The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c38.15

v2.c38.15

The positive side of the tendency of the Rigveda to dissatisfaction with the gods of tradition is to be seen in the assertion of the unity of the gods and of the world. When all is said and done this is the one important contribution of the Rigveda to the philosophy of India. It asserts as a norm for the future development of that thought the effort to grasp more concretely and definitely the unity, which it asserts as a fact, but which it does not justify or explain in detail. The assertion is made with emphasis in a hymn⁷ attributed to a quite mythical author Dīrghatamas, who develops at much length the riddle of the universe. The form of the long hymn of fifty-two verses is remarkable and characteristic. It is a feature of the Vedic sacrifice that at certain points are found Brahmodyas, discussions about the Brahman, the holy power in the universe. Such theosophical riddles are especially common at the horse sacrifice and are often of simple enough kind: the one priest asks, ‘What is it that doth move alone? What is ever born again? What is the remedy of cold? and what the great pile?’ The answers here are obvious enough, and are given as the sun, the moon, the fire, and the earth respectively.¹ In this long hymn of Dīrghatamas we have a great series of riddles, but there is to be seen in them some degree of cohesion, the influence of the doctrine of the unity of the world. It is frankly expressed as regards the gods in one verse: ‘They call it Indra, Varuṇa, Mitra, Agni, and the winged bird (the sun): the one they call by many names, Agni, Yama, and Mātariçvan.’ The same idea appears more expressly still in another verse, where the poet asks the wiser to tell him what supported the six regions of the universe, who was the first unborn being. The hymn is of special further value in that it foreshadows one of the most common ideas of the philosophy of the Veda, the identity of the sacrifice and the world: the seven priests of earth are paralleled by seven in the heaven, the speech on earth by that in the heaven; there are also the earthly and the heavenly metres, the earthly Pravargya rite and the rain from heaven, the animal offering and the bull sacrifice of the gods, the altar and the end of the earth, the sacrifice itself and the navel of the world, and the Soma on earth and the sun and rain.