History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c91.246.1

v7.c91.246.1

In recent years Śrī Aurobindo in ‘Hymns to the mystic Fire’ (translated in the esoteric sense, 1946) and his ardent and devout disciple Sri. T. V. Kapali Sastry (in ‘Ṛgbhāṣya-bhūmikā in Sanskrit and its English translation, Pondicherry 1952) have started a theory about the Ṛgveda mantras which must be briefly stated and examined. Śrī Aurobindo first intended to publish an edition of the Ṛgveda with a word by word construction and an English translation. But he gave up that idea on account of other pre-occupations and rests content in the above book with the text and translation of about 230 verses in all from the 1st, 2nd and 6th *maṇḍalas* of the Ṛgveda and a foreword of 48 pages in which he propounds his theory. While this was being written by the present writer, Śrī Aurobindo's large work of 634 pages 'on the Veda' published in 1956 reached his hands. Over 60 hymns are dealt with in this big book and 283 pages are devoted to the elaboration of his theory first outlined in the brief work of Śrī Aurobindo mentioned above and reiterated with greater emphasis. On page 9 of the work of 1956 he states "*the ritual system recognized by Sāyaṇa may stand, the naturalistic sense discovered by European scholarship may, in its general conceptions be accepted, but behind there is always the true and still hidden secret of the veda—the secret words which were spoken for the purified in soul and the awakened in knowledge*'.