Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c9.56

c9.56

The ideal of this learning was thus the realization of Truth, and not the mere mastery or recitation of its texts. Many passages are cited above from the Ṛigveda on this point. One of these, a most typical one [i, 164, 39], may be cited again for its profound and emphatic exhortation: "*Ṛicho akshare parame vyoman yasmin devā adhi viśve nisheduḥ | yastanna veda kiṁ ṛichā karishyati*"; on which Sāyaṇa forcefully comments: "*vedanasādhanena Vedena vedyamaviditvā kiṁ sādhayati iti.*" The Veda is useless learning to him who only recites its *Ṛik* without comprehending its meaning. The Veda is *aparā vidyā*, worthless learning, to him who does not achieve the knowledge of the *Paramātman*, the Reality behind its *Ṛiks* and *Aksharas*, its verses and letters! To such an ignoramus, even the words of the Veda, so big with meaning, are "barren of any fruit or flower" (*vāchaṁ aphalāmapushpām*)! The mere crammer of Vedic texts (the *Kevalapāṭhaka* as Yāska calls him), is condemned as *arvāk* by the Ṛigveda.