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

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

57 Jili, on Qur’an, II, 14, 23 £., cited by Nicholson, Studies... p. 113.

58 For Heraclitus (who was regarded by St. Justin as a “ Christian before Christ ’’) the Logos, manifesting as Fire, is that universal principle which animates and rules the world. This non-dualistic point of view is more fully developed by the Stoics, in a fashion again suggesting Indian contacts : according to them “ God did not make the world as an artisan does his work, but it is by wholly penetrating all matter that He is the demiurge of the universe (Galen, De qual. incorp. in Fr. Stoic. ed. von Arnim, Il, 6); He penetrates the world ‘ as honey does the honeycomb ’ (Tertullian, Adv. Hermogenem, 44) ; this God so intimately mingled with the world is fire or ignited air; inasmuch as He is the principle controlling the universe, He is called Logos; and inasmuch as He is the germ from which all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos (Logos spermatikos). This Logos is at the same time a force and a law, an irresistible force which bears along the entire world and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable and holy law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and which every reasonable man should follow willingly ’ (Cleanthus, Hymn to Zeus in Fr. Stoic., 1, 527cf. 537). Conformably to their exegetical habits the Stoics made of the different gods personifications of the Logos, e.g., of Zeus, and above all of Hermes,” Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Logos.

The correspondence and probable connection of this ideology with that of the Upanisads is obvious. The more special application of Cleanthus may be likened to the Buddhist concept of dhayma-cakva pravariana.

59 Eckhart speaks of the “‘ maternal names ’’ of God in two different senses : when he calls him the “‘ Mother of all things,’’ that is not in the present sense of ‘‘ natural parent,’’ but in that “ he stays with all creatures to keep them in being,” I, 1427. That would be in Indian terms, in his Person as Visnu, or as in our text, 7, where he “ remembers '’ (manyata) all existences for as long as time endures: that in scientific phraseology is the “ conservation of energy,” cf. Note 75.

60 Kala, our “ Father Time,” but here essentially, not as now merely allegorically.

61 Represented in the later iconography by the demons Madhu and Kaitabha, threatening Brahma, lotus-seated and navel-born from Narayana.

62 Utterance, vyahrti, is that of the Three Worlds, as explained in the Maiiri Up., VI, 6; these worlds, this universe, being the body (tanw, $artva) of Prajapati, the Horse, the Tree, the Wheel, the Dance of Siva.

The analysis of the singular name or utterance into its manifold aspects is the co-creative function of the poetic genius, imagination, or prophecy, expressed primarily in the sacrificial chants. Cf. ‘‘ When, O Brhaspati, calling things by their names (Prophets), put forth the head and front of Wisdom (vac), then what was best and flawless in them, hid in the innermost (guha), that by their love (preman) they brought to light . . . by Intellect (manas) they dealt with Wisdom (vac),”” hence it is said that ‘“‘ by the Sacrifice they found the tracks of Wisdom, within the Prophets (vst) lodged,’ Rg Veda, X, 71, 3: for ““Whom I (viz., Wisdom, vdc) love, him I make forceful, Brahman, Prophet, and very wise,” ibid., X, 125, 5. Access to this unspoken Wisdom in the innermost, is spoken of as vision and audition (—d¢rs and —Sru), ibid., X, 71, 4, hence the later designation of the Veda as Sruti, “ that which was heard.”

83 Systi, asrjata, asygram, etc., ought not to be translated as “ crea-