by Roopa Pai
A Spell for the Destruction of Enemies
Sapatna Naashana* Sukta – 10.166
O Indra!
Make me
A bull among my peers,
A conqueror of my rivals,
A slayer of my foes,
An emperor among men,
A possessor of cows –
In short, make me like you!
O Indra!
May no one hurt or hate me,
May my enemies cower at my feet.
Like the two ends of the bow
Tied down by the string,
I tie you down, O Lord of Speech –
Press down upon the tongues of my rivals
Make them speak humbly to me.
O Enemies!
Here I come
As the conqueror of your minds,
As the conqueror of your deeds,
As your conqueror in battle,
As your leader and vanquisher!
I tread on your heads as you gather at my feet –
Now speak! as frogs croak when out of water,
Speak! as frogs croak when out of water.
*Sapatna is Sanskrit for a male enemy or rival, while Sapatni is the word for a female enemy. Sapatna Naashana translates to ‘destruction of male enemies’ while Sapatni Baadhana (the title of another hymn) translates to ‘abolition of female rivals’. The Arya made no bones about calling a spade a spade!
THE VERY LAST HYMN
As the Rig opens, so it comes to its close. The very last hymn of this sacred liturgy, like the very first one, is dedicated to Agni. But that’s where the similarity between the two ends.
The first hymn, as you saw, is a purely ritualistic (and somewhat self-serving) invitation to Agni to come and partake of the feast being laid out both in his honour and in the honour of the host of deities he is expected to bring with him, so that they may all shower humans with blessings and gifts.
But the last and 191st hymn of Mandala 10 is a secular, uplifting and large-hearted wish for a coming together of people, a sincere hope that cooperation will triumph over divisiveness in every sphere, that respectful debate will trump bitter and pointless argument every time. In other words, the Rig Veda, like all good literature, concludes on a note of hope, with a simple but beautiful prayer for peace – between friends, among families, and within communities. No wonder, then, that this last sukta is among the most popular of all the Rig Veda prayers, and is chanted on so many different occasions and at so many diverse fora, to this day.
And because it is so important, and so urgently relevant today, here is the latter part – the best-known part – of the 191st hymn, in the original Sanskrit. Commit this one to memory (it is super-alliterative, which makes this a nice challenge) and remember it every time you are tempted to let your anger or your ego ruin a good relationship. Teach it to others so that this 3,500-year-old benediction of the ancient sages may ensure that in your little corner of the universe, a small but genuine effort is being made, every day, towards respect and acceptance of the ‘other’.
A Hymn for Unity
Sangacchadhvam Sukta – 10.191
Sangacchadhvam samvadadhvam
Sam vo manaamsi jaanataam
Devaa bhaagam yathaa poorve
Sanjaanaanaa upaasate
Samaano mantrah samitih samaani
Samaanam manah sahachittameshaam
Samaanam mantramabhimantraye vah
Samaanena vo havishaa juhomi
Samanee va aakootih samaanaa hrdayaani vah
Samaanamastu vo mano yathaa vah susahaasati
Let’s come together now, to speak our minds,
To raise voices in harmonious song,
Let’s work together, sharing our thoughts –
Like the wise have taught us all along.
May our prayer be one, our goal supreme,
Our brotherhood forever strong;
May the same fire inspire our toil –
United, we cannot go wrong.
May we march to the beat of a single drum,
May our hearts in kinship be bound,
May our minds concur despite dissent –
May harmony and bliss abound!
THE KNOWLEDGE, APPLIED
A brief note on the Upavedas
Before you ask, nope, the Upavedas have nothing to do with the original four Vedas. So what are they, then? Well, while the Vedas are the more theoretical and contemplative texts, the Upavedas used the Vedas as inspiration to spin off entirely new disciplines of study and practice. Just like engineering or architecture is really applied physics and/or chemistry, the Upavedas are the applied Vedas.
Which Indian systems of study qualify to be called Upavedas? There are four, each associated with one of the four Vedas.
• Dhanurveda –The art of warfare and the martial arts. Although Dhanurveda literally translates to ‘knowledge of archery’, it is a catch-all term for yuddhakala (the art of war), aayudhavidya (the knowledge of arms), veeravidya (the science of being a warrior), shastravidya (say shuh-stra, not shaastra, the science of weaponry) and svarakshaakala (the art of self-defence). Apart from archery and sword fighting, it incorporates the old Indian favourite – mallayuddha, or wrestling (any wonder we are winning Olympic medals in the sport these days?), and dvandvayuddha, or the art of the duel, which is a battle fought between two mighty warriors instead of two mighty armies (much less blood that way). Dhanurveda is associated with the Rig Veda.
• Sthapatyaveda – The ancient Indian art and science of architecture. It includes the theory of Vaastu Shastra, which is based on the philosophy that the design of a building must be integrated with nature and that there are certain symmetries and patterns that work better than others. It is really a collection of ideas - not rigid rules but helpful suggestions - on how space should be organized inside and outside a building, depending on which spaces are used for what purpose. Since the Yajur Veda contains information about building too, although mainly on the sacred patterns for yagna kunds, the Sthapatyaveda is associated with the Yajur Veda.
• Gandharvaveda – The sacred knowledge of the divine musicians called the Gandharvas, dealing with all aspects of the arts. It concerns itself especially with music, dance, drama and poetry, giving detailed instructions on, for instance, how a student must practise music in order to master it. More interestingly, the Gandharvaveda is a big champion of the idea of music as therapy, with the power to heal and nourish body, mind and soul. The Natya Shastra (see page 79 for details), is also part of the Gandharvaveda. And this Upaveda is associated with – yup, that’s a no-brainer – the musical Sama Veda, of course!
• Ayurveda – Literally, ‘the science of life’, this best-known of all four Upavedas is the traditional Indian system of medicine and healing. Consistently popular through the millennia, Ayurveda is now seeing a huge resurgence. Based on the philosophy that individual human bodies are composed of three substances or doshas held in delicate balance, and that it is a skewing of this balance that causes disease, this physician’s art has eight main branches, including medicine of the body, the treatment of children, the extraction of foreign objects (which could involve surgery), antidotes against poisons, body-maintenance restorative tonics (think chyawanprash), and even – hold your breath – the exorcism and/or pacifying of spirits that have taken possession of a human body! Ayurveda is the Upaveda associated with... ye-es, the Atharva Veda. No points for guessing right – it is the only Veda left!
LESSONS FROM THE VEDAS
TO YIELD OR NOT TO YIELD?
Short answer: Easy! Do both, of course!
There is a constant tussle around the idea of flexibility. Is flexibility (and we aren’t talking physical flexibility here) a good thing, or a bad thing? Let’s consider two situations and see if we can find the answer.
Situation 1. You have made a pledge to yourself, say, that you will only watch one episode of a favourite series on Netflix each day. Then, when you are watching the penultim
ate episode of the season, you make a concession to yourself, saying, ‘Just this once, just this one time, I will watch two episodes, because this one has ended on an insane cliff-hanger, and also, how can I not watch the season finale right now? Tell you what, I won’t watch anything on Netflix tomorrow to make up for this transgression!’ That sounds reasonable enough – after all, you are ‘making up’ for it the next day – and seriously, what’s the big deal if you watch another forty minutes of Netflix when there isn’t an exam tomorrow and you’re done with all your homework? In fact, being inflexible about your pledge to yourself in this situation seems pretty silly.
Situation 2. Let’s say you believe that people who work harder than others and put in more time at their jobs should get paid more (but of course, duh!). As a result of getting paid more, they will get richer than everyone else, build themselves bigger houses and drive fancier cars, buy themselves many acres of farmland, start big factories that will produce goods that will make them even richer, and so on. Sure, a family of four may not necessarily need that much land or that much space or that much money, but hey, they worked harder and made the sacrifices and they deserve their privileges!
Unfortunately, your friend doesn’t agree at all. She thinks that people who have more than they need should share their wealth with people who don’t have enough. She believes that if such people don’t share voluntarily, they should be forced to – either by their religion (many religions insist on this, some even specifying what percentage of a person’s wealth should be shared with the community), their government (by way of taxes, for instance – the more you earn, the more tax you pay), or by the law (since 2013, it is mandatory in India for companies that earn a certain amount of money annually to spend two per cent of their net profits on something called CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility, where they plough that money back into the community by either sending donations for disaster relief, sponsoring research in deadly communicable diseases, supporting government schools or poor villages, and so on).
You think this is patently unfair. To be forced to give away part of what you have rightfully earned is Simply Not OK. Your friend is disgusted at what she sees as your small-mindedness and lack of social responsibility, but you don’t back down. After all, if you keep backing down every time someone questions or looks down upon your beliefs, you will soon have no principles to live by at all. Sometimes, and about some things, one has to be completely inflexible.
Now, what do you think the Vedas would recommend in each of the two situations? What would they have to say about your decisions on flexibility in each case? There are four possible options – pick one.
1. They would totally agree with your decisions in both the cases.
2. They would say you should be completely inflexible in both situations.
3. They would say you should be completely flexible in both situations.
4. They would disagree with your decisions in both cases.
What option did you pick? If you picked 1, 2 or 3, so sorry, but those are the wrong options. Option 4 is the right option – the Vedas would recommend that you should be inflexible in Situation 1 and flexible in 2. Hang on a minute, you say – how do you know that for sure? After all, there was no Netflix in the Vedic Age, so surely the Vedic sages could not have commented on it!
Sure, but it is not Netflix itself, but the ritual of watching one episode a day that we are talking about here. You could easily replace Netflix with a Vedic ritual and ask – would the Vedic sages be OK with a student skipping the ritual or tweaking it occasionally if he ‘made up for it’ later by doing a double yagna or something? Of course they wouldn’t. In the case of the following of a ritual, the Vedas demand complete compliance – it has to be done at the recommended times, in the recommended way, and no convenient short-cuts or ‘adjustments’ are allowed.
Similarly, replace the question of the rightness or wrongness of a forced contribution to society with the Vedic concept of how the universe was created. Many religions and cultures are pretty inflexible in their beliefs about creation – in many states in the USA, for instance, schools do not teach Darwin’s theory of evolution because the authorities do not believe man evolved from apes; they believe that it was God who created man, fully formed – but the Rig Veda itself offers several alternative creation stories. It is very flexible about its beliefs, and is not shy to admit that it isn’t sure, that it does not know the truth, and is willing to keep an open mind until it does.
Do you have to go by what the Vedas say? Not at all. But the philosophy of ‘Be inflexible about your rituals but flexible about your ideologies’ has some good points. We have spoken about the benefits of rituals earlier (see page 84) so we don’t need to go there again. As for beliefs and ideologies, they are not ‘facts’* but ‘opinions’, which is why it is always better to keep an open mind to allow new data, fresh opinions and alternative points of view around and about them, to enter. If you don’t, the wonderful and never-ending process of learning is stymied, and you are left with a stagnant ideology that will, sooner or later, begin to smell a little funky.
*Of course, the Upanishads recommend that everything, even so-called facts, must be routinely and thoroughly questioned.
But what if you continue to stick to your original beliefs after you have thrown open your mind, after you have closely examined and seriously considered the alternatives, and with all the respect they deserve? That’s absolutely fine! As an extra bonus, you would have Gandhiji’s approval. ‘I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed,’ he once said. ‘I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.’
THE SECRET
Next up, the Upanishads
६
SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT THE UPANISHADS?
Right. Time for another quiz! Now that you have read about the Vedas in the previous chapters, you have already got some clues, so go right ahead!
1. What, exactly, are the Upanishads?
a. A part of the Vedas
b. Philosophical ideas and concepts that are based on the Vedas
c. Conversations, usually between a teacher and a student, on complex questions like ‘What is death, really?’ ‘Who am I, really?’ and even, ‘What is reality, really?’
d. The set of texts on which the Bhagavad Gita is based
e. All of the above
Did you guess (e) all of the above? But of course you did! You already know what the Upanishads are, from the previous chapters, duh.
What’s important to remember is that the Upanishads are not just part of the Vedas, they are also often based on the ideas set out in the Vedas. They question, analyze and interpret the earlier parts of the Vedas, and move the Veda conversation forward. Hang on a minute, they say, so we’ve all been chanting all the hymns and performing all the sacrifices and rituals that the Samhitas and Brahmanas have prescribed, for centuries. Can we now ask why (or if!) this ritual stuff is important? In fact, can we put the rituals aside for a bit and brainstorm about the really important questions like –
- ‘Since we are all going to die in the end anyway, what is the point of this life?’ or
- ‘Those gods that we are always offering things to so that we can have wealth, power, health, sons, whatever... do they really exist or did we create them because it makes us feel better to imagine there is someone powerful up there who we can arm-twist into giving us what we want simply by chanting the right mantras?’ or
- ‘Never mind the gods and the heavens and contentment in the afterlife – are there ways in which we can be truly content on earth? And if so, what are those ways?’
That’s pretty cool, don’t you think? That a sacred text (Veda) should have a section (Upanishad) that questions everything it has itself said? No wonder the doubting, inquiring, seeking Upanishads have found many, many fans both in India and elsewhere, and become far more popular than th
e Vedas themselves.
2. In all, how many Upanishads are there?
a. 10
b. 1,875
c. 200
d. 100,000
The correct answer is... (c) – there are about 200 Upanishads (give or take a few) in all. Luckily for us, scholars better and wiser than most of us can ever hope to be, have decided that only ten of those are what they call the Principal Upanishads. Phew.
Since the Upanishads are part of the Vedas, they also belong to Shruti, or ‘revealed’, literature, which means we have no idea who composed them. However, some of them recount conversations of certain sages – including Yagnavalkya (say yaa-gnya-val-kya), Uddalaka Aruni, Shvetaketu, Shandilya and Sanat Kumara – with their students, learned kings like Janaka, or other scholars, notable among them Gargi (one of the very few women mentioned in the ten Principal Upanishads). It’s fair to conclude, therefore, that these rishis were responsible for at least some of the main ideas in the Upanishads.
3. When were the Upanishads composed?
a. Between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE
b. Between 1200 BCE and 900 BCE
c. Between 700 BCE and 1 CE
d. Between 1 CE and 300 CE
It’s (c) again! The Upanishads were all ‘revealed’ between 700 BCE and 1 CE.
Since the Upanishads are often based on the earlier sections of the Vedas, they themselves were obviously composed well after those sections. But the timeline is all very confusing, and it is almost impossible to date them accurately. The only thing scholars can say with any confidence is that the oldest Upanishads (which include most of the Principal Upanishads) could not have been composed before the 7th or 8th century BCE, and the youngest ones (the youngest among the Principal Upanishads, i.e. – several others were composed much later, some as recently as 600 years ago) in the last century before the Common Era. That’s a 700-year window, but hey, when those 700 years are over 2,000 years ago, it doesn’t make all that much of a difference to us, does it?