Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 25)

December 17, 2000

Parts 1 to 24 were posted earlier. This is part 25. Your comments are welcome... Vivekananda Centre London

Earlier postings can be seen at http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 25

PART I, SECTION 2: VEDIC CULTURE

Chapter 4: The Vedic Rishis

a) The Discoverers of the Vedas Are the Rishis, Who Come Face to Face with Spiritual Truth

The Vedas are said to have been written by rishis. These rishis were sages who realized certain facts. The exact definition of the Sanskrit word rishi is a seer of mantras - of the thoughts conveyed in the Vedic hymns. These men declared that they had realized - sensed, if that word can be used with regard to the supersensuous - certain facts, and these facts they proceeded to put on record. We find the same truth declared amongst both the Jews and the Christians. (1)

The word mantra means thought out, cogitated by the mind, and the rishi is the seer of those thoughts. (2)

A peculiarity of the Shrutis is that they have many sages as the recorders of truth in them, mostly men, even some women. Very little is known of their personalities, the dates of their birth, and so forth, but their best thoughts - their best discoveries, I should say - are preserved there, embodied in the sacred literature of India, the Vedas. (3)

The mass of knowledge called the Vedanta was discovered by personages called rishis; and the rishi is defined as a mantra-drashta, the seer of thought; not that it was his or her own. Whenever you hear that a certain passage of the Vedas came from a certain rishi, never think that he or she wrote it or created it out of his or her mind; he or she was the seer of the thought which already existed; it existed in the universe eternally. This sage was the discoverer; the rishis were spiritual discoverers. (4)

No one has ever seen the composer of the Vedas, and it is impossible to imagine one. The rishis were only discoverers of the mantras or eternal laws; they merely came face to face with the Vedas, the infinite mine of knowledge which has been there from time without beginning. (5)

The real fact is that there is a state beyond the conscious plane, where there is no duality of the knower, knowledge and the instruments of knowledge, etc. When the mind is merged, that state is perceived. I say it is perceived because there is no other word to express that state. Language cannot express that state. Shankaracharya styled it transcendent perception (aparokshanubhuti). Even after that transcendent perception, avatars descend to the relative plane and give glimpses of that - therefore it is said that the Vedas and other scriptures have originated from the perception of the seers. (6)

We find the word rishi again and again mentioned in the Vedas; and it has become a common word at the present time. The rishi is the great authority . We have to understand that idea. The definition is that the rishi is the mantra-drashta, the seer of thought.... The knowledge which the Vedas declare comes through being a rishi. This knowledge is not in the senses; but are the senses the be-all and end-all of the human being? Who dare say that the senses are the all-in-all of humanity?...

Beyond consciousness is where the bold seek. Consciousness is bound by the senses. Beyond that, beyond the senses, men must go in order to arrive at the truths of the spiritual world, and there are, even now, persons who succeed in going beyond the bounds of the senses. These are called rishis, because they come face to face with spiritual truths. (7)

Cross reference to:

Brih. Up., 1.4.10

b) The Competency of the Rishis Is in Superconscious Perception, the Common Property of All

The proof... of the Vedas is just the same as the proof of this table before me - pratyaksha, direct perception. This I see with the senses, and the truths of spirituality we also see in a supersensous state of the human soul. (8)

The idea is that we have to get our knowledge or ordinary objects by direct perception and inference therefrom, and from testimony of people who are competent. By "people who are competent" the yogis always mean the rishis, or the seers of thought recorded in the scriptures, the Vedas. According to them, the only proof of the scriptures is that they were the testimony of competent persons. (9)

All human knowledge is uncertain and may be erroneous. Who is a true witness? He is a true witness to whom the thing said is a direct perception. Therefore the Vedas are true, because they consist of the evidence of competent persons. But is this power of perception peculiar to any? No! The rishi, the Aryan, the mlechcha [a foreigner, barbarian], all alike have it. (10)

You must always remember that in all other scriptures inspiration is quoted as their authority, but this inspiration is limited to a very few persons, and through them the truth came to the masses - and we all have to obey them. Truth came to Jesus of Nazareth and we must all obey him. But the truth came to the rishis of India - the mantra-drashtas, the seers of thought - and will come to all rishis in the future, not to talkers, not to book-swallowers, not to scholars, not to philologists, but to seers of thought. (11)

The rishi-state is not limited by time or by place, by sex or race. Vatsayana boldly declared that this rishihood is the common property of the descendants of the sage, of the Aryan, of the non-Aryan, of even the Mlechcha. This is the sageship of the Vedas; and constantly we ought to remember this ideal of religion in India, which I wish other nations of the world would also remember and learn, so that there may be less fight and less quarrel. (12)

Who are the rishis? Vatsayana says, "He who has attained through proper means the direct realization of dharma, he alone can be a rishi, even if he is a Mlechcha by birth." Thus it is that in ancient times, Vashishta, born of an illegitimate union; Vyasa, the son of a fisherwoman; Narada, the son of a maidservant of uncertain parentage, and many others of like nature attained to rishihood. (13)

In the Vedic or Upanishadic age, Maitreyi, Gargi, and other ladies of revered memory have taken the place of rishis through their skill in discussing Brahman. (14)

The discoverers of [spiritual] laws, the rishis... we Hindus honor as perfected beings. I am glad to [say] that some of the very greatest of them were women. (15)

It was a female sage who first found the unity of God and laid down this doctrine in one of the first hymns of the Vedas. [Devi Sukta] (16)

To be continued.....