Why did I not do what is good?

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He who knows the Bliss of Brahman <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman>

, whence words together with the mind turn away, unable to reach It? He

is not afraid of anything whatsoever. He does not distress himself with

the thought: " Why did I not do what is good? Why did I do what is

evil? " . Whosoever knows this regards both these as Atman; indeed he

cherishes both these as Atman. Such, indeed, is the Upanishad, the

secret knowledge of Brahman.

Get up! Wake up! Seek the guidance of an Illumined teacher and realize

the Self. Sharp like a razor's edge is the path, The sages say,

difficult to traverse.

 

Whoever sees all beings in the soul and the soul in all beings does

not shrink away from this. In whom all beings have become one with the

knowing soul what delusion or sorrow is there for the one who sees

unity? It has filled all. It is radiant, incorporeal, invulnerable,

without tendons, pure, untouched by evil. Wise, intelligent,

encompassing, self-existent, it organizes objects throughout eternity.

The Rigveda is far more archaic than any other Indo-Aryan text. For this

reason, it was in the center of attention of western scholarship from

the times of Max Müller

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Max_Muller> . The Rigveda

records an early stage of Vedic religion

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_religion> , still closely tied to

the pre- Zoroastrian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrian> Persian

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians> religion. It is thought that

Zoroastrianism and Vedic Hinduism evolved from an earlier common

religious Indo-Iranian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Iranians>

culture.

 

The Rigveda's core is accepted to date to the late Bronze Age

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age> , making it the only example

of Bronze Age literature <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_literature>

with an unbroken tradition. Its composition is usually dated to roughly

between 1700–1100 BC [3]. The text in the following centuries

underwent pronunciation revisions and standardization ( samhitapatha

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhitapatha> , padapatha

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padapatha> ). This redaction would have

been completed in about the 7th century BC

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_century_BC> [4] . Writing appears in

India in ca. the 5th century BC in the form of the Brahmi

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi> script, but texts of the length

of the Rigveda were likely not written down before the Early Middle

Ages, in the Gupta <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_script> or

Siddham <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddham> scripts, and while

written manuscripts were used for teaching in medieval times, they

played a minor role in the preservation of knowledge because of their

ephemereal nature (Indian manuscripts were on bark or palm leaves and

decomposed rapidly in the tropical climate) until the advent of the

printing press in British India

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_India> . The hymns were thus

preserved by oral tradition

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition> for up to a millennium

from the time of their composition until the redaction of the Rigveda,

and the entire Rigveda was preserved in shakhas

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakha> for another 2,500 years from the

time of its redaction until the editio princeps by Müller, a

collective feat of memorization unparalleled in any other known society.

 

Puranic literature names Vidagdha

<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vidagdha & action=edit> as the

author of the Pada-text. [5] Other scholars argue that Sthavira Sak of

the Aitareya Aranyaka is the padakara of the RV.[6] After their

composition, the texts were preserved and codified by a vast body of

Vedic priesthood <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_priesthood> as the

central philosophy of the Iron Age Vedic civilization

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_civilization> .

 

The Rigveda describes a mobile, nomadic

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomad> culture, with horse-drawn chariots

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot> and metal (bronze) weapons.

According to some scholars the geography described is consistent with

that of the Punjab <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab_region>

(Gandhara <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhara> ): Rivers

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigvedic_rivers> flow north to south, the

mountains are relatively remote but still reachable ( Soma

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma> is a plant found in the mountains,

and it has to be purchased, imported by merchants). Nevertheless, the

hymns were certainly composed over a long period, with the oldest

elements possibly reaching back into Indo-Iranian

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Iranian> times, or the early 2nd

millennium BC. Thus there is some debate over whether the boasts of the

destruction of stone forts by the Vedic Aryans and particularly by Indra

refer to cities of the Indus Valley civilization

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_civilization> or whether

they hark back to clashes between the early Indo-Aryans

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryans> with the BMAC

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMAC> (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological

Complex) culture centuries earlier, in what is now northern Afghanistan

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan> and southern Turkmenistan

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenistan> (separated from the upper

Indus <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River> by the Hindu Kush

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Kush> mountain range, and some 400

km distant). In any case, while it is highly likely that the bulk of the

Rigveda was composed in the Punjab, even if based on earlier poetic

traditions, there is no mention of either tigers

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger> or rice

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice> [7] in the Rigveda (as opposed to

the later Vedas), suggesting that Vedic culture only penetrated into the

plains of India after its completion. Similarly, it is assumed that

there is no mention of iron <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron> . [8]

The Iron Age in northern India begins in the 12th century BC

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_century_BC> with the Black and Red

Ware <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Red_Ware> (BRW) culture.

This is a widely accepted timeframe for the beginning codification of

the Rigveda (i.e. the arrangement of the individual hymns in books, and

the fixing of the samhitapatha (by applying Sandhi

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhi> ) and the padapatha (by

dissolving Sandhi) out of the earlier metrical text), and the

composition of the younger Vedas. This time probably coincides with the

early Kuru <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28India%29> kingdom,

shifting the center of Vedic culture east from the Punjab into what is

now Uttar Pradesh <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh> .

 

Some of the names of gods and goddesses

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigvedic_deities> found in the Rigveda

are found amongst other belief systems based on Proto-Indo-European

religion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion> as

well: Dyaus-Pita is cognate with Greek

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language> Zeus

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeus> , Latin

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin> Jupiter

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_%28god%29> (from deus-pater), and

Germanic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages> Tyr

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyr> ; while Mitra is cognate with Persian

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language> Mithra; also, Ushas

with Greek Eos <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eos> and Latin Aurora

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora> ; and, less certainly, Varuna with

Greek Uranos <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranos> . Finally, Agni is

cognate with Latin ignis and Russian ogon, both meaning " fire " .

 

--

PRASHAN KUMAR THAKUR " PRAKUTHA " " PRASANN Kr. THAKUR " prakutha

<prakutha