United States or Guinea-Bissau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All who have studied the Rigveda say this, and all who have not studied it say just the contrary, and lay especial stress upon the fact that these hymns contain ideas that once and for all they declare as modern. But no one has ever contended that this is not so.
Though this system is only once mentioned in the Rigveda, and that in a hymn of late date, scholars find traces of it in the arrangement of the hymns, and as it is found in Persia, the Indians probably had it before they entered India. It may even, it is judged, be traceable to the division of ranks among the primitive Aryan families.
For even Tennyson himself was vague: "That which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home." It is noteworthy that they should do so, the Vedas being their standards wherewith to test Modern Hinduism, for the doctrine of transmigration is scarcely hinted at in the Vedas, and in the oldest, the Rigveda, there is said to be no trace of the doctrine. Mrs.
The Brahman was his mouth; the kingly soldier Was made his arms; the husbandman, his thighs; The servile Sudra issued from his feet." From the Rigveda, Mandala x. 90, translated by Sir M. MONIER WILLIAMS. New ideas in the social sphere first claim our attention.
Atharvan and Angirasa became the protectors of the car-wheels of that illustrious warrior. The Rigveda, the Samaveda, and the Puranas stood in advance of that car. The histories and the Yajurveda became the protectors of the rear. All sacred Speeches and all the Sciences stood around it, and all hymns, O monarch, and the Vedic sound of Vashat also.
Many stories are to be found in Indian literature which when found elsewhere are judged to be products of savage imagination, and the fact that the Rigveda ignores some of them and refines others, simply shows that the authors of that collection were on a higher level than their people in point of cultivation and of piety, as the psalmists and the prophets of Israel were in advance of theirs.
They are of great interest to us because they make known, as clearly as possible, the sound of the oldest Aryan language, and the nature of the oldest Aryan gods. In this sense he very properly calls the study of the Rigveda the high school of the science of religion, so that as he says no one can discuss these matters without a knowledge of it.
Then a Rishi of the name of Suparna obtained it from that foremost of Beings. The Rishi Suparna used to recite this excellent religion, this foremost of cults, three times during the day. In consequence of this, it came to be called by the name of Trisauparna in the world. This religion has been referred to in the Rigveda. The duties it inculcates are exceedingly difficult of observance.
In the Vedic period there were several orders of sacrifice the hymns of the Rigveda have to do with the Soma-sacrifice alone and several kinds of priests, and it stands to reason that an elaborate ritual derived from a distant age and cherished by a priestly caste which was growing in power, could not quickly change.
This unique distinction rests, as he truly remarks, on the fact, “That the process on which originally all gods depend, the personification of the phenomena of nature, while it is more or less obscured by all other religions, in the Rigveda still takes place, so to speak, before our eyes visibly and palpably.” I have long preached this in vain.
Word Of The Day