English
96. xviii. || #gveda, I. 60. x. 8 58 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA thought and culture'. With regard to the meaning of a term of such mighty importance, doctors must needs differ. In the very first sukta of the 1st Mandala, there occurs the term ‘ rta ’ (wherein Agrti is being extolled as the sustainer and glorifier of the rta),* and Sayana interprets it thus : rawreronfay . qRWWTO, Yaska favours the inter¬ pretation of it as satyam (Hsnj). tracing the origin and growth of the meaning of the term, Max Mullerf has recorded the opinion that the term ‘ rta ’ originally stood for the appointed course of the sun, the moon and the stars; subsequently, it came to mean the ‘ sacrifice ’ regulated by their periodical movements and finally, law or dhanna in its ordinary usage. Professor Keith’s construction of the term, with variations in emphasis provides an interesting study. “ In the physical world,” says he,| “ there rules a regular order, Rta, which is observed repeatedly, and which is clearly an inherit¬ ance from the Indo-Iranian period; ” and ” from the physical it is an easy step to the conception of the Rta.in the moral world.” Later by way of developing the point of ethical interest in Rta, he proceeds to observe that ‘ ‘ the term for cosmic order, Rta, and its opposite, Anrta, express also moral order as in the dialogue of Yama and Yam!; Rta forbids and doubtless also commands positive action. *Rk 8. t Vide his Origin and Growth of Religion , pp. 246-60. t The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedas and Vpanishads, Yol. I, p, 88. THE VEDANTA IN THE MAKING 59 Rta is more than truth, Satya, nor can we say with Wundt that Vedic India makes the good and the true identical, though truth is given an extraordi¬ nary high place, in its various senses of accuracy of statement, faithful performance of promises, and the assurance that what shoujd happen will happen, and that the order of things is as it ought to be. Law is denoted by Dharman, which denotes that which supports and that which is supported ; it applies like Rta to all aspects of the world, to the sequence of events in nature, to the sacrifice and to man’s life.”* But the cumulative effect of all textual criticisms and inferences seems to be nullified by the somewhat damaging statement that ‘ the moral element in the Rgveda and the subsequent literature is of compara¬ tively small extent, and the vast majority of the Vedic hymns are not concerned in the remotest degree with questions of morals, ’t In meeting the point of this criticism, well-informed as it is, one should not take one’s stand upon the quantitative aspect of the question; non multa, sed multum should rather be the guiding principle here. For, truly a grain of philosophic insight can remove mountains of textual or philosophical interpreta¬ tions. There is hardly any room for doubt that those hymns of the Rgveda which are indisputably enunciative of a moral tone cannot be counter¬ balanced, far less overruled, even by a ‘ vast majority ’ of hymns that are morally neutral. If it * Ibid., pp. 248-9. t Ibid., p. 249. 30 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF TfiE VEDANTA can be proved that the Rgvedic gods, as the prius or precondition, both logically and causally, of the physical or natural order of things, are the sustainers of, and sustained by, the Rta, the moot-question of the ethics of the Rgveda will no longer remain a dubious issue. That all the gods both collectively and distri¬ butive^, are presiding over, and permeated by, the Rta is almost a perpetual refrain in the Rgveda. Instead of hunting after isolated statements, the more judicious course would be to appeal to the famous Harpsavati Rk* (IV, 40. 5), where its recog¬ nition has been urged as a matter of principle. It is held therein that everything in this universe has its respective sphere or locus—the sun in the sky, the priest at the altar, the guest in a house. But the Rta is here, there and everywhere dwelling among men, in places glorified and of sacrifice, in the water, in the sky, in sun-light, in the mountains and in truth. Sayana thinks that this rk only purports to establish a tri-une Essence or a perfect oneness of the following three of the trinity—the golden-headed Deity that .presides over the sun, the universal physical principle or soul-substance im¬ manent in all living beings, and the Supreme Being or Brahman devoid of all determinations. One may reasonably refuse to follow Sayana’s lead here; but, then the Rk, taken by itself, is a standing testi¬ mony alike to the moral grandeur of the theme, and the pre-eminently ethical character of the ?ta. * Rgmda, IV, 40. THE VEDANTA IN THE MAKING 61 Thus the point we sought to establish, namely, a pre-established harmony, and reciprocity between the gods and the Rta —is here proved to demonstra¬ tion. Although the gods as a rule, stand intimate¬ ly related to the Rta, it is the triad of Varuna, Mitra and Aryaman that is credited with the guardianship of the moral law, or the Rta. All the relevant hymns are, by way of pre-eminence, addressed to Varuna of fixed purpose (ipmn:) who along with his inalienable partner, Mitra, is the custodian of moral order of the world, the Rta, with its double aspects of orderly conduct (jjh) and essential nature of things (hot). It is in the deviation from the established order of things and customary morals that the consciousness of sin or moral delinquency consists, and nearly all the hymns to Varuna throw into prominent relief an acute sense of moral guilt on the part of the wrong-doer who trembles * like a guilty thing surprised ’ before Varuna, the omnis¬ cient and the omnipresent, who has a thousand spies and knows all things—who is present as the third wherever two men come together.* These furnish the most convincing proof, if proof at all were necessary, regarding the indigenous origin and growth of the notion of sin in the Vedas. Even Prof. Keith found a hard nut to crack here. “ It is,” he observes, ‘‘by no means certain exactly in what way the conception of the connexion of Varuna with sin sprang into such prominence, if we assume, as we must in the absence of evidence * Vide Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedae and Upanishads, p. 247. 62 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA to the contrary, that the conception of sin as punish¬ ed by Varuna is an Aryan one, and not a concep¬ tion borrowed from a Semitic race.”* Beginning, therefore, with the concept of Rta as the natural or physical order, there is a steady and continuous advance through the interpretation of it as social law or customary conduct, till it reaches its culmin¬ ating point in a cosmic justice or equity, a moral order of the world. The Rta thus stands as much for a physical as for a moral order—the former standing in an instrumental or subordinate relation to the latter. What affords an historic parallel to this is the Stoic maxim of ‘ life according to nature,’ which is but another way of saying ‘ life according to reason ’ inasmuch as the whole world is per¬ vaded and penetrated by a ‘ fiery breath ’ (wev/aa Siarrvpov) which, in the Stoic rendering of it, is a germinative reason ’ (Xo'yos <rwep/xaTiKo's).If, there¬ fore, an ethics of the Rgveda, rooted in the Rta, he at all conceded, it is not to be construed as an ethics of naturalism with its apotheosis of la bUe humaine. It provides, in the stricter sense, an ethics in accord¬ ance with the highest human ideal which was des¬ tined to realise all its ethical implications in the Law of Karma. Of that there is surely no room for misgivings; for accredited exponents of the philosophy and history of religion, like Pfleiderer, view ‘ the Rta and Karma of the Hindus ’ as more or less hyphenated in their nature, and classify *Ibid., p. 246. THE VEDANTA TN THE MAKING 63 them, on grounds of functional similarity, with the Nemesis (Nepean,?) of the Greeks, the Ashavaista of the Persians and the Tan of the Chinese.* Thus, along these two lines of reflexion, viz., that of a transcendent Reality beyond phenomena and an impersonal Law—we are led to the idea of a Supreme Being as Person which forms the pivot of a spiritualistic Monotheism. The first in importance is that of Hiranyagarbha we come across in the opening verse of X, 121 where he is repre¬ sented as * the first-born ’ ( jnHWTTq) an ^ as stal¬ led to sole sovereignty over all created beings, and is finally identified with Prajapati, as the lord of all creatures. From parity of functions it is clear that the Prajapati, again, is the god Visvakarma, the maker or architect of all, and the equation has been made in so many words, in Satapatha Brahmana. t Even in the Rgveda, Visvakarma is invested with a pre-eminence \ that alone squares with the status and function assigned to Hiranyagarbha and Prajapati. Now there is, strictly speaking, no in¬ aptitude in the equation thus effected between the first born, Hiranyagarbha and Prajapati or YiSva- karma in the role of a Supreme Creator. Likewise it is maintained that from the Purusa Virat, was born, and from Virat proceeded the Purusa. The point of all such equation is a scrupulous regard for * Vide his Philosophy and Development of Religion, Vol. T, Sec. IV. t VEL 2. i. 10; VIII. 2. iii. 213. f X. 82. ii. 64 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA obviating the difficulties that beset the conception of a First Creator. Truly speaking, ‘ contentment with the regress to a God-creator or some similar notion is the true mark of speculative indolence.’ For, an abrupt arresting of the causal regress at a First Cause or God-creator lays itself open to the most pertinent question of the child : “ Who made God?