June topic: mAyA in the Vedas: RV. X..177/ last look for now

[Guest guest]

Namaste All,

This arises from Professor Krishnamurthy's picking up

on the different meanings of pataMga and the root

'pat.'

 

Root Pat:

While it has the meaning of 'falling' it also has the

opposite as 'soaring' so the Sun appears to rise and

set, to soar and fall.

In our use of language we tend to emphasize a single

meaning when there are always two which at first

appear to be opposites, for example, ‘under’ the

bridge contains the meaning ‘over’ the river when we

see the larger picture. ‘Under’ cannot be separated

from ‘over’.

Essentially ‘pat’ has to do with the power of

movement.

This hymn (X 177)is dedicated to mAyAbheda which I

will translate as the magical power of difference, the

movement from one into many without change, as it

were.

Grounding our interpretation in YAska then we remember

the adhyajna, adhidaivata and adhyAtma levels for the

purposes of understanding.

At the universal level pataMga is the Sun, the

universal soul as it were, which ‘continually

travels’. That is, it is the all-pervading,

ever-present power of That One, Tad Ekam , that while

breathless, breathes and through whose heat, tapas,

the first germ of mind appears.’ While still it moves

faster than all others’. Isha Up. 4

 

At the individual level it is pataMga, that which

continually travels but ‘falls’, appearing and

disappearing above and below the dividing line of the

horizon, birth and death, the magical power of

appearance and disappearance.

Those that observe this progression to and from the

‘station’ of the rays of the sun are able to

discriminate the non-difference in the difference,

they realise the universal in the individual. This is

what the ancient seers spoke and the poet PataMga

realised, ‘his’ identity in the universal Bird,

PataMga, that appeared to him as the sun passing

through the sky and disappearing beneath the horizon.

 

This power of discrimination, through heart and mind,

is cherished through the words of the hymn that are

now used in this place of ritual. Those words of our

singers themselves appear and disappear, emerging out

of the depths of the pranava shabda, Om, the eternal,

differentiating in the inner vision of the poet and

sung here in this place of ritual. Like the birds they

soar and fall, they also are pataMga., falcons in the

breaths of the singers.

 

……………………

This next bit may not be of interest generally

although it seeks to find an etymological

understanding of ‘pataMga’..

In the Western, urbanised societies we are bound

through our language to names and forms especially

through a preference for nouns. Not all societies work

in this way. There is an interesting film produced by

an anthropologist in Africa. He found that the

indigenous people in a village were unable ‘see’ still

pictures and recognise the forms in them. But when

they saw a movie of village chickens they were

immediately delighted by them and called out the names

when they recognised the movement of the fluttering

birds.

So now, when I look across the road at a tree in the

field, I may choose to see a fixed form which I name

‘tree’ or be aware of it as a continually changing

‘being’ emerging out of and into the five natural

elements. Such a view is more in keeping with the

word ‘emanation’ rather than ‘creation’ which we

normally use.

Therefore we may see a cow as ‘moving into the field’

so that its name incorporates this fact of movement

and continual change.

So when we look etymologically at Sanskrit words we

often find that the words have verbal roots based in

‘going’ or ‘moving’.

 

Here is a stanza which is all about movement, it is

from RV. I.154.6 on the three steps of Vishnu, we

find the word ‘gámadhyai’ which has the verbal root,

dhattu is the Sanskrit for this, of ‘gam’.

 

Remembering the double-edge to words this means ‘going

away’ from and ‘approaching’ When we produce a noun

from this verbal root we get ‘gata’, gone away,

departed, dead or ‘gati’, gait or deportment.

taá vaaM vaástuuny ushmasi gámadhyai yátra gaávo

bhuúrishRÑgaa ayaásaH |

átraáha tád urugaayásya vR'SNaH paramám padám áva

bhaati bhuúri ||

 

‘Fain would we go unto your dwelling-places where

there are many-horned and nimble oxen,

For mightily, there, shineth down upon us the

widely-striding Bull's sublimest mansion.’

 

As Professor Krishnamurthy has stated, pataMga has the

verbal root of ‘pat’. In later writings this comes to

include a ‘moral fall’ in its meanings but in the

Rgveda it is related to the falcon and its speedy

falling and soaring, or alighting, dependent upon its

context. Hence:

RV.I.163. rishi: DIrghatamas deity: eulogy of the

horse metre: trishTup

6. aatmaánaM te mánasaaraád ajaanaam avó divaá

patáyantam pataMgám |

shíro apashyam pathíbhiH sugébhir areNúbhir

jéhamaanam patatrí ||

 

‘Thyself from far I recognized in spirit,-a Bird that

from below flew through the heaven.

I saw thy head still soaring, striving upward by paths

unsoiled by dust, pleasant to travel.’

 

In my own study I like to have a look at Panini’s

Dhattupatha in which he contemplates these verbal

roots and then gives a dhattvartha to try to bring out

the meaning. So I looked up ‘pata’ and he gives, in

the ubhayataH voice ‘gatau (va)’

Not surprisingly we are immediately into the root

‘gam’ see above. We may like to reflect a little on

the ‘go’ ‘gau’ (cow) and the ‘gopam’ (herdsman) in

X177.

 

This game (that is a pun for those still with me) can

go on for ever. So I must end with an example of gatam

in a Sloka that I think is relevant to our hymm 177

although it is from the Bhagavad Gita:

VII.18

udArAH sarva evAita

noble indeed are all these

 

jnAnI tvAtmaiva me matam |

but the man of wisdom is thought to be my very Self

 

AsTitaH sa hi yukAtmA

He, indeed, whose mind is steadfast,

 

mAm evAnuttamAM gatim ||

Abides in Me, the Supreme Goal (ie. The source and

destination of all ‘going’.)

 

 

 

 

Ken Knight

 

 

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‘From this Supreme Self are all these, indeed, breathed forth.’