The Problem Of Aryan Origins

Appendix II

THE TERM ARMAKA IN THE RIGVEDA

T. Burrow made quite an impression by publishing his paper, "On the Significance of the Terms arma- armaka- in Early Sanskrit Literature".¹⁶ Passing beyond the common dictionary-definitions he fixes the original sense: "the element arma at the end means a ruined site or settlement."¹⁷ He finds several instances in Pānini and several in the old Vedic writings. The very first instance he locates in the Rigveda itself, and from it he deduces that most of the ruined sites or settlements were the cities of the Harappā Culture. His deduction is based on the theory that the Rigveda recounts the story of the Aryans invading India in c. 1500 and being liable to destroy the Harappān cities. We have made a fairly comprehensive attempt to reduce this theory to ruins. So, however right Burrow's linguistics may be, those cities need not be involved. But, even assuming that we have not succeeded in destroying this theory, could we accept Burrow's general contention that from the Rigveda onwards arma and armaka denote material ruins?

Whatever may be the case with post-Rigvedic literature, we may submit that the Rigveda hardly supports Burrow. Actually, it has just a single reference. "In the Rigveda," says Burrow, "the word armaka- occurs once, in 1,133, 3."¹⁸ And even this solitary instance comes wrapped in most enigmatic language.

The verse concerned reads in Burrow's translation: "Strike

16.Journal of Indian History, Vol. XLI, Part I, April 1963, No. 121, pp. 159-68. How impressive Burrow has been may be gauged from the value attached to his paper in a discussion of the "Aryan invasions" by Bridget and Raymond Allchin in The Birth of Indian Civilization (1968), p. 155.

17.Ibid., p. 159. Burrow gives as his authority V.S. Agrawala, India as Known to Pānini (Lucknow, 1953), pp. 66-7.

18.Ibid., p. 164.

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down, O Maghavan, the host of sorceresses in the ruined city of Vailasthānaka, in the ruined city of Mahāvailastha."¹⁹ Burrow adds: "The name Vailasthāna occurs also in the first verse of the same hymn."²⁰ And this verse he renders: "I purify both heaven and earth with truth, I burn up the mighty evil spirits that are opposed to Indra, in the place where the enemies, having been overpowered and slain, lay shattered around Vailasthāna."²¹

First of all, it is improper to talk of a "city", strictly speaking, in the Rigvedic age. Burrow's plea is that nothing short of a city like Harappā or Mohenjo-dāro would merit the extensive references in later Vedic writings to ruined sites or settlements and that a small unimportant item like a village (grama) will not do.²² This plea cannot hold for the Rigveda which lacks the precise word nagara (city)- and whose pur is so described as to fit no definable historic city. Along Burrow's line of thought, the appropriate thing to say would be that a Rigvedic ruin, though not a city, must yet be a large important area. And then what exactly it would be we have to surmise from the name "Mahāvailastha" which connotes: "Great Vailastha". All hangs upon the sense of "vaila".

Burrow tells us that it "appears to be a non-Aryan element" which "may be derived from the language of the original inhabitants, though there is no means of guessing at its meaning".²³ Surely he is here rather off the mark. "Vila" or "bila" is a Sanskrit noun and the adjective from it is "vaila" or "baila". The sense relates to a "hole, cave, tunnel". So "Mahāvailastha" should stand for "Great-holed-place". And it is the ruined site of such a locality that the hymn mentions. Unquestionably, there seems to be some mystery about it.

19.Ibid.

20.Ibid., p. 165.

21.Ibid.

22.Ibid., pp. 159-60.

23.Ibid., p. 165.

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The only way to bring illumination is to remember a Rigvedic passage we have already quoted in our eleventh chapter. It is all the more relevant because it addresses the same god who is addressed in Burrow's quotation as "Ma-ghavan" - namely, Indra. We read: "O Lord of the thunderbolt, thou didst uncover the hole of Vala of the cows" (I. 11, 5). The "Great-holed-place" belonged to Vala, and obviously he hid cows in it. Such an inference is confirmed by another verse from the Rigveda which also we have cited before: "So in the ecstasy of the Soma thou didst break open, O hero, the pen of the Cow and the Horse, like a city" (VIII. 32, 5). Here again Indra is apostrophised. And here we have not only a clear index to the Rigvedic content of an expression like pur which is commonly translated "city": we have in addition a clear index to the nature of the Rigvedic "hole". Mahāvailastha is the large pen within which Vala enclosed the cows which the Rigvedics were seeking to set free.

Who was Vala and what were these cows? We need not enter into the details of the Aurobindonian symbolic interpretation. Suffice it to say that the very materials presented by Burrow carry an aura of eerie strangeness which removes the ruined site from any earthly habitation whether Harappān or another. Apropos of the two verses quoted, Burrow writes:

"The Rigvedic poem... shows that after their destruction these abandoned sites were looked upon with a high degree of superstitious awe, and that in particular they were considered the haunt of evil spirits and demons hostile to the Aryans and to the Aryan gods. Evidently it was considered necessary, from time to time, to exorcise these evil spirits by rites performed within or beside the ruined sites themselves, and such a ceremony is the occasion of this hymn."²⁴

With the "host of sorceresses" and the "mighty evil spirits" we are undoubtedly, as Burrow admits, in the realm

24. Ibid.

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of the occult, the supernatural. The sole ambiguous point is: Who were the overpowered and slain enemies lying shattered around the ruined site? Burrow regards them as human beings. But as soon as we ask who the followers of Vala, the hider of cows in the Great-holed-place, are, the idea of human beings starts fading. "The Dasyus who withhold or steal the cows," says Sri Aurobindo, "are called the Panis, a word which seems originally to have meant doers, dealers or traffickers; but this significance is sometimes coloured by its further sense of 'misers'. Their chief is Vala..."²⁵ We may recall what Macdonell and Keith observes "In some passages the Panis definitely appear as mythological figures, demons who withhold the cows or waters of heaven..."²⁶ As withholders of heavenly waters they have Vritra for chief. Indra is named both Vritrahan, "Vritra-slayer", and Valahan, "Vala-slayer". Nor is Indra the only slayer of Vala and Vritra: the other gods have the same role, particularly Brihaspati. And in hymn VI. 73 we have a passage which is strongly reminiscent of Burrow's first verse. In Sri Aurobindo's version it reads: "Brihaspati who for man the voyager has fashioned that other world in the calling of the gods, slaying the Vritra-forces breaks open the cities, conquering foes and overpowering unfriends in his battles. Brihaspati conquers for him the treasures, great pens this god wins full of the kine, seeking the conquest of the world of Swar, unassailable; Brihaspati slays the Foe by the hymns of illumination (arkaih)."²⁷ Side by side with Burrow's "enemies... overpowered and slain", we may note Brihaspati who, "overpowering unfriends", "slays the foes". Again we may put "Mahāvailastha" along with "great pens... full of the kine".

The inimical Panis who lie shattered around Vailasthāna seem to be of the same company as the evil spirits and demons: both are non-human. And the kine appear to be

25.The Secret of the Veda, p. 134.

26.The Vedic Index, I, p. 471.

27.Op. cit., p. 139.

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symbolic, as it is difficult to think of them in any other way when they are associated with "the conquest of the world of Swar", which is the Sun-world, and with "the hymn of illumination", the Mantra which is the Word of spiritual knowledge.

Sri Aurobindo has pointed out several passages where the cow-symbolism is undeniable. Quoting from a hymn to Usha, the Dawn-Goddess, he writes: "She creates light for all the world and opens out the darkness as the pen of the Cow, where we have without any possibility of mistake the cow as the symbol of light (I. 92. 4)."²⁸ After giving some other instances he winds up: "Finally, as if to remove the veil of the image entirely, the Veda itself tells us that the herds are a figure for the rays of the Light, 'her happy rays come into sight like the cows released into movement' -prati bhadrā adrksata gavāṁ sargā na rasmayah (IV. 52. 5). And we have the still more conclusive verse (VII. 79. 2), 'Thy cows (rays) remove the darkness and extend the Light', sam te gāvas tama ā vartayanti, jyotir yacchanti."²⁹ Here Sri Aurobindo follows up with the footnote: "It cannot of course be disputed that gauh means light in the Veda e.g. when it is said that Vritra is slain gavā, by light, there is no question of the cow; the question is of the use of the double sense and of the cow as a symbol."

Burrow's citations, probed below the surface, lose the "slant" he invests them with. The odds certainly are that the Rigveda's armaka is not only non-Harappān but also non-material and therefore unconnected with any physical invasion or battle.

Nor need we rest with heavy odds in our favour. To make our contention dead-sure we have merely to look at what Burrow has not cited from the hymn. Take verses 5 and 6, in Ralph T.H. Griffith's well-known translation:

"O Indra, crush and bray to bits the fearful fiery-weaponed fiend:

28.Ibid., p. 120.

29.Ibid., p. 121.

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"Strike every demon to the ground...

"Most Mighty mid the Mighty Ones thou speedest with strong bolts of death.

"Not slaying men, unconquered Hero! with the brave, O Hero, with the thrice-seven brave."³⁰

Griffith's general footnote reads: "This hymn is a prayer for the destruction of witches, goblins, and evil spirits of various sorts." And on the phrase, "Not slaying men", he comments: "that is destroying evil spirits only."

To peruse the hymn as a whole is to realize that human beings do not at all figure in it and that Burrow's interpretation is utterly gratuitous.³¹

30.The Hymns of the Rgveda, Vol. I, p. 185.

31.For interest's sake we may give Griffith's rendering of the two verses cited by Burrow:

"With sacrifice I purge both earth and heaven: I burn up the great she-fiends who serve not Indra.

"Where throttled by thy hand the foes were slaughtered, and in the pit of death lay pierced and mangled.

"Do thou, O Maghavan, beat off these sorceresses' daring strength.

"Cast them within the narrow pit, within the deep and narrow pit."

Griffith has not tried to probe the precise sense of the word "vaila", but he has rightly caught the suggestion of a "hole" with the word "pit" and he has brought out both its constriction and its extensive character. He has not attended to any implication of "ruins", but even if he had he would not have thought in terms of a "ruined city" which has no relevance in the context. In case there had been some such expression he would still have never taken it as a reference to a past human habitation. "Evil spirits only" were clearly the subject of the hymn to his mind.

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