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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00082 Oct 2004

 
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Dear Shri Krishna,
 I'll skip the first question, as my views on that topic is not 
consistent with our sampradaya. I'll also add two caveats - (a) 
Though I may quote 'pramANas' in my reply, the conclusions are my own 
and our traditionalists may disagree. (b) The reply may meander & 
ramble, for which I apologize immediately to people with low 
attention span. 

Q2(a): Why is it important to memorize the veda mantras? 
Q2(b): Can one directly skip this hard part and jump to 
learning 'meaning of the vedas'? 
Q2(c) Is a guru necessary to understand the meanings?

Short answers: (a) Because, that is the way it is. (b) No (c) No.
Long answers: (warning: rambling starts here...)

Section 1: Rapid loss of vedic branches
There used to be a saying - Even a cat in dakshinapatha knows 
taittiriyam (taittiriyam -> a branch of yajurveda). Recently, I was 
in the necessity of a qualified taittiriya expert who knows the 
intricacies of tritiyeshti or dashahotra sacrifices. Things didn't 
quite bear out. This is the condition of taittiriya yajurveda, which 
is supposedly a "secure vedic tradition". Imagine the condition of 
jaiminiya shakha of sama veda, where only about 5 80-year old 
gentlemen know the entire mantras. Or the Katha yajurveda, whose 
adherents are very limited in Kashmir and Himachal (already an 
insecure tradition) and which may die out in front of our own eyes. 
Or a handful of atharvavedis - who really belong to the atharvanic 
tradition (in contrast to recent revival attempts by Kanchi mutt, 
jeeyar mutt etc., where the focus in on mantra preservation with not 
so much attention on the meanings, context, applications etc). If 
turushkas destroyed couple of our vedic shakhas by invading & 
massacaring, we are finishing off whatever survived. If this trend 
continues, the hindus may have to learn about the vedas in western 
universities. All the traditions would have been lost and the vedas 
themselves would have become a museum piece. So, for (a) - Yes, one 
has to memorize the mantras for the simple reason of not losing our 
heritage & tradition.

Section 2: Traditional method of learning
The grihya sutras describe the "veda-vrata". After upanayana, one 
enters the veda vrata, which gets completed only after 
the "graduation bath" and the student becomes a snataka (Almost all 
grihya sutras describe this; Atharva veda parisishta). This student 
life is truly a "vrata" - this is a life full of restrictions, 
fasting and restraint and devotion to the acharya. Sexual 
transgression in this stage is a serious crime and the punishment is 
that the student has to offer a donkey to Nirrti and wear the skin of 
the donkey for one year and live only by begging. While begging he 
should proclaim his deed (Paraskara grihya sutra; Manu smriti).
The Aranyaka portions are not even taught in the "village". The 
student and teacher goes to the forest and the teacher reveals 
the "secret teachings" there. Both of them undergo couple of vrata & 
restrictions during the previous day (Ashwalayana grihya sutra; 
shankhayana grihya sutra). This stuff goes on for atleast 12 years 
(There is a variation in no. of years across the sutras). It goes 
without saying that the guru/acharya is indispensable in this whole 
setup (for (c)). This anecdote is to give a picture of how one learnt 
the vedas traditionally. 

Section 3: Meanings & modes of interpretation
There is traditionally 8 different modes of interpretation. So, the 
answer depends on what type of 'meaning' one is looking for. I am not 
even counting Arya Samaj type interpretation. I am skipping Aurobindo 
school of thought and the likes of Kapali Shastri & R.L.Kashyap. I am 
totally ignoring the Western Indologists' understanding. (They have 
made some important contributions, though). In one mode of 
interpretation, the recitation of the mantra - the sound pattern 
constitutes part of the picture. One ignores it at one's own risk. 
This interpretation is actually little known to people outside the 
tradition and western Indologists will never quite underst
and it. (For details, read Yaska's Nirukta; Shaunaka's Brhaddevata).
I also should add that all the traditional modes are not opposed to 
each other and in couple of instances they are complementary.

So, for (b) - can one understand "wireless digital communication" 
without a teacher? Assuming one has sound knowledge of elctromagnetic 
wave theory, DSP, calculus, probability & stochastic processes, one 
can simply borrow few books from the library and hope to understand 
it. That is of course one has adquate background in the pre-
requisites. This is a poor analogy: Coming back to the vedas - 
associated with them are the vedangas (limbs of the vedas). I have 
taken the liberty to include related material in the traditional 
limbs - 
(i)Shiksha, pratishakya, pada patha & allied texts - Deal with 
phonetics, pronounciation; preservation of the 'spoken word' and 
preventing corruption. This cluster has a non-trivial no. of texts. 
Take a moment to think about this and refer question (b) again.
(ii) Vyakarana, the grammer, nirvachana - semantical analysis, 
sphota - theory of the word: Tools for vedic text analysis and 
interpretation
(iii) Nirukta & Brhaddevata - Former is work on etymology/philology 
by Yaska. I included the latter because Shaunaka rejects couple of 
Yaska's views and gives his interpretation.
(iv) Chandas - Actually the existing one describes both vedic metres 
and classical metres.
(v) jyotisha & nakshatra vidya - Not same as our 'modern day 
josiyam'. I would define this branch in my own words as - time 
keeping based on astronomy for ritual purposes. 
(vi) kalpa sutras, parisishtas, anukramanis - The first one a topic 
in itself. I'll simply mention the divisions (srauta - crudely 
translated as solemn rituals, grihya - .... as domestic rituals, 
dharma sutras which later evolved into smritis (debatable) & shulba 
sutras - construction of various fire altars. (Baudhayana gives proof 
of pythogoras theorem in his shulba sutra - some 200 years before 
pythogoras). Parisishtas are usually supplement & complement kalpas. 
Anukramanis are indices of matras, meters and rishis.

BTW, the very first attempt to interpret the mantras occur in 
brAhmaNa & AraNyaka portions themselves. The entire purpose of this 
rambling is to give the glimpse of what our forefathers developed 
to 'acquire the meaning' of the vedas. Part of the 'meaning' is in 
application is a different story and is yagnika mode of nterpretation.

Sorry for rambling.

Regards,
Kasturi Rangan









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