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

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

He who is Over-Eye (adhyaksa) thereof in uttermost Empyrean (vyoman), he knows indeed, or knoweth not. 7.

That is what is called a “late” hymn: from our present point of view it suffices that it antedates the earliest Upanisads by some centuries. A likeness to Upanisadic texts generally, and to our Byhadaranyaka Up., I, 2, 1, and Maitri Up., V, 2, in particular will be noticed at a glance. This similarity is partly one of verbal identity (agre, sat, asat, tamas, salila, tapas, kama, retas, manas, hyd, tad-eka, anit = praniti, vata = vayu, avata = nivvata, visysti, visarjana, etc.), partly of verbal sense (ambhah, salila = apah, tapasah-mahi = tejas, svadha = maya, Sakti, svabhava),°* and partly of total statement. Bandhu (= sajdaia) “ kin” as of blood relationship, is an exceedingly well-found expression for the “ opposite relation ’’ of Existence to the Non-existent, God to Godhead, Essence to Nature®® ; as also in Brhadavanyaka Up., 1,1, 2. As for vajas, granted that no more is here directly implied than “firmament” or “ space,’’ and that the Sarhkhya as a formulated system is of later publication,!°° it still remains significant that in our hymn (not to speak of other Vedic sources) we have a trinity of terms (tamas, rajas, and tapasah-mahi = tejas = sativa)! employed in their correct factorial (gawna) senses to denote the principles of passivity, movement, and essentiality, “later ’’ represented by the three gunas more explicitly, and by the corresponding Trinity of Visnu, Brahma, and Siva. By the “primal seed of Intellect,” I understand rather “intellectual virility,” “creative intellect,’ than the source of Intellect: cf. Rg Veda X, 71, 2, Brhadaranyaka Up., I, 5, 7, and similar passages, where Intellect (manas) is the fecundating power that begets upon Utterance or Wisdom (vac). Amyta, in the second stanza, is not “ immortality,’”’ but

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