Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 31)

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Parts 1 to 30 were posted earlier. This is part 31. 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 31

 

 

c) The Mythological and Allegorical Aryan Gods

In France the "rights of man" was long a watchword of the race; in America the rights of women still beseech the public ear; in India we have concerned ourselves always with the rights of Gods. (54)

Spirit-worship was the beginning of the Hindu religion. At first the Hindus used to invoke the spirits of their departed ancestors in some man, and then worship and offer him food. By and by it was found that the men who acted as mediums for these disembodied spirits suffered very much physically afterwards. So they gave up the practice and substituted instead an effigy of grass (kushaputtali) and, invoking the departed spirits of their ancestors in it, offered to it worship and pindas. The Vedic invocation of the devas for worship and sacrifice... was a development of this Spirit worship. (55)

The Samhitas... are collections of hymns forming, as it were, the oldest Aryan literature; properly speaking, the oldest literature in the world. There may have been scraps of literature of older date here and there, older than that even, but not books or literature properly so-called. As a collected book this is the oldest the world has; and herein is portrayed the earliest feelings of the Aryans, their aspirations, the questions that arose about their manners and methods, and so on. At the very outset we find a curious idea. These hymn are sung in praise of different gods, devas as they are called, the bright ones. There is quite a number of them. One is called Indra, another Varuna, another Mitra, Parjanya, and so on. Various mythological and allegorical figures come before us, one after the other - for instance, Indra the thunderer, striking the serpent who has withheld the rains from mankind. Then he lets fly his thunderbolt, the serpent is killed, and rain comes down in showers. The people are pleased and they worship Indra with oblations. They make a sacrificial pyre, kill some animals, roast their flesh upon spits and offer that meat to Indra. And they had a popular plant called soma. What plant it was nobody knows now; it has entirely disappeared; but from the books we gather that, when crushed it produced a sort of milky juice and that was fermented; and it can also be gathered that this fermented soma juice was intoxicating. This they also offered to Indra and the other gods and they also drank it themselves. Sometimes they drank a little too much, and so did the gods. Indra on occasion got drunk. There are passages to show that Indra at one time drank so much of this soma juice that he talked irrelevant words. So with Varuna. He is another god, very powerful, and is in the same way protecting his votaries; and they are praising him with their libations of soma. So is the god of war, and so on....

In some of the books you will find that Indra has a body, is very strong, sometimes wearing golden armor, and comes down, lives and eats with his votaries, fights the demons, fights the snakes, and so on. Again, in one hymn we find that Indra has been given a very high position; he is omnipresent and omnipotent, and Indra sees the heart of every being. So with Varuna. This Varuna is the god of the air and is in Charge of the water, just as Indra was previously; and then, all of a sudden, we find him raised up and said to be omnipresent, omnipotent, and so on [Atharva Veda 4.16.2]. (56)

Sometimes Indra came and helped man; sometimes he drank too much soma. Now and again adjectives such as all-powerful, all-pervading, were attributed to him; the same was the case with Varuna. In this way it went on, and some of the mantras depicting the characteristics of these gods were marvelous, and the language was exceedingly grand. (57)

It is curious that, though in modern times, many hideous and cruel forms of religion have crept into India, there is one peculiar idea that divides the Aryan from all other races of the world: that their religion, in the Hindu form, accepted this Indra as one [with the Ultimate Reality]. Three-quarters of the mythology of the Vedas is the same as that of the Greeks; only the old gods became saints in the new religion. But they were originally the gods of the Samhitas. (58)

In the Vedic hymns Varuna and Indra shower the choicest gifts and blessing on devotees, a very human idea, more human than humanity itself (59)

The invocation of the devas, or bright ones, was the basis of worship. The idea is that one invokes and is helped and helps. (60)

 

d) Aryan Ideals of Womanhood

1. The Freedom of Aryan Woman and Their Equality with Men

The next idea of the Aryans was the freedom of women. (61)

The great Aryans, Buddha among the rest, have always put woman on an equal position with man. For them, sex in religion did not exist. (62)

The earliest [Aryan] system was a matriarchal one; that is, one in which the mother was the center, and in which girls acceded to her station. This led to the curious system of polyandry, where five and six brothers often marred one wife. Even the Vedas contain a trace of it in the provision that, when a man died without leaving any children, his widow was permitted to live with another man until she became a mother; but the children she bore did not belong to their father, but to her dead husband. In later years the widow was allowed to marry again, which the modern idea forbids her to do. (63)

In ancient times the privileges extended to women [included] coeducation. (64)

Could anything be more complete than the equality of boys and girls in our old forest universities? (65)

The old Aryan conception of marriage, symbolized in the fire lighted at marriage and worshipped morning and evening by husband and wife together, pointed to no inequality of standards of responsibilities as between the two. (66)

According to the Aryan, a man cannot perform a religious action without a wife. (67)

The ideal of womanhood centers in the Aryan race of India, the most ancient in the world's history. In that race, men and women were priests, saha-dharmini, or co-religionists, as the Vedas call them. There every family had its hearth or altar on which, at the time of the wedding, the marriage fire was kindled, which was kept alive until either spouse died, when the funeral pyre was lighted from its spark. There man and wife together offered their sacrifices, and this idea was carried so far that a man could not even pray alone, because it was held that the was only half a being. For that reason no unmarred man could become a priest. The same held true in ancient Greece and Rome. (68)

 

2. Some of the Most Beautiful Portions of the Vedas Were Written by Women

In the Vedas and Upanishads women taught the highest truths and received the same veneration as men. (69)

Some of the most beautiful portions of the Vedas... were written by women; there is no other bible in the world in which they had any part. (70)

In the records of the saints in India there is the unique figure of the prophetess. In the Christian creed [the saints] are all prophets, while in India holy women occupy a conspicuous place in the holy books. (71)

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, [the Devi Sukta]. (72)

It is in the Aryan literature that we find women in ancient times taking the same share as men, and in no other literature of the world. Going back to our Veda books, the oldest literature the world possesses and composed by the common ancestors [of India and America] (these were not written in India, perhaps on the coast of the Baltic, perhaps in Central Asia - we do not know); their oldest portion is composed of hymns and these are to the gods whom the Aryans worshipped. I may be pardoned for using the word gods - the literal translation is the bright ones. These hymns are dedicated to Fire and to the Sun, to Varuna and other deities. The titles run: such and such a sage composed this verse dedicated to such and such a deity. After the fourth or fifth comes a peculiar hymn, for the sage is a woman and it is dedicated to the one god who is at the background of all these gods….[in the Upanishads], too, we find women prominent; a Large portion of these books are words which have proceeded out the mouths of women. It is there recorded with their names and teachings.... There arose in India the great questions about the soul and God and these came from the mouths of women. (73)

 

Cross reference to:

Rig Veda, 10.125,2-3

 

e) Sannyasins, People Who Have Given Up the World

1. The Ideal of Personal Purity Has Imprinted Itself Very Deeply into the Heart of the Aryan Race

The married teacher and the celibate are both as old as the Vedas. Whether the soma-sipping rishi... was the first in order of appearance, or the... celibate rishi was the primeval form it is hard to decide at present.... But whatever be the order of genesis, the celibate teachers of the Shrutis and Smritis stand on an entirely different platform from the married ones, which is perfect chastity, brahmacharya. (74)

On every page the Vedas preach personal purity. The laws in this respect were extremely strict. Every boy and girl was sent to the university, where they studied until their twentieth or thirtieth year; there the least impurity was punished almost cruelly. This idea of personal purity has imprinted itself very deeply into the heart of the race, amounting almost to a mania. (75)

The disciple of old used to repair to the hermitage of the guru, fuel in hand; and the guru, after ascertaining his or her competence, would teach him or her the Vedas after initiation, fastening round the waist the threefold filament of munja, a kind of grass, as the emblem of his or her vow to keep the body, mind, and speech in control. With the help of this girdle the disciples used to tie up their kaupinas (loincloths). Later on, the custom of wearing the sacred thread superseded this girdle of munja grass. (76)

 

2. The Freedom of Giving Up Marriage and Property

The Indian people are intensely socialistic. But, beyond that, there is a wealth of individualism. They are as tremendously individualistic [as the West] - that is to say, after laying down all these minute regulations: they have regulated how you should eat, drink, sleep, die! Everything is regulated there; from early morning to when you go to bed and sleep, you are following regulations and law. Law, law, law. Do you wonder that a nation should [live] under that? Law is death. The more of law in a country, the worse for the country. [but to be an individual], we go to the mountains where there is no law, no government....

[The Vedic Aryans] were thinkers. They knew that this tremendous regulation of law would not lead to real greatness. So they left a way out for them all. After all, they found out that all these regulations are only for the world and the life of the world. As soon as you do not want money [and] you do not want children - no business for this world - you can go out entirely free. Those that go out were called sannyasins - people who have given up. They never organized themselves, nor do they now; they are a free order of men and women who refuse to marry, who refuse to possess property, and they have no law - not even the Vedas bind them. They stand on [the] top of the Vedas. They are [at] the other pole [from] our social institutions. They are beyond caste. They have grown beyond. They are too big to be bound by these little regulations and things. Only two things [are] necessary for them: they must not possess property and they must not marry. If you marry, settle down, or possess property, immediately the regulations will be upon you; but if you do not do either of these two, you are free. They were the living gods of the race, and ninety-nine percent of our great men and women were to be found among them.

In every country, real greatness of the soul means extraordinary individuality; and that individuality you cannot get in society. It frets and fumes and wants to burst society. If society wants to keep it down, that soul wants to burst society to pieces. And they made an easy channel. They say, "Well, once you get out of society, then you may teach and preach everything that you like. We only worship you from a distance." So, there were the tremendous, individualistic men and women; and they are the highest persons in all society. If one of those yellow-clad shaven-heads comes, the prince, even, dare not remain seated in his presence; he must stand. The next half hour, one of these sannyasins might be at the door of one of the cottages of the poorest subjects, glad to get only a piece of bread. And he has to mix with all grades; now he sleeps with a poor man in his cottage; tomorrow [he] sleeps on the beautiful bed of a king. One day he dines on gold plates in kings' palaces; the next day, he has not any food and sleeps under a tree. Society looks upon these great men and women with great respect; and some of them, just to show their individuality, will try to shock the public ideas. But the people are never shocked so long as they keep to these principles: perfect purity and no property. (77)

The Vedas say, "The sannyasin stands on the head of the Vedas!" - because he is free from churches and sects and religions and prophets and books and all of that ilk! (78)

In the Order to which I belong, we are called sannyasins. The word means a man who has renounced. This is a very, very ancient order. Even Buddha, who was 560 years before Christ, belonged to that order. He was one of the reformers of his order. That was all. So ancient! Your find it mentioned way back in the Vedas, the oldest book in the world.

In old India there was the regulation that every man and woman, towards the end of their lives, must get out of social life altogether and think of nothing except God and their own salvation. This was to get ready for the great event - death. (79)

The brahmin, the kshatriya and the vaishya all have equal rights to be sannyasins; the traivarnikas have equal rights to the Vedas. (80)

So old people used to become sannyasins in those early days. Later on, young people began to give up the world. And young people are active. They could not sit down under a tree and think all the time of their own death, so they went about preaching and starting sects, and so on....

The order is not a church, and the people who join the order are not priests. There is an absolute difference between the priests and sannyasins. In India, priesthood, like every other business in social life, is a hereditary profession. A priest's son will become a priest, just as a carpenter's son will soon be a carpenter, or a blacksmith's son a blacksmith. The priest must always be married. The Hindu does not think a man is complete unless he has a wife. An unmarried man has no right to perform religious ceremonies.

The sannyasin does not possess property, and they do not marry. Beyond that, there is no organization. The only bond that is there is the bond between the teacher and the taught - and that is peculiar to India. The teacher is not a man who comes just to teach me, and I pay so much and there it ends. In India, it is really like an adoption. The teacher is more than my own father, and I am truly his child, his son in every respect. I owe him obedience and reverence first, before my own father, even; because, they say, the father gave me this body, but he showed me the way to salvation; he is greater than a father. And we carry this love, this respect for our teacher, all our lives. And that is the only organization that exists. (81)

 

3. The Real Aim of Sannyasa Is "For One's Highest Freedom and for the Good of the World"

The real aim of sannyasa is "For one's highest freedom and for the good of the world." Without having sannyasa none can really be a knower of Brahman - that is what the Vedas and the Vedanta proclaim. (82)

The stinking monks of certain religious sects [the Jains], who do not bathe lest the vermin on their bodies should be killed, never think of the discomfort and disease they bring to their fellow human beings. They do not, however, belong to the religion of the Vedas! (83)

It is men of [sannyasa] stamp who have been, through a succession of disciples, spreading Brahma-vidya (knowledge of Brahman) in the world. Where and when have you heard that a man, being the slave of lust and wealth, has been able to liberate another, or to show the path of God to him? Without himself being free, how can he make others free? In Veda, Vedanta, Itihasa (history), Purana (ancient tradition), you will find everywhere that the sannyasins have been the teachers of religion in all ages and climes.(84)