Vedic Literature | The Symbolism in Rigveda | Symbolism in Retrospect

The Angirasa legend and the Vritra my-thus are the two principal parables of the Rig-veda. They occur and recur everywhere. They run through the hymns as two closely connected threads of symbolic imagery. Around them all the rest of the Vedic symbolism is woven. It is not that they are its central ideas, but they are two main pillars of this ancient structure. This is a symbolism of the struggle between spiritual powers of Light and Darkness, Truth and Falsehood, Knowledge and Ignorance, Death and Immortality. This is the real sense of the whole Rig-veda.

The Angirasa Rishis are bringers of the Dawn and rescuers of the Sun out of the darkness. But this Dawn, Sun, Darkness are figures used with a spiritual significance. The central conception of the Rig-veda is the conquest of the Truth out of the darkness of Ignorance. By the conquest of the Truth is also meant the conquest of the Immortality.

The Vedic rtam is a spiritual as well as a psychological conception. It is the true being, the true consciousness, and the true delight of existence beyond this earth of body, this mid-region of vital force, this ordinary sky or heaven of mind. We have to cross beyond all these planes to arrive at the higher plane of the super-conscient Truth, which is the own home of the gods and, therefore, the foundation of Immortality. This is the world of Swar, to which the Angirasas have found the path for their posterity.

The Angirasas are at once the divine seers who assist in the cosmic and human working of the gods, and their earthly representatives, the ancient Fathers. The ancient Fathers first found the wisdom of which the Vedic hymns are a chant, memory and renewal in experience.

The seven divine Angirasas are sons or powers of Agni, powers of the Seer-Will, the flame of divine Force instinct with divine-knowledge, which is kindled for their victory. The Bhrigus have found this Flame secret in the growths of the early existence. But the Angirasas kindle it on the altar of sacrifice. They maintain the sacrifice through the periods of the sacrificial year, symbolizing the periods of the divine labour by which the Sun of Truth is recovered out of the darkness.

Those who sacrifice for nine months of this year are the Navagwas, seers of the nine cows or nine rays. They institute the search for the herds of the Sun, and the march of Indra to battle with the Panis. Those who sacrifice for ten months are the Dashagwas, seers of the ten rays who enter with Indra into the cave of the Panis, and recover the lost herds.

The sacrifice is the giving by man of what he possesses in his being to the divine or the higher nature. Its fruit is the farther enrichment of his manhood by the lavish bounty of the gods. The wealth thus gained constitutes a state of spiritual riches, prosperity and felicity. This state is itself a power for the journey, and a force of battle. The sacrifice is thus a journey, a progression. The sacrifice itself travels, led by Agni, up the divine path to the gods. The ascent of the Angirasa Fathers to the divine world of Swar is the type of this journey.

Their journey of the sacrifice is also a battle, as Panis, Vritras and other powers of evil and falsehood oppose it. Of this warfare, the conflict of Indra and the Angirasas with the Panis is a principal episode.

The principal features of sacrifice are the kindling of the divine flame, the offering of the ghrta and the Soma-wine, and the chanting of the sacred word. The hymn and the offering increase the gods. They are said to be born, created and manifested in man. By their increase and greatness here, they increase the earth and heaven, that is, the physical and mental existence to their utmost capacity. The gods so created, in their turn, create the higher worlds or planes.

The higher existence is the divine, the infinite of which the shining Cow, the infinite Mother Aditi is the symbol. The lower existence is the human existence sourced from Diti. The object of the sacrifice is to win the higher or divine being. It is to possess, with it, and make subject to its law and truth, the lower or human existence.

The ghrta of the sacrifice is the yield of the shining cow. It is the clarity or brightness of the solar light in the human mentality. The Soma is the immortal delight of existence, secret in the waters and the plant, and pressed out for drinking by gods and men.

The word is the inspired speech expressing the thought-illumination of the Truth, which rises out of the soul, formed in the heart, and shaped by the mind. Agni, growing by the ghrta, and Indra, forceful in the luminous strength and joy of the Soma and increased by the word, aids the Angirasas to recover the herds of the Sun.

Brhaspati is the Master of the creative word. While Agni is the supreme Angirasa, the flame from whom the Angirasas are born, Brhaspati is the one Angirasa with the seven mouths, the seven rays of the illuminative thought and the seven words, which express it. The Angirasa seers are the powers of such utterance. Brhaspati is thus the complete thought of the Truth, the seven-headed, which wins the fourth or divine world for man by winning for him the complete spiritual wealth, the object of the sacrifice.

Therefore, Agni, Indra, Brhaspati, Soma are all described as winners of the herds of the Sun and destroyers of the Dasyus who conceal and withhold them from man. Saraswati is the stream of the Word or inspiration of the Truth. She is also a Dasyu slayer, and winner of the shining herds. Sarama, the forerunner of Indra discovers them. Sarama is a solar or dawn-goddess and seems to symbolize the intuitive power of the Truth. Usha, the Dawn, is at once herself a participant in the great victory and, in her full advent, its luminous result.

Usha is the divine Dawn. The sun that arises by her coming is the Sun of the super-conscient Truth. The day he brings is the day of the true life in the true knowledge. The night he dispels is the night of the ignorance, which yet conceals the dawn in its bosom. Usha herself is the Truth, suunrtaa, and the mother of truths. These truths of the divine Dawn are called her cows, her shining herds. The forces of the Truth that accompany them (the shining herds) and occupy the life are called her horses.

Much of the Vedic symbolism turns around this symbol of the cows and horses. These are the chief elements of the riches sought by man from the gods. The cows of the Dawn have been stolen and concealed by the demons, the lords of Darkness, in their nether cave of the secret sub-conscient. They are the illuminations of knowledge, the thoughts of the Truth, gaavo matayah, which have to be delivered out of their imprisonment. Their release is the up surging of the powers of the divine Dawn.

It is also the recovery of the Sun that was lying in the darkness. It is said that the Sun, 'that Truth', was the thing found by Indra and the Angirasas in the cave of the Panis. By the rending of that cave, the herds of the divine Dawn, which are the rays of the Sun of Truth, ascend the hill of being. The Sun itself ascends to the luminous upper ocean of the divine existence, led over it by the thinkers like a ship over the waters, till it reaches its farther shore.

The Panis who conceal the herds are the masters of the nether cavern. They are a class of Dasyus. In the Vedic symbolism, they are set in opposition to the Aryan gods, Aryan seers and workers.

The Aryan is he who does the work of sacrifice, finds the sacred word of illumination and desires the gods. He increases them and is increased by them into the largeness of the true existence. He is the warrior of the light and the traveller to the Truth.

The Dasyu, on the other hand, is the un-divine being that does no sacrifice, amasses wealth, which he cannot rightly use. This is because he cannot speak the word or mentalize the super-conscient Truth, hates the Word, the gods and the sacrifice. He gives nothing of himself to the higher existences, but robs, and withholds his wealth from the Aryan. He is the thief, the enemy, the wolf, the devourer, the divider, the obstructer and the confiner. The Dasyus are powers of darkness and ignorance, which oppose the seeker of truth and immortality.

The gods are the powers of Light, the children of Infinity, forms and personalities of the one Godhead who, by their help, by their growth and human working in man, raise him to the Truth and the Immortality.

Thus, the interpretation of the Angirasa myth gives the key to the whole secret of the Rig-veda. When the cow of which the ghrta is the yield is not a physical cow, but the shining Mother, then the ghrta itself, which is found in the waters and is said to be triply secreted by the Panis in the cow is no physical offering. So is the honey-wine of Soma which is also said to exist in the rivers and to rise in a honeyed wave from the ocean, and to flow streaming up to the gods.

Then the other offerings of the sacrifice must also be symbolic. The outer sacrifice itself can be nothing but the symbol of an inner giving. Similarly, if the Angirasa Rishis are also in part symbolic or are, like the gods, semi-divine workers and helpers in the sacrifice, so also must be the Bhrigus, Atharvans, Ushana, Kutsa and others who are associated with them in their work.

If the Angirasa legend and the story of the struggle with the Dasyus is a parable, so also should be the other legendary stories we have in the Rig-veda such as the help given by the gods to the Rishis against the demons. This is for the reason that all the legendary stories are related in similar terms and constantly classed by the Vedic Rishis along with the Angirasa story, on the same footing.

Similarly, these Dasyus with who the Aryans are constantly at war, these Vritras, Panis and others are not human enemies, but powers of darkness, falsehood and evil. Then the whole idea of the Aryan wars and kings and nations begins to take upon itself the aspect of spiritual symbol and apologue. Whether they are entirely so or only in part is a matter for detailed examination.

The other legend in the Rig-veda is that of Vritra and Waters, which is closely connected with that of the Angirasas and the Light.

First Indra, the Vritra-slayer, is, along with Agni, one of the two chief gods of the Vedic Pantheon. If his character and functions can be properly established, we shall have the general type of the Aryan gods fixed firmly.

Secondly, the Maruts, his companions, singers of the sacred chant, are the strongest point of the naturalistic theory of Vedic worship. They are, undoubtedly, storm-gods. None of the greater Vedic deities such as Agni, the Aswins, Varuna, Mitra, Twashtri, the goddesses, or even Surya the Sun, or Usha the Dawn has such a pronounced physical character.

If these storm-gods can be shown to have a psychological character and symbolism, then there can be no more doubt about the profound sense of the Vedic religion and ritual.

Finally, Vritra and his associated demons, Shushna, Namuchi and the rest appear, when closely scrutinized, to be Dasyus in the spiritual sense, if the meaning of the heavenly waters Vritra obstructs is more thoroughly investigated. Then the consideration of the stories of the Rishis and the gods and the demons as parables can be proceeded with from a sure starting point. This brings the symbolism of the Vedic worlds to a satisfactory interpretation.

The Vedic symbolism, as worked out in the hymns, is too complex in its details and too numerous in its standpoints. It presents too many obscurities and difficulties to the interpreter in its shades and side allusions. Above all, it has been too much obscured by ages of oblivion and misunderstanding. The leading clues can only lay the right foundations for the broad understanding of the core thought of the hymns that their sense is only spiritual and psychological.

The above establishes that, prima facie, the Vedic hymns are the symbolic gospel of the ancient Indian mystics. Their sense is wholly spiritual and psychological. The interpretation of the Veda is to be from this standpoint.