[Advaita-l] My Questions and My Mails

[Sailesh Ganesh]

Namaste

I apologise for any errors in advance, for I do not yet have sufficient
knowledge about the vedas. I am reading a book by Shri Aurobindo, titled
"The secret of the veda", in which he explains that for every term used in
the veda, there are two meanings at different levels, just like Abhishekji
has pointed out.

The first meaning is the straightforward, materialistic meaning, while the
second, higher meaning, is more subtle, and in a psychological sense. For
example, Agni, by the materialistic meaning, means the sacrificial fire, or
the chief priest of sacrifice. But the psychological meaning is (I quote)
"the divine will perfectly inspired by divine wisdom, and indeed one with
it, which is the active or effective power of the Truth-Consciousness".

Similarly, all such terms have a psychological meaning, which is indicative
of the state of mind and the path leading to enlightenment. When this
interpretation of the verse is considered, it leads to a consistent
structure of the veda that is rich in spiritual thought and experience.

According to Shri Aurobindo (and I am tempted to concur), current philology
is only a "conjectural science", and thus, a Science of Language stands
discredited. This implies that the english translations by European
scholarships are based on a subjective interpretation of the veda, which
obviously cannot be its true meaning.

Regards
Sailesh

> But with great hesitation I wud like to put one point before you....
> > I have read various english traslations of VEDAS .(.due to lack of
> > sansrit knowledge). I am afraid to say that I didnt fine much of
> meaningful
> > stuff in the karma kanda of any vedas except in very few places (Rig
> only
> > praising agni, vayu, Indra, soma...etc and yajur just talking about
> rituals,
> > nothing more I want to say) (again not cosidering uanishads as part of
> > vedas)
>
>
> I understand that reading english translations will not be enough to come
> to
> a point of appreciating the vedas. One thing you could do is to learn few
> of
> the basic suktams (if you haven't done so already). It has to be noted
> that
> especially in Yajur Veda there are two levels of meaning namely, vacyArtha
> (apparent meaning) and lakShYartha (actual or intended meaning). Now all
> of
> the english translations were made by interested parties who certainly
> were
> not favourable to the Hindu religion. So IMHO it is very difficult to make
> out any sense of their translations. The lakShyartha will be determined by
> repeated chanting of and meditation on the mantras. So if you are desirous
> of knowing the meaning of the vedas (including upanishads) better you
> actually learn them and try to find out the meaning yourself.
>



--
Ekam sat, viprā bahudā vadanti (The truth is one, the wise call it different
names) - Rig Veda (1.164.46)