we have the different versions of Kaṭhas, Kalâpas, Mudakas, Pippalâdas and so on. This view is opposed to that of the Mîmâmsakas who hold both sense and order of words to be eternal. But Patanjali is led to reject the doctrine of the eternity of the order of words, because in that case we cannot account for the different versions or Shâkhâs of the same Veda, all of which are considered to be equally authoritative though their verbal readings are sometimes different.
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Patanjali, as explained by his commentators Kaiyaṭa and Nâgoji Bhaṭṭa, ascribes this difference in the different versions of the Veda to the loss of the Vedic texts in the pralayas or deluges which occasionally overtake the world, and their reproduction or repromulgation, at the beginning of each new age, by the sages, who survived, according to their remembrance.¹ Each manvantara or age has thus a Veda of its own which differs only in expression and not in sense from the ante-diluvian Veda, and that different recensions of co-ordinate authority of the same Veda are due to the difference in the remembrance of the Ṛiṣhis whose names are associated with the different Shâkhâs, and who repromulgate, at the beginning of the new age, the knowledge inherited by them, as a sacred trust, from their forefathers in the preceding Kalpa. This view substantially accords with that of Vyâsa as recorded in the verse from the Mahâbhârata quoted above. The later expositors of the different schools of philosophy have further developed these views of the Sûtra-writers and criticised or defended the doctrine of the self-demonstrated authority of the scriptural texts (shabda-pramâṇa) in various ways. But we cannot go into their elaborate discussions in this place;
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nor is it necessary to do so, for eventually we have to fall back upon the view of Vyâsa and Patanjali, mentioned above, if the destruction of the Vedas during each pralaya, and its repromulgation at the commencement of the new age is admitted.