Though Witzel avers that ‘internal evidence indicates that most hymns were composed over a span of just five ‘generations’ (ibid.:70), without clarifying how long a generation’ might be, there can be no doubt that the tradition of hymn-making in Indo-Aryan culture would have preceded the efforts of the Vedic collections by perhaps centuries. This expertise wasn't conjured out of thin air. The range and complexity of Ŗg Vedic metres indicates as much.8 Most of the hymns invoke or call to mind devas and devīs, unfortunately rendered in English by ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’ (with linguistic counterparts in other European languages). ‘Unfortunately’ because these terms carry with them cultural and theological baggage of the gods’ and goddesses’ of ancient Greece and Rome which is misleading in the context of Vedic religion but which was inserted into that context, partly inadvertently, by the early Western orientalists who cut their linguistic teeth on the study of the ancient European cultures and then made the translations and interpretations of the Vedic texts.9 As I said earlier, I prefer to view the Vedic devas and devīs as focuses of what was believed to be the divine or Transcendent, for reasons I shall give in due course, and so I shall refer to them henceforth by their Sanskrit terms.
There are over 30 more or less prominent devas and devīs mentioned in the Ŗg Veda, but abstract Attributes or Powers are also mentioned or addressed. Many of the devas and devīs appear to be personifications, of a kind, of natural forces or elements. The devas include Agni (‘Fire’, invoked in over 200 hymns; as the shining, butter-fed one, he cooks the sacrificial offering, purifies and delivers it to its invisible recipients, and mediates between humans and his co-devas); Indra (the martial, virile leader, deva of storm and thunder, who helps separate heaven and earth; he is addressed or lauded in about 300 hymns, more than any other deva, and is invoked in battle against the enemies of the Aryans, frees the light, and kills Vṛtra, the serpentlike monster(s) who block(s) the release of life-giving rain);the Maruts (a group of shining devas, and helpers of Indra on occasion, who are associated with high winds, and are celebrated in over 40 hymns); Rudra, the fierce, armed, tawny ‘roarer’, irascible but capable of a healing kindness, who is associated with storms and hills, and on occasion with mystical experience; he has but three whole hymns dedicated to him and has been seen as a forerunner of Śiva, the supreme deity across a broad band of later Hindu traditions.
Vāyu or Vāta (‘Wind’), though not particularly prominent, is the begetter of the Maruts, and, as Vāyu, is associated with Indra. He is heady with Soma, the elixir of the devas, and rides swiftly in his chariot, granting blessings of offspring, fame and wealth; roaring and unstoppable as Vāta, he wanders about where he wills. Viṣṇu became one of the most prominent names for the Supreme Being in later strands of Hinduism, but in the Ŗg Veda there are only about five hymns dedicated to this deva, though he is mentioned in many other hymns, as the ‘pervasive one’, ‘wide-striding’; being energetic, he is associated with Indra, and with the all-seeing eye and regular movement of the sun, and thus, by implication, with universal order (traits that were developed in later Hinduism). Soma is one of the most important devas of the Ŗg Veda – the whole of the ninth book is dedicated to him (114 hymns, plus six more in other books). The Soma-sacrifice is a central feature of Vedic religion, and derives from preparing the Soma plant (originally a mountain-plant but not definitely identified) by crushing out and filtering and fermenting its heady juice10; as such, he is beloved of Indra and other devas (not to mention the sacrificial priests) since he gives energy, ecstasy, inspiration and new life as lord of vegetation, running waters and rain. Sūrya and Savitṛ, the brilliant, all-seeing eye of the sun and its stimulating power respectively, bestow order and meaning to our world by dispelling the darkness (ten hymns are dedicated to Sūrya and eleven to Savitṛ, though both are mentioned many more times in the Ŗg Veda).
Finally, we may mention Varuṇa here, a major deva in the Ŗg Veda, though only a dozen hymns or so are entirely devoted to him. Closely associated with another deva, Mitra (who represents the bond of friendship), he is a wise, all-knowing ruler, with messengers or spies reporting human deeds to him so that he may judge, forgive and skilfully uphold ṛta (the physical and moral order of the universe), and the heavenly and earthly waters that obey his laws.
Here are extracts from hymns to (a) Agni and (b) Varuṇa; they give an indication of the tone of the hymns.
(a)
1.
Agni do I glorify,
Priestly minister of the home,
Priestly God of the sacrifice,
The invoker, best giver of precious things.
2.
May Agni, praiseworthy to sages past,
Praiseworthy to sages of our time,
Come here together with the Gods.
3.
Through Agni may one obtain,
Wealth and nurture day by day,
Glory and most valiant sons ...
5.
May God Agni, the invoker, of sparkling mind,
Truthful, endowed with brilliant fame,
Arrive together with the Gods! ...
7.
To you, Agni, who light the darkness,
We present ourselves each passing day,
Bringing with us humble thoughts.
8.
To you, reigning over sacrifices,
Shining guardian of Right Order,
Waxing strong in your abode.
9.
So, O Agni, be to us approachable,
Like a father to his child.
Bear with us for our wellbeing.
This is from the very first hymn of the Ŗk Saṃhitā, which is set in the Gāyatrī metre in the original (see note 8 for an explanation). The following is taken from a hymn to Varuṇa (7.86; Triṣṭubh metre).
(b)
1.
The peoples are wise through the greatness of him
who has fixed in their stations the heaven and the earth,
who has thrust up on high the vast dome of the sky
and the stars, and has spread out the earth down below.
2.
I muse in my heart and I ponder this question:
When shall I again be at one with Varuṇa?
Will he accept without rancor my offering?
When, reassured, shall I taste of his mercy?
3.
I question myself on my sin, O Varuṇa,
desirous to know it. I seek out the wise
to ask them; the sages all give me this answer:
‘The God, great Varuṇa, is angry with you’.
4.
What, then, O God, is my greatest transgression
for which you would ruin your singer, your friend?
Tell me, O God, who knows all and lacks nothing,
so that quickly prostrating, I may sinless crave pardon.
5.
Loose us from the yoke of the sins of our Fathers,
and also of those we ourselves have committed.
Release your servant, as a thief is set free
from his crime, or as a calf is loosed from its cord.
6.
The evil, Varuṇa, was not done on purpose;
it was wine, dice, or anger, that led us astray,
or thoughtlessness, sometimes the elder a younger.
Even in sleep evildoing is not wholly banished.
7.
I am eager to serve you as a slave serves his master,
you, God, all-watchful, I free from sin!
This most wise God gives knowledge to the simple
and spurs to achievement the clever and the discreet.
8.
O [Varuṇa], whose power is self-subsisting,
may these praises now reach you and lodge in your heart!
Well may it go with us in peace and in warfare!
Ever protect us, O Gods, with your blessings!
(Panikkar 1977:516)
We note here the devotional se
ntiment with which some verses are imbued. There are devīs too, though they are less prominent on the whole. One of the most noteworthy is Uṣas, the shining Dawn, who regularly drives away the terrors of the night, displaying her maidenly charms, and heralding the splendour of her lover the Sun;bestowing new life, she makes the sacrificial ritual possible each day and as such is consort to Agni or Fire. ‘Uṣas is celebrated in about 20 hymns of the Ŗg Veda and mentioned more than 300 times ... Uṣas is the most graceful creation of Vedic poetry’, declares A. A. Macdonell, ‘and there is no more charming figure in the descriptive religious lyrics of any other literature’.11
The following is an extract from RV. 7.77 (Triṣṭubh metre):
1.
Dawn comes shining
like a Lady of Light,
stirring to life all creatures.
Now it is time
to kindle the Fire.
The light of Dawn scatters the shadows.
2.
Her face turned toward
this far-flung world,
she rises, enwrapped in bright garments.
Shining with gold,
with rays of light bedecked,
she sends forth the world on its course ....
4.
Come with your bounty;
drive away foes.
Grant us secure and lush pastures.
Disperse those who hate us.
O bountiful One,
give to your singer reward ....
6.
Lady nobly born,
Daughter of Heaven,
worshipped by all the illustrious,
grant us your blessings,
riches and wealth.
Now and forever protect us!
(Panikkar 1977:169–70)
Then there are the celestial and earthly flowing Waters, Āpas, who are invoked in four hymns. They are the home of Varuṇa and can be viewed as a manifestation of Soma; they are like mothers to us, bring blessings of health, wealth and new life and purify from evil. Other devīs mentioned in the Ŗg Veda include Rātrī, the starlit Night (invoked in one hymn) and sister of Uṣas, who gives rest to all; Pṛthivī, the broad, kindly, sustaining earth (one dedicated hymn), and the river, Sarasvatī (two whole hymns): she is pure, powerful, maternal and life-giving.
As noted earlier, there are also references to more abstract Powers or Attributes, such as Aditi (‘she who has no bounds’, yet who encompasses and produces being, is motherly, generous and forgiving; there is no dedicated hymn to Aditi but she is mentioned several dozen times throughout the Ŗg Veda); Sraddhā or ‘Faith’, ‘Trust’ has one short hymn dedicated to her; Nirṛti or Dissolution is mentioned several times, while the One (eka) to which we shall return, plays an important limiting role in Vedic religious thought.
The arrangement of the Ŗg Vedic hymns in the ten maṇḍalas as passed down to later generations followed, more or less, a certain plan, as one might expect in a tradition that prized the vitality and effectiveness of oral transmission. Books 2 through 7, referred to as the ‘family’ books because they are thought to have been composed each by a particular family or clan of poets, start with hymns to Agni, continue with hymns to Indra, and then record the poems devoted to others. The longest hymns in each group begin the collection, and are followed, in descending order of length, by the shorter poems. Book 8 does not conform to this plan with regard to arrangement and metre, though it is also attributed to a family (the Kaṇvas) and is otherwise of a piece with maṇḍalas 2 to 7. Thus books 2 to 8 in general may be regarded as the core of the Saṃhitā text. The ninth book, which consists exclusively of hymns to Soma, may be a slightly later addition collated for the ritual extraction and offering of the Soma, which indicates the important role Soma played in Vedic religion. The hymns of these maṇḍalas were added to successively in different ways and periods in books 1 and 10, which contain both early and later material attributed to various composers. It may be noted here that not all the poems of the Ŗg Veda laud a higher power; there are more down-to-earth compositions such as spells and incantations to preserve life and wellbeing and to excoriate disease and pests. But such poems are few in number.
The universe of the Ŗg Veda is divided into three realms – the Heavens, the Earth and the intermediate region (though these are refined further into layers – thus there are nether worlds belonging to the domain that is Earth) – which are inhabited by humans, the devas and devīs, and hostile forces (demons or fiends of one kind or other). But though the devas and devīs are often associated with certain layers of this cosmos, they do not generally live in this space in a particularly restricted manner. They are envisaged as coming to earth to attend the ritual of the sacrifice. More important, they are regarded as overcoming the limitations of individuality by being interlinked in various ways, not only functionally but also, we may say, ‘theologically’. We need to explain this.
We can begin by noting various kinds of association in the Ŗg Vedic hymns between particular devas and devīs and/or groups of these. Thus Aditi is regularly invoked together with a small group called the Ādityas (her ‘sons’, occasionally thought to include Indra, Mitra and Varuṇa, among others). The larger group of Maruts are the offspring of Rudra and are also associated with Indra and other divinities. There are also a number of intimate ‘dual’ associations, whose constitutive members are regarded as more or less inseparable, e.g. the Aśvins who are twin devas (they help humans in distress, are mentioned over 400 times in the Saṃhitā, and have 50 hymns dedicated to them); Sūrya and Savitṛ; Mitra and Varuṇa; Indra and Agni, sometimes Indra and Varuṇa or Indra and Vāyu; Vāyu and Vāta; the pair Dyaus (‘Sky’) and Pṛthivī (‘Earth’, viz. dyāvāpṛthivī, the progenitors of all being), and so on. The members of all these combinations, which can function in subtly different ways – the Aśvins are twins who act as a single agent, Aditi and the Ādityas operate as parent and offspring, Mitra and Varuṇa co-operate as a team, etc. – do not only express a shared agency, but also give the impression of being mutually linked ontologically. This is indicated mythologically by the ‘familial’ relationships of twinship, joint parenthood (Sky and Earth), etc., or more philosophically, perhaps, through the conceptual device of ‘plurification’, i.e. having a multiple or shared identity and/or being bahurūpa or ‘polymorphic’, that is, ‘manifesting in more than one form’ (first referred to in Chapter 1).
Let us look at the device of plurification more closely. So far as multiple or shared identity is concerned, this is a widespread feature of Ŗg Vedic description. Thus, both Soma and the Waters, in their heavenly and terrestrial forms, become heady liquids which intoxicate Indra and the devas; but the Waters are used in making the Soma (both of which are described as ‘honeyed’), thereby implying that they share, in an important respect, not only a common function but also a joint identity at a deeper level. Again, we have already noted the intimate connection between Sūrya and Savitṛ. In RV. 4.14.2 (fourth maṇḍala, fourteenth hymn, second verse), both are mentioned as if one is the identifiable form of the other. In RV. 7.63.2–3, Sūrya is described in terms of Savitṛ, while elsewhere the two are distinguished (RV. 5.81.4). In 7.88.2, a hymn celebrating Varuṇa, the poet declares that Varuṇa's countenance is Agni's. In 1.115.1, Sūrya, the ‘self (ātmā) of all that moves and does not move’, is the ‘eye’ of Mitra and Varuṇa and Agni (cakṣur mitrasya Varuṇasyāgneṣ; see also, e.g. 7.63.1). And so on. In one way or another, identity-sharing or exchanges take place, hinting at an ontological connection between the participants.
Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices) Page 7