Veda - The first book of knowledge

(This article was first published in the Jan 2016 issue of 'The Call Beyond', monthly magazine of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, New Delhi.)  

When Sri Aurobindo began reading the Rig Veda for the first time, he did not intend to study it very closely.  Like many educated Indians of his time, he had for long accepted the conclusions drawn by European scholars regarding its religious, as well as, historical and ethnic import. As a result, he did not see the Veda as a source of spiritual knowledge but only as a text of historical importance. Like his contemporaries, he held the Upanishads as the most ancient source of Indian thought and religion… as the first Book of Knowledge.[1]

This view was perhaps also a result of a popular distinction made in ancient Indian scholarly works where the Veda, with its apparent focus on ritual and ceremony, is called the book of works (karma kanda) and the Upanishads, being more directly philosophical, are called the books of knowledge (jnana kanda).

Rig Veda Manuscript

However, once Sri Aurobindo began his study of the Veda, it did not take him long to realize the richness of spiritual thought lying overlooked in Vedic hymns. The Veda, he found, to be a repository of such profound ideas which were far more elaborate and exact in describing spiritual experiences than the Upanishads. In fact, the Upanishads had been composed to revive and re-establish the spiritual vision of the Veda itself.

Vedic knowledge was founded on intuitive spiritual experiences. It required consistent devotion towards developing one's mental faculties. The following generations found it difficult to maintain the ideal of self-culture required for such knowledge. From sages, the Veda went to the priests, – two functions that had originally been one, and then from priests to scholars, who preserved the external ritual and the mantras with remarkable accuracy but couldn’t do much to illumine its intent.

The Upanishads were composed with the aim of bringing forth this forgotten inner meaning but they ended up changing the fate of the Veda forever. They were more directly philosophical in content as opposed to the Vedas, in which the knowledge lay hidden under a thick cover of symbols and rituals. As a result, the Upanishads got recognized as the books of knowledge and went on to dominate the spiritual thought of future generations.

Through his interpretation of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo has tried to restore its rightful status. The human mind, he writes, marches from knowledge to knowledge. If the Upanishads are a source of profound ideas, then such knowledge couldn’t have arisen out of a previous void. Its source must be sought in the Veda itself.

Sri Aurobindo shows how the Upanishads utilize the symbols of the Vedas to convey some very profound spiritual ideas.

“In the Isha Upanishad we find an appeal to Surya as a God of revelatory knowledge by whose action we can arrive at the highest truth. This, too, is his function in the sacred Vedic formula of the Gayatri which was for thousands of years repeated by every Brahmin in his daily meditation; and we may note that this formula is a verse from the Rig Veda, from a hymn of the Rishi Vishwamitra.”[2]

Today, the Upanishads are held as the founding texts of Vedanta –a philosophy which continues to dominate the Indian thought. Its ideas find resonance in the verses of the Bhagavad Gita – the most widely read Indian scripture. Through his study of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo concluded that the Veda was the rightful forerunner of Vedanta. The distinction of karma kanda vs. jnana kanda is not correct as the Vedas too are books of knowledge, not merely books of transactional works or rituals.

After all - “the name borne by them was ‘Veda’, the knowledge,—the received name for the highest spiritual truth of which the human mind is capable.”[3]

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[1] The Secret of The Veda, Pg. 36, Line no. 7

[2] The Secret of The Veda, Pg. 7, Line no.12

[3] The Secret of The Veda, Pg. 5, Line no.12