Does Anyone Know ?

Rohini Gupta

21 December 2007, 17:30

Once upon a time, when the world was freshly green and young, there were sages who spent their lives in meditation, living close to nature in the high Himalayas. For centuries they walked amid primaeval pine and cedar forests, wondered about stars, sat by sacred rivers and created ecstatic poems.

We still have the poems, the Rig Veda, the oldest book in the world, more than six thousand years old, a vast collection of timeless poetry.

What can one say about the Rig Veda? It is a text unlike any other, sublime poetry but much confusion. It is so old that most of the meanings have been lost in the passage of the centuries. Some see only ritual in it, some see nonsense, some see religion, but I want to deal with it as poetry, and some of the most wonderful poetry that the world has ever known.

It is a text very hard to classify.

My friend Uday told me, Hinduism is not a religion, it is a parliament of religions. He is right. A religion has one text, one set of beliefs, one mind set. Hinduism has thousands of texts, more than I can read in a lifetime. It has books on every belief system you can imagine, there are devotees and atheists, monists, and ritualists, and every other kind of doctrine under the same huge umbrella, always with room for many more. Whatever belief you subscribe to, you will find the opposite of it as well living calmly side by side.

But the one constant in this sometimes raucous parliament, is the Veda. It is the sun around which the parliament revolves and the Rig Veda is its very heart. Everyone argues about everything else, everyone disagrees about everything else, but they all agree on the source, the Vedas.

The Rig Veda is the first and oldest book, a huge ten books of Sanskrit poetry, and then there are three others, Sama Veda, which is sung and the Yajur Veda which is used in rituals. Many of their hymns are taken from the Rig Veda. The fourth Veda is the Atharva Veda which purists prefer to ignore. Interestingly the Mahabharat itself is so huge and detailed that it is given the name of the fifth Veda.

There is a huge gap between the Vedas and other texts. The Vedas are written in ancient Sanskrit. So many of the meanings have been lost that if you read two different interpretations you may not realise you are reading the same verse, the variations are so great. Over the centuries Sanskrit changed and the classical Sanskrit of the later texts is quite different from the simpler, powerful and more poetic Vedic language.

The Vedic mantras are very familiar to Indians. They are part of every ritual, they solemnise marriages and coming of age ceremonies, priests rush through them at festivals, and intone them beside funeral fires. We all hear them, but they are just words. No one reads the Vedas, no one understands them.

In ancient India education had very high value, and the highest of all education was to learn all four Vedas. Traditionally all children spent the years till adulthood in the ashram of some sage, where they were expected to learn, unencumbered by the need to make a living or by social ties. When they finished their education then they returned to their homes and settled down to a householder’s life. Some of them went on to teach the Vedas to their children and others, passing on the hymns over thousands of years.

The meanings of the Vedas :

I want to talk of the heart of it all, the enigmatic Rig Veda written in a time so long ago it has been all but forgotten.

My own encounter with the Vedas began with a book, by Sri Aurobindo, called the Secret of the Vedas. Until then I had read many important texts but not the Vedas. Like most modern Indians I paid polite lip service to them. They are the fount from which everything comes, so we revere them in theory but ignore them in practise. I picked up Aurobindo’s book out of sheer curiosity.

Most of the translations of the Vedas came from the Indologists, who tended to be too literal in their confusion. They were academics, or they were missionaries, who could not relate to the poetry at all. The Vedas were like nothing in their experience before. They dismissed the verses as babblings of a primitive mind, created by simple tribals who did little but pray to powers of nature for cows, wealth and children.

It took Sri Aurobindo, Dayanand Saraswati and others to bring back some dignity to the Vedas. Aurobindo was himself a sage and a poet, which gave him an edge in understanding such sublime poetry. He pointed out that the verses were not literal, the flexibility of Sanskrit admitted many meanings and poetic metaphors abounded.

The translators might translate a hymn as ‘may we have many cows,’ making it seems that the sole interest was to get rich. But the word for cow, ‘go’, also means light, so the real meaning might be ‘may we be filled with light,’ giving a whole different complexion to the hymn. The primitive babblings and ritualistic nonsense suddenly morph into sublime poetry.

The Rig Veda is the oldest book and the most important. The date of its composition varies wildly, from ten thousand years ago to six thousand. The ancient sages prescribed such a strict metric system for the verses, that so many centuries later, we still have every syllable intact, unchanged just as they gave it. Brahmins over the ages have chanted it with mnemonic precision and perfection. Other, much younger texts have been garbled with time, but not one syllable of the Vedas.

Many of the meanings, however, are lost. The dictionaries, the lexicons, the compilations of words came centuries later, and some of the ancient shades of meaning have slipped like smoke into the centuries.

The Vedas are poetry and all poetry is abnormally condensed. Some Vedic verses were written as riddles, or enigmas, and forgotten over the passage of thousands of years. When the key word meanings were lost the Veda ended up as ritual. Many think it is meaningless, Indologists and others think it is rubbish, and a few, like Aurobindo, think it is poetry at a height never reached before or after.

I do not think academics can ever understand the Vedas. Their approach is too erudite, too critical. You cannot approach the Vedas with a grammar book in hand, and all the tools of dissection handy. You need to go to them as a child, open eyed in delight watching a sunrise, or a poet awed, numbed, by beauty too great for words. You go into the verses to lose yourself and be carried to a world far beyond any you could reach on your own. Drop your preconceptions and bathe in the experience.

It has been at least six thousand years since the Rig Veda and we still have no other text that can light a candle to it. The sages of the Veda spoke from a depth no one else has plunged. They spoke from the heart in a way poets struggle to emulate all their lives. The Vedas were considered ‘shruti’ which means heard, revealed, inspired, like a lightning bolt from heaven. Poetry from realms almost beyond all understanding.

The Nasadiya Hymn

The Nasadiya, named after its first word, is a hymn known among academics, much studied, discussed and written up in thesis, but little known outside the universities. All kinds of theories have been propounded about it. Some commentators call it philosophy and others trace the very influential school of philosophy, Advaita to it. Others called it sceptical and atheistic.

When I read it I see no skepticism, no philosophy, I see poetry.

When I first read it The Nasadiya dazzled me even though the translation did not make complete sense. I could not get the hymn out of my mind. I searched other translations, found many excellent commentaries written by professors or scholars. But the satisfaction was not there. I felt there was something missing. The ancient poet was singing of an experience, not discoursing to an audience.

Since I am neither academic nor scholar, I have tried to re-translate it in a way closer to poetry. I feel that verse is closer to the meaning since the Rig Veda is most likely the first book of poetry the world has known. I did not keep to the original Trishtubh meter which does not translate well in English, and I went by feeling more than strictness. In poetry, I feel, you are allowed some license.

I compared many translations with others, but broke down the Sanskrit in my own way, with the help of my friend Uday Acharya, who spent hours on the phone with me, from the other end of Mumbai, helping me de-code the complicated sandhi, the joint words.

I have tried to bring some of the poetry back into this re-creation, so that hopefully, you will travel with the sage, on this magical night, back to the beginnings of the universe.

Imagine the dark hour before the dawn when the sky is still brilliant with stars. High in a mountain cave, in the snows, a sage is meditating as he has done every day of his life. For him it has been a long journey. A hymn like this is not created in one night. He has spent thousands of hours meditation, decades have passed while he struggled to understand, waiting for insight, never giving up even in the darkest hours.

Tonight, for him, is just another night spent in contemplation. He doesn’t know it but tonight is different. Tonight is the culmination, the result of the decades of searching and despair. Tonight he is going to reach heights he had never imagined, tonight The Nasadiya will be revealed to him and he will never be the same again. Today his mind will be open and he will touch the very edge of the universe, the primeval void before creation. He may come out with tears in his eyes, weeping at so much wonder. And, reading his words, so may you.

Translation
Nasadiya, Rig Veda Book 10, Hymn 129.

1.
At first there was nothing
neither existence
nor non existence
space was not yet
and nothing beyond

What was hidden?
Where?
By whom?

Was there water
impenetrable and deep?

2.
Death did not exist
nor deathlessness
no sign as yet
of night or day

only the One
self impelled
breathing without breath

nothing else.

3.
At first
darkness wrapped around darkness
all was shoreless water,
featureless

The One, hidden by the void
stirred,
in fiery heat
emerged.

4.
Passion arose
the seed of mind.

Seers, searching
the wisdom
in their hearts
discovered the bond
with being

5.
A ray of light
spread out
what was above
what below?

There were seed bearers
mighty forces
thrust out
moving far beyond

6.
Who truly knows?
Who can say?

Where was it born?
How did it come forth?

The gods came later

who knows how this creation
came into being?

7.
That source from where
creation came
did it hold or not?

Only the one
who presides over
the highest space knows

He surely knows
or can it be
that he does not know?


Detailed Translation

Verse 1 : ‘At first there was nothing.’
The poet touches the beginning and finds nothing. His mind is lost in the endless void. There is no existence, but more than that, the concept of existence and non existence has not yet been formed.

There is no space, there is no beyond. The word used for space is ‘vyom’ which generally means sky and has also been translated as air. Here it is probably in the sense of vast and boundless space, the regions of stars. Neither sky, space nor anything beyond exist as yet. The poet is giving us an image to make the emptiness understandable.

Then the first hint that the void may hold something within it. Unable to sense it yet, the poet asks, what is hidden? Where? By whom? These are only questions with no answers. The searching mind of the poet finds a little more, a hint of thick, deep something.

What is it like? The only simile is water, impenetrable and deep. The words that describe it are ‘gahanam’ and ‘gabhiram’. ‘Gahanam’ means deep but also thick, impenetrable. ‘Gabhiram’ is deep.

Scientists today favour the big bang theory to explain the creation of the universe, and according to it, before creation, the void was thick, impenetrable, incredibly condensed. The Rig Veda, thousands of years ago, is describing the very same thing.

The void is the water of space in which a hint of consciousness shines like a distant and unseen star.

Verse 2 : Death did not exist
The mind cannot understand such abstractions so the poet specifies. Neither death nor deathlessness have been born. Day and night do not yet exist, time itself is yet to come into being.

The day and night he speaks of is not the minuscule day that we know. When you are talking of the creation of the universe, it is not twenty four hours, not even years or millennia but millions of years. He speaks of the day and night of Brahma, the creator, a concept used to explain the mind blowing expanses of astronomical time.

The sages saw the universe as cyclic going through a rhythmic pattern of creation and destruction seen as the out-breathing and the in-breathing. When the creator breathes out the universe explodes into expansion and the life cycle begins. When he breathes in, the universe collapses into itself and melts back into the creator, a state called ‘pralay’. Today physicists have a theory, the Inflationary universe, which seems to agree.

The ancients had worked out figures for everything, numbers which seems remarkable accurate today. The cycle of creation was symbolised as the lifetime of the creator, Brahma, who lives 100 years and time is measured by his years, and his days and nights. One day of his time is again an astronomical figure.

In human time there are four yugas, four ages. Our present age is Kali yuga which lasts 4,32,000 years. The previous yuga, Dwapar is twice that, the one before Treta is three times and the first yuga, Satya yuga is four times the length of Kali yuga, which comes to 1,72,8000 years.

Add the four yugas together and you get the smallest period. This small cycle repeats and creates a kalpa, which also repeats. Many kalpa cycles make a single day of Brahma. By some calculations, one day of Brahma comes to 4.32 billion years, and his night is another 4.32 billion.

It is this multi billion year night and day which is referred to in The Nasadiya, as the day and night which has not yet come into being.

The poet, having found no night or day, having found nothing as yet, looks deeper. Now he sees just a glimpse of the One, the sole consciousness in the void, who is self created and breathing without breath. The breathing implies a conscious function, though there is no air and no need to breathe.

The words used for the One in the hymn are ‘ekam’ one, and ‘tat’ that. No gender is implied. The One is beyond gender, name or form. It is simply consciousness.

In the great void, the poet finds the first hint of a consciousness.

Verse 3 : At first darkness wrapped around darkness
How can we even understand the total darkness? When we think of darkness, at least in modern life, it is not very dark. There is always some light and if you live in a city, then there is no real darkness.

The sage tries to give you a feel of the primal darkness which is such total darkness that the thought of light has not yet been born. Not only is the void black but darkness wraps around darkness, deepening the void, giving you a feel of the depths. If you can imagine total darkness, and many will find that hard, then this is it. All that exists is the primal matrix from which all comes, the dense and featureless water, pre-creation.

Darkness wrapped around darkness suggests that there is something within, a core hidden under the protective wrapping of darkness. Other hymns of the Rig Veda talk of creation as the golden egg from which all things come. There is a hint here of life within the covering of darkness, like life dreaming within an egg.

Now the poet sees more. In that void and water, there is movement. A stirring, a beginning. Then the One emerges, in a burst of fiery heat.

The word I have translated as heat is ‘tapas’. ‘Tapas’ has been variously translated as contemplation, ardor, fervent heat. It means all those things. The sage may very well have used it in the sense of contemplation, the One contemplated its future creation, and emerged with the meditation. However I have kept an old meaning, heat, in light of the discoveries of science today.

Most scientists today agree on the big bang theory. In the beginning nothing existed, no space, time, nothing. The universe was a highly condensed, very tiny ball of extremely hot matter. Stephen Hawkins, in his book A Brief History of Time, says, that one second after the big bang temperatures would have gone to ten thousand times the temperature at the centre of the sun, and they would have been even higher before the emergence. So the meaning of great concentrated heat seems to fit ‘tapas’ the best.

Out of great concentrated heat, the One emerges.

Verse 4 : Passion arose
In later translations many moralistic translators do not like the word “kaam’ which I translated as passion. ‘Kaam’ is raw desire, given in dictionaries as lust, and in later Sanskrit is frequently used in a sexual context. Later translators sometimes watered it down, but I feel that the ancient sage used it in another sense.

The birth of creation is not tidy and polite. The One emerges in furious heat, ‘tapas’ and passion ‘kaam’. This is raw and powerful passion, a lust for creation, hot, potent and aggressive desire. Some have translated it as love, and it certainly is love, a vibrant and energetic love from which the universe if born. It’s a beautiful thought that the universe is born from love and passion and energy and not from pain.

From passion comes the seed of mind. Immediately after the heat of creation the mind forms, and from mind comes the whole universe.

From heat, love and desire, comes the fire of mind.

Now the poet looks elsewhere. The second line in the verse turns inwards. Where is this source of all creation found ? There is only one place to look, within, in the heart. In the silent meditation of the heart the source, the One can still be touched in the brilliant explosion of its birth.

Verse 5 : A ray of light
This is perhaps the most problematic verse in The Nasadiya. Some translators leave it out altogether. The words can be interpreted many ways. The first line reads, ‘tiraswino vitato rashmi’. ‘tiraswino’ can mean horizontal, oblique or even in all directions. ‘Rashmi’ is both a cord, a rope and a ray of light. So what does it mean? A ray of light spreading out in all directions perhaps, makes the most sense. We may never know what the poet was actually seeing in those words.

The ray of light spreads out, the process of creation goes on. The next line, what was above, what below may suggest a separation between the source and creation. Some translators interpret this line as ‘a horizontal line cut across, what was above, what below?

Then the sage speaks of the powers that emerge, he calls them seed bearers and mighty forces. These are the conscious powers of creation, nameless, formless as yet, the energies from which the whole universe will form.

In this stanza creation has spread out, gone outward from the pin point of the source and exploded outwards.

In a great firework of heat, the universe has been born, and exploded outwards into galaxies and stars.

Verse 6 : Who truly knows?
The last two verses make this hymn sound amazingly modern. They are full of questions, who knows, who really knows, where did it come from, how?

Every age thinks it has the answers, but no matter how certain they seem, every generation will ask the same questions all over again, and again.

Perhaps there are no answers. The poet does not force a view upon us, he simply wonders, where did it come from?

Then he says, the gods came later. Whatever we call god or gods today, they came later. First the heat and the passion of creation, then the seed bearers and powerful light spreading out, and then, after creation has already spread, then come what people know as gods. Names, forms, all this comes much later.

Verse 7 : That from which creation came
This last stanza is the one which has attracted the most attention, the breadth of its vision is so mind blowing.

Today astronomers have looked deep into the night sky, ventured far into space. They tell us that the stars we see may no longer exist, we are seeing into the past. The great spectacle of the milky way and its brilliant suns may not even be there any more. It has taken the light of the stars millions of years to reach us. By the time the light reaches us and we see their image they may have gone supernova, blown apart, dissolved, who knows? We are looking at millions, billions of years into the past when we look at the stars and we can only wonder, are they still there?

Perhaps the poet is asking the same thing, but his vision goes further, he is asking that question of the Source of all things. Is it still there, he asks, did it hold firm, or did it not? Is it gone or is it does it still exist? Religions might find it sacrilegious to even ask if the source still exists, but the poets vision is unhampered by any doctrinal constraints. He has no hesitation in asking the questions astronomers are still asking today. Is anything there, does anything exist?

And then he goes even further.
He says only the One who created this, who presides over the highest realms, only he knows.
Yes, he surely knows.
Well, maybe he knows.
Does he know? Or does he not know?
Maybe he doesn’t know?

The last line can be translated in a couple of different ways. ‘veda yadi vaa na veda’ can be ‘does he know or does he not?’ Some translators put it this way, ‘if he doesn’t know, who knows, if anyone?’

Vedic metre is usually very strict. This hymn is in Tristubh which is a metre consisting of 44 syllables. In the last verse there are two less syllables. The poet is leaving the extra space, the openness for his wondering, ending on a question, does he know or does he not know?

His vision is timeless and no matter how often you read the hymn, you will always see it fresh, the wonder and the awe of the universe at the moment of its creation.

Long after we are gone, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will still be looking up at the night sky in breathless wonder and asking the very same questions.

Where does it come from, this spectacular universe?
Does anyone know?

Comment

  1. Brilliant Rohini. Love it.

    — Mark Traill · Jun 2, 17:51 · #

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