(This article was first published in the May 2016 issue of 'The Call Beyond', monthly magazine of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, New Delhi.)
Besides Agni, Indra is the most important deity in the Veda. Indra is presented as the mighty lord, the leader, and the protector. He showers the sacrificers with bountiful gifts, leads them to the Light, overthrowing all obstacles, defeating all evil forces.
Sri Aurobindo explains in The
Secret of the Veda that Indra was the Vedic symbol for the Illumined Mind.
He represented a mind which is turned towards the Light of Truth.
The ordinary mind is led by sense
experiences. It is impulsive and it reacts to everything, purely on the basis
of sensations, ignorant of the Truth. But a mind which has overcome this
fallacy is a mind full of the light of Truth. Such a mind is symbolized by
Indra.
Sri Aurobindo writes: “The
principle which Indra represents is Mind-Power released from the limits and
obscurations of the nervous consciousness. It is this enlightened Intelligence
which fashions right or perfect forms of thought or of action not deformed by
the nervous impulses, not hampered by the falsehoods of sense.”[1]
Indra is constantly associated with light
in the Veda. For instance, he is the lord of Swar – the Vedic heaven. The word swar
is akin to sūra and sūrya i.e. sun and it means luminous.
He is also always associated with the
mystic Soma wine. Sri Aurobindo explains that Soma was the symbol of Ananda
– the pure, divine delight of being. While an ordinary mind derives happiness
from sense-experiences only, a mind turned towards the Truth – the Truth of
one’s own being, one’s own immortality –experiences the permanent and limitless
bliss or Ananda. Indra is the unobscured and pure mind fit for this divine
experience.
Sri Aurobindo takes up the following
mantras to bring out this meaning:
Indrā yāhi citrabhāno sutā ime tavāyavaḥ aṇvībhistanā pūtāsaḥ
– R.V. I.3.4
Indrā yāhi dhiyeṣito viprajūtaḥ sutāvataḥ upa barahmāṇi
vāghataḥ – R.V. I.3.5
Indrā yāhi tūtujāna upa barahmāṇi harivaḥ sute dadhiṣvanaścanaḥ
– R.V. I.3.6
He is addressed here as citrabhāno
- of the richly-various lustres. He comes impelled by the thought, driven
forward by the illumined thinker within - dhiyeṣito viprajūtaḥ. He comes
with the force of the illumined mind-power and is asked to hold the delight in
the Soma offering, sute dadhiṣvanaścanaḥ.
The Rishis often coupled Indra with another
deity, Vayu . Vayu is associated to Life-Energy – all the vital and nervous
activities which are governed by the mind. The Rishis always took the
principles of Light and Force together and such is the case with Indra and
Vayu. Together, they represent the illumined mentality which is fit to partake
Soma.
Sri Aurobindo summarily presents
their working as follows:
“They receive them into the full
plenitude of the mental and nervous energies, cetathāḥ sutānāṃ vājinīvasū. The
Ananda thus received constitutes a new action preparing immortal consciousness
in the mortal and Indra and Vayu are bidden to come and swiftly perfect these
new workings by the participation of the thought, ā yātaṃ upa niṣkrtaṃ makṣū
dhiyā.”[2]
This is how one is to understand the
symbols and imagery associated with Indra and the Soma wine in the Veda.
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