Vedas, Indian Vedas, An eye view on Vedas

A Bird’s Eye View on Veda & Introduction – III

(Copy right protected by Dr. G.S. Tripathy)

From the philological, anthropological or sociological point of view it is usual for Orientalists to consider the Vedas. For several thousand of years, sufficient attention does not appear to have been paid to the fact that they have been the basis of a religion which have been followed by thousands of millions of people on this earth.

In the way of a real religious study of the material no doubt , there are difficulties. Like SAYANA there were invaluable commentaries of Indian scholars who had one grave defect. In respect of the religion they usually speak in terms of their own age. Hence they were often anachronistic . The new ways of interpreting the vedas were discovered by the indefatigable labour of the great orientalists. But we have to take note of certain preconceptions that are likely to have influenced their judgments in an adverse manner in understanding their interpretation of the religion.

The devout Christians believed that the worship of the true God was limited to the Christianity only. Heathens and Infidels were not worshiping god, but something else whatever they called the object of their worship in the first place.

Secondly as the path of piety , the consciousness of sin and repentance in sack cloth and ashes have been accepted by Christians. Hence the pagan cheerfulness of the Vedas must appear irreligious to them.

The ethical doctrine of surrender to evil had been popularized by Christianity of turning the other Cheek when smitten on the one for loving the enemy. As the highest morality , this was accepted .In respect of the ethical standard the more degraded , one was the further one went from this. In the heroic ideal all forms of paganism have the roots of their ethics . There could no compromise with evil according to vedic paganism. It must be fought relentlessly and strenuously . Indra symbolizes this heroic ideal among the most important of the vedic deities. All the fire and fury associated with heroism is the mark of a barbarous state of existence to the typical Christian . Varun has been described as the king of the universe by some orientalists. They have gone to the extent of recognizing them as the deities of universe whose noose gets hold of every sinner and whose emissaries roam over the earth as `the ethical deity and even as the ultimate reality.

With the notion of highest ethics , the true Christian, could not find himself well disposed towards the hero god, Indra , to whom many of the grandest vedic hymns are addressed. This is the third one.

Fourthly, by scientific theories of the later nineteenth century the theological Prepossessions of the orientalists were reinforced . The doctrine of social evolution and progress was the chief among these theories. This theory had been popularized by HERBERT SPENCER. However this had no real scientific connection with DARWIN’s theory of biological evolution . This earth was getting more and more Perfect according to the law of progress as time passed over. Hence in proportion to their distance from the present time things in the past were imperfect . That the vedic age being extremely remote , must have been an extremely crude stage of civilization ,which provided the orientalists with a ready assumption . This facile theory of progress was repudiated not till recently. Among other things it was established. In matter of art and spiritual life there had been no progress for many hundred of years . The orienta studies did not appear to have affected by this new corrective.

Fifthly the nineteenth century was an age of science that chiefly interested the orientalists being anthropology and philology. To trace the words of literature to their roots it was the practice in those days. In so far as it applied to the words of which the meaning was known, this practice was quite good. There was often in evidence a dogmatism worse than that of religion , when unknown words were traced to real or imaginary roots with a discovery of their meaning. In the second place anthropology was applied. In terms of Crudest possible theory of their first origin became the rule of the day so far as the explanation of features of life is concerned. For outstripping the legitimate bounds of their science, the orientalists often let themselves go in this respect to lengths.