... and Mahasaraswati ]. Page 458 I indicate the psychological powers which they [ six Vedic Gods ] bring with them: Mitra—Harmony. Varuna—Wideness. Aryaman—Power, Tapasya. Brihaspati—Wisdom (Word and Knowledge). Vishnu—Cosmic Consciousness. Vayu—Life. Post-Vedic Gods of the Indian Tradition Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva are only three Powers and Personalities of the One... were, and relation with you for a certain purpose. The Formateurs of the Overmind have shaped nothing evil—it is the lower forces that receive from the Overmind and distort its forces. Vedic Gods of the Indian Tradition There are many forms of Agni,—the solar fire, the vaidyuta fire and the nether fire are one Trinity—the fivefold fire is part of the Vedic symbolism of sacrifice. ...
... solemn and sacred language. “And with regard to this there are spoken these Riks.” In what light did these ancient thinkers understand the Vedic gods? As material Nature Powers called only to give worldly wealth to their worshippers? Certainly, the Vedic gods are in the Vedanta also accredited with material functions. In the Kena Upanishad Agni’s power & glory is to burn, Vayu’s to seize & bear away... aspect of moral Nature-powers. The indications, therefore,—for they are not proofs,—even of Comparative Mythology would justify us in inquiring whether a similar double character did not attach to the Vedic gods in the Vedic hymns. The real basis of both the Aryan theory of Vedic civilisation and the astronomical theory of Aryan myth is the new interpretation given to a host of Vedic vocables by the ...
... rediscovered by the Upanishads, and although they undertook and accomplished another synthesis of Yoga that of different disciplines of knowledge, — it retained close connection and knowledge of the Vedic gods and goddesses. Agni, Vayu, Indra, Surya and others were understood by the Upanishads as intimately as did the Vedic Rishis, and although they did not use profusion of symbolism, they did continue... sprouted from the seed of the original thinking. In the Puranas we find a farther widening and fathoming of psychic and spiritual experience although ,it was less lofty than the Vedic experience. The Vedic gods rapidly lost their deep original significance; they even came to be overshadowed by the great Trinity, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva; ultimately they faded altogether. A new pantheon appeared, which, in... extent, but only in broken and lessening fragments. The house of Fire was replaced by the temple; the karmic ritual of sacrifice was transformed into the devotional temple ritual. In the Veda, Vedic gods figured in the mantras conveying the mental shifting images; in the Puranas they yielded to more precise conceptual forms of the two great deities, Vishnu and Shiva, and all their Shaktis and ...
... a development of novel idea-forms Page 208 from the seed of the original thinking. And especially there was a farther widening and fathoming of psychic and spiritual experience. The Vedic gods rapidly lost their deep original significance. At first they kept their hold by their outer cosmic sense but were overshadowed by the great Trinity, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, and afterwards faded altogether... and lessening fragments. The house of Fire was replaced by the temple; the karmic ritual of sacrifice was transformed into the devotional temple ritual; the vague and shifting mental images of the Vedic gods figured in the mantras yielded to more precise conceptual forms of the two great deities, Vishnu and Shiva, and of their Shaktis and their offshoots. These new concepts stabilised in physical images ...
... the upholding of him in his great struggle and labour, this is the common preoccupation of the Vedic gods. Then, they are apturaḥ , they who cross the waters, or as Sayana takes it, they who give the waters. This he understands in the sense of "rain-givers" and it is perfectly true that all the Vedic gods are givers of the rain, the abundance (for vṛṣṭi , rain, has both senses) of heaven, sometimes ...
... have been able to study & to penetrate the meaning of the Rigvedic hymns, it seems to me that the Europeans are demonstrably wrong in laying so predominant a stress on the material aspects of the Vedic gods. I find Varuna and Mitra to be mainly moral and not material powers; Surya, Agni, Indra have great psychical functions; even Sarasvati, in whom the scholars insist on seeing, wherever they can, an... by old tradition seems to me often more correct than the conjectural scholarship of the Europeans. But there is an even more important truth than the high moral and spiritual significance of the Vedic gods and the Vedic religion which results to my mind from a more careful & unbiassed study of the Rigveda. We shall find that the moral functions assigned to these gods are Page 327 arranged ...
... shades, e. g. Dhi, Mali, Chetana etc., shows the advanced state of the Vedic seers. VEDIC GODS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS, PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SYMBOLIC 6 The first Sukta of the third Mandala (iii. 1 ) of Vishwamitra ______________________ 6 A monogram in the Vedic gods has been written by Sri Aurobindo. It is now the foreword to the Hymns to the Mystic Fire. ...
... Sri Aurobindo : I was not thinking of any names when I spoke about them and they have nothing to do with the Puranic Devatas. Disciple : Can we take the Vedic gods ? Aurobindo : I was not even thinking of the Vedic gods. These smaller gods and Asuras are not the powers of the Supreme, the Divine; they are powers of the soul and formations on Nature-plane of universal vital. Disciple ...
... which were the food and drink of the gods and sustained their immortality; but outwardly there is some resemblance. No Incarnation of the Vedic Gods In the Veda there is no idea or experience of a personal emanation or incarnation of any of the Vedic gods. When the Rishis speak of Indra or Agni or Soma in men, they are speaking of the god in his cosmic presence, power or function. This is evident ...
... an eager hunt for clues to the primitive history, manners and institutions of those barbarous races. The naturalistic element played a still more important role. The obvious identification of the Vedic gods in their external aspects with certain Nature-Powers was used as the starting-point for a comparative study of Aryan mythologies; the hesitating identification of certain of the less prominent deities... Dayananda's interpretation of the hymns is governed by the idea that the Vedas are a plenary revelation of religious, ethical and scientific truth. Its religious teaching is monotheistic and the Vedic gods are different descriptive names of the one Deity; they are at the same time indications of His powers as we see them working in Nature and by a true understanding of the sense of the Vedas we could ...
... all-creative Truth and an all-illumining Light. Truth and Light are synonymous or equivalent words in the thought of the Vedic seers even as are their opposites, Darkness and Ignorance. The battle of the Vedic Gods and Titans is a perpetual conflict between Day and Night for the possession of the triple world of heaven, mid-air and earth and for the liberation or bondage of the mind, life and body of the human... forgive him whatever sin he may have committed against their vast oneness, purity, harmony so that he can hope to enjoy the wide and fearless Light and the long nights shall not come upon him. That the Vedic gods are no mere physical Nature-powers, but the psychic conscious forces behind and within all cosmic things, is made clear enough by the connection between their cosmic character and this deliverance ...
... the earlier significance of the Vedanta. The perfect outcome of this evolution is to be found in the philosophy and religion of divine love promulgated by Sri Chaitanya. It is true that the Vedic Gods rapidly lost in the Puranas their deep original significance. The great Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva came to dominate and gave rise to a new pantheon. It must, however, be remarked that the ... all-pervading Godhead and Vishnu has a close connection with Rudra or Shiva. It is true that in the Veda larger number of hymns were devoted to Agni and Indra, but the importance of the Vedic Gods should not be measured by the number of hymns devoted to them. In fact, Agni and Indra are not greater than Vishnu and Rudra. In the Veda, Vishnu, Rudra and Brahmanaspati provide the ...
... the worship of Apollo, and in his great festivals at Delphi and Delos, the dominant note was the rejoicing of a brilliant people in a god of health and wisdom, reason and song. In India the Vedic gods developed their psychological functions but retained also more fixedly their external characters, and for higher purpose, gave place to a new pantheon who assumed larger cosmic functions. Nowadays... movement except as the expression of a life and a soul behind. They perceived or conceived of a series of worlds, particularly of the mind and the overmind, and even of a supramaterial world. The Vedic gods had their permanent dwelling in the supramental world. As Sri Aurobindo would say, "The gods of the Rig Veda are not material Nature powers but great world deities with complex functions material ...
... Who is this man? SRI AUROBINDO: He is Anilbaran's pet controversialist. (Laughter) SATYENDRA: He hasn't read your Hymns of the Atris probably. There you have distinctly spoken about the Vedic gods. PURANI: In The Life Divine's chapter on the Overmind, too. SATYENDRA: He can be referred to that chapter. PURANI: Better not refer him to it. He will say, "Now what is this Overmind?"... Upanishad while I was in Bengal. The manuscript is still with me. EVENING SRI AUROBINDO (before Purani and Satyendra came in) : I have read the Hymns . There I have distinctly said that the Vedic gods are no mere imageries but realities. I don't understand where this Basanta Chatterji found me denying them. NIRODBARAN: Satyendra has also shown me what you have written. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't ...
... apihitam", and then "it is That one" that is the source. It is clear that it refers to the Vedantic truth of the One. Similarly, the Upanishads speak of the Vedic symbols. The Ishopanishad speaks of the Vedic gods Sun – Surya and Agni, but you can see that the significance there is symbolic. Veda, Upanishad, Gita all are equally great. Disciple : The Europeans thought that it was not possible to... Sri Aurobindo : Yes, they are so satisfied when they found the historical interpretation that they did not care for many obvious indications. But you must admit that the interpretation turning Vedic Gods to gases is magnificently ingenious. Disciple : Was it not Paramashiva Aiyar, a Mysorian who showed that remarkable ingenuity? Sri Aurobindo : I think that is the man. Disciple ...
... Dawn into the solar plenitudes. With this hymn I close this series of selected hymns from the Rig Veda. My object has been to show in as brief a compass as possible the real functions of the Vedic gods, the sense of the symbols in which their cult is expressed, the nature of the sacrifice and its goal, explaining by actual examples the secret of the Veda. I have purposely selected a few brief and ...
... responsible and to which European scholarship by the exaggeration of a minor and external element in the Vedic mythology has only given a new and yet more misleading form. The importance of the Vedic gods has not to be measured by the number of hymns devoted to them or by the extent to which they are invoked in the thoughts of the Rishis, but by the functions which they perform. Agni and Indra to ...
... to be rendered. If the images preferred by the ancient sages had been such as the modern mind could easily grasp, if the symbols of the sacrifice were still familiar to us and the names of the Vedic gods still carried their old psychological significance,—as the Greek or Latin names of classical deities, Aphrodite or Ares, Venus or Minerva, still bear their sense for a cultured European,—the device ...
... more visibly large in aim, cosmic, comprehensive, not starting with conceptions drawn from the physical universe, but supplied Page 372 entirely from the psychic universe within us. The Vedic gods and goddesses conceal from the profane by their physical aspect their psychic and spiritual significance. The Puranic trinity and the forms of its female energies have on the contrary no meaning ...
... openly called foes of Indra, they would not have necessarily turned non-Aryan. Some of the epithets applied to the Dāsas and Dasyus - ayajvan, "non-sacrificing", adevayu, "not worshipping the Vedic gods", anyavrata, "follower of strange ordinances" - find their analogues in designations flung at unquestionably Aryan leaders such as the ten kings who fought against Sudas. Mookerji, listing the ...
... Commentary Gotama Rahugana is the seer of this Hymn, which is a stoma in praise of Agni, the divine Will at work in the universe. Agni is the most important, the most universal of the Vedic gods. In the physical world he is the general devourer and enjoyer. He is also the purifier; when he devours and enjoys, then also he purifies. He is the fire that prepares and perfects; he is also the ...
... as names of the Sun. We need not attach much importance to these particular identifications, but it is certain that a solar character attaches to all the four. In them that peculiar feature of the Vedic gods, their essential oneness even in the play of their different personalities and functions, comes prominently to light. Not only are the four closely associated among themselves, but they seem to partake ...
... occasional verses (Poetry); the Idylls of the Occult, The Return of Moro Giafferi and The Siege of Mathura (Prose fiction); your study of the Vedas (first mandala) along with an explanation of the Vedic Gods (the Secret of the Veda). Page 1290 Script - II There is no Script in this actually, it is only the record of thought vyakta or avyakta. Meanwhile the direct government has to begin; ...
... others; Prithivi revealing herself as Aditi, Rudra manifest in the chanda form of all the gods etc. But these manifestations are not so close or so dominant as those of Indra, Agni & Vayu. It is the Vedic gods who so manifest. The others were known before. The gods of other systems also reveal themselves in a grand general unity & diversity with the Vedic & Puranic deities. All are manifestations of the ...
... prose works on various aspects of the Veda and produced many translations of Vedic hymns. A large number of these were hymns to Agni, whom he considered "the most important, the most universal of the Vedic gods". Between 1914 and 1920 he published essays on the Veda and translations of Vedic hymns in the Arya , a monthly journal of which he was the editor. He continued to work on Vedic translations and ...
... spoken of Agni as representing Tapa Shakti, it doesn't mean that he is not a god. If Saraswati is represented as a symbol of learning, does it mean she is not a goddess? Where have I said that the Vedic gods are unreal? PURANI: Sri Aurobindo has nowhere said that; on the contrary, he has spoken of them as personalities. Chatterji hasn't read anything. In The Life Divine itself there is a passage ...
... ritual came to replace, to a great extent, the karmic ritual of sacrifice. More precise conceptual forms of the two great deities, Vishnu and -Shiva, came to replace the shifting mental images of the Vedic gods. The shaktis of Vishnu and Shiva also came to dominate the religious scene. These new concepts became stabilised in physical images, and these images were made the basis for both internal adoration ...
... a radical spirit, both philosophical and spiritual, and it does not hesitate to question Vedavada that was being advocated in that age as a Vedic path of sacrifice and ritualistic worship of the Vedic gods for fulfillment of human desires; it questions even Brahmavada, which was being advocated in that age as the Vedanta, in order to reestablish the authentic truths of the yoga of the Veda and the ...
... one can do the work of any other or of all together. They function severally and collectively, and they intermingle and reciprocate in their functioning even like and following the example of the Vedic gods. Fire can ignite the brain or the vitals or the cardiac and the throat region or even the crown. The water as well can flush likewise the brain, the vitals, the thorax and the throat. The radiant ...
... to replace to a great extent the karmic ritual of sacrifice. More precise conceptual forms of the two great deities, Vishnu and Shiva, came to replace the vague and shifting mental images of the Vedic gods. The shaktis of Vishnu and Shiva also came to dominate the religious scene. These new concepts became stabilised in physical images, and these images were made the basis both for internal adoration ...
... was spasa in the old Vedic language. The Vedic Rishi describes Indra as sending out these spasa to trace the movements of his enemies, the forces of evil that clustered round the god. So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a certain difference. These government spies tried to collect information as to who came ...
... also. Indeed, we know that the Four primal personalities of the Divine are not separate and distinct as they may appear to the human mind which cannot understand distinction without disparity. The Vedic gods themselves are so linked together, so interpenetrate one another that finally it is asserted that there is only one existence, only it is given many names. All the divine personalities are aspects ...
... reason to infer that Agni is really a seminal as well as an enveloping and omnicompetent Deity, a synonym almost for the One Existent in its drama of cosmic manifestation. Numberless, indeed, are the Vedic gods and goddesses, and they are more than mere names and symbols and attributes of the Supreme; rather are they substantial realities with their own powers and personalities that are so many divers ...
... these divine, luminous sages. The Angiras Rishis are at once divine and human seers. This double character is not in itself an extraordinary feature or peculiar in the Veda to these sages. The Vedic gods also have a double action; divine and pre-existent in themselves, they are human in their working upon the mortal plane when they grow in man to the great ascension. This has been strikingly expressed ...
... belief of a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil for the possession of the world and the government of the life of man;—this was the significance of the contest between the Vedic Gods and their opponents, sons of Darkness and Division, figured in a later tradition as Titan and Giant and Demon, Asura, Rakshasa, Pisacha; the same tradition is found in the Zoroastrian Double Principle ...
... there are the gods of the Supermind, those who are going to manifest on earth, although of course they exist from all eternity on their own plane. Here Sri Aurobindo is speaking mostly about the Vedic gods, but not exclusively nor in a very definite way. At any rate these gods are higher than the gods of the Puranas. Here is what Sri Aurobindo tells us. In fact, it is a prayer: Be wide in ...
... vahni etc,—an almost endless list,—are used so persistently because they expressed shades of meaning & fine psychological distinctions of great practical importance to the Vedic religion, that the Vedic gods were intelligently worshipped Page 31 & the hymns intelligently constructed to express not incoherent poetical ideas but well-connected spiritual experiences,—then the interpreter of ...
... Savitri, who manifests in this mortal world the world or state of immortality, dispels the evil dream of egoism, sin and suffering and transforms Life into the Immortality, the good, the beatitude. The Vedic gods are a parable of human life emerging, mounting, lifting itself towards the Godhead. Life, body, action, will, these are our first materials. Matter supplies us with the body; but it is only a ...
... bright flaming coursers to their chariots of bliss and hasten down so swiftly to rejoice in the fires of the Aryan altar and drain the outpourings of the Soma-wine? The Europeans believe that these Vedic gods were personifications of the material powers of Nature; Sky, Rain, Sun, Moon, Wind, Fire, Dawn and the Ocean are the gods of the Aryans. The names, they think, carry with them their own interpretation ...
... a change in this direction—Apollo, the Sun-God, has become a god of poetry and prophecy, Hephaestus the Fire-God a divine smith, god of labour. In India the process was arrested half-way, and the Vedic Gods developed their psychological functions but retained more fixedly their external character and for higher purposes gave place to a new pantheon. They had to give precedence to Puranic deities who ...
... out of all proportion to his importance." Here a word of caution may be drawn from Sri Aurobindo's commentary 489 on a hymn (1,154) to Vishnu. The theme there is really that "the importance of the Vedic gods has not to be measured by the number of hymns devoted to them or to the extent to which they are invoked 486.Griffith, op. cit., p. 374, col. 1. 487. Ibid., p. 471, col. 1 488.P ...
... Life, be full, ready and buoyant; O Death, lead my steps from mansion to mansion. Harmonise all these, O Brahmanaspati. Let me not be subject to these gods, O Kali. 1 He invokes all these Vedic gods and tells each one to take possession of him; and THEN he tells Kali to free him from their influence! It is very amusing! It's written in black and white, but the people here read and don't ...
... Shiva is the One who is seated above, but it is the Rudra aspect that first appears. Although he is a child of the Dawn, Rudra is described by Sri Aurobindo as the most terrible of all the Vedic Gods - the Violent One who breaks down all defective formations. Page 408 His powers of light and sound, precursors of creation, appear symbolically in the thunder ...
... Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman and Bhaga, and it is only by an integral mastery of these powers and by their combined help that one can gain entrance into the all-comprehending truth- consciousness. The Vedic gods are not mere physical Nature-powers, but the psychological conscious forces behind and within all cosmic things, is made clear enough in various Vedic texts. This clarity is also seen by the connection ...
... Nighantu provides a collection of those words which have one meaning, and in the fourth chapter, it gives a collection of those words which have several meanings. In the fifth chapter, the names of Vedic gods have been collected. There have been many commentaries on Nighantu, but it is the commentaries on Nighantu, but it is the commentary of Yāska, which has found its place as one of the Vedāngas, and ...
... was spaśa in the old Vedic language. The Vedic Rishi describes Indra as sending out these spaśa to trace the movements of his enemies, the forces of evil that clustered round the god. So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a certain difference. These government spies tried to collect information as to who came ...
... was not aware of any of those things. I was not really concerned with my comfort. What I required were solitude and secrecy, and I got both. I used to have wonderful visions then, see figures of Vedic gods who visited me in my hours of meditation. They brought with them strange messages, writings of which I tried to understand the meaning. I was in a state where my own separate existence or my own ...
... considers it the true significance of pranam. Sees a vision 'in which four beings appeared at the four comers of an immense plateau' and spoke to her. Sri Aurobindo identifies them as the Vedic Gods Mitra, Varuna, Bhaga and Aryaman. Visited by an artist friend, Johannes Hohlenberg, who takes a photograph of Sri Aurobindo in standing profile and also paints his portrait in oil. 1914 ...
... revealed the esoteric meaning of the Vedic Riks which conceal. behind their symbols deeper truths of the supramental world. Sri Aurobindo self says that while doing Yoga, he had knowledge of the Vedic gods before he actually read the Rigveda. This knowledge and his vision of the supramental world helped him into the truths of the Veda. Their revelation at this great hour when these truths are going ...
... all-creative Truth and an all-illumining Light. Truth and Light are synonymous or equivalent words in the thought of the Vedic seers even as are their opposites. Darkness and Ignorance. The battle of the Vedic Gods and Titans is a perpetual conflict between Day and Night for the possession of the triple world of heaven, mid-air and earth and for the liberation or bondage of the mind, life and body of the human ...
... every quirk of sensibility, every leap of intelligence had its turn. Vaishnavism, Theosophy, Bahaism, Coueism, Gandhism, Nirvikalpa Samadhi, samatā. Grace and the Guru, Cosmic Consciousness, the Vedic Gods, Yogic miracles, Ouspensky, Jacob Boehme, M. Théon, astrology, the interpretation of dreams, Kaya Kalpa, Space and Time, Russian Communism, Tagore, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya's poetry, current ...
... Sanskritist, "that the word is pure Sanskrit? It was spasa in the old Vedic language. The Vedic Rishi describes Indra as sending out these spasa to trace the movements of his enemies.... So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a certain difference. These government spies tried to collect information as to who came ...
... differentiation between them, we have to look to the source from where they originate; otherwise by itself neither can claim superiority. Besides, we must not forget that after all – even as the Vedic ‘all-gods’ – intuition and inspiration exist together and overlap each other. At places one takes the lead and comes to the fore and the other is subordinate and remains in the background. To be sure... in this saying. The Buddhists were also to some extent responsible for the Page 78 change in the even and tranquil tenor of Aryan culture. In the beginning the Buddhists, like the Vedic Aryans, laid the greatest stress on knowledge. Later on, when Mahayana, the Great Path, came into vogue, there commenced the worship of the Buddha. When the compassion of the Buddha was recognised as ...
... All created beings beheld that large-eyed Sīta, who shone like a golden altar, descending into the fire (lit., the bearer of sacrificial offerings) on that occasion. (32) Rsis (the seers of Vedic Mantras), gods and the Gandharvas saw that highly auspicious one penetrating deep into the fire (lit., the consumer of oblations) like the consummating offering of ghee. (33) All the women (present on the... of Lanka in their aerial cars, which shone brightly like the sun, approached Śrī Rāma (a scion of Raghu). (24) Lifting up their long arms, their hands adorned with jewels, the foremost of gods — these thirty gods — thereupon Page 240 spoke (as follows) to Śrī Rāma (a scion of Raghu), who stood with joined palms (by way of salutation): — (5) "You are the Originator of the entire... upon Sīta, looking on as you are at her falling into the fire (the bearer of sacrificial of ferings)? How do you not recognize yourself to be the Supreme Soul of all gods? (6) You are the very first of all the Vasus (a class of gods) Rtadhama (the seat of Truth). You are the self existent Creator of all the three worlds and the Lord and Master of all the people. (7) You are the eighth Rudra (Mahadeva) ...
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