English translation of T. V. Kapali Sastry's Rig Bhashya Bhumika (Introduction) & Siddhanjana (Commentary on Rig Veda) by M. P. Pandit & S. Shankaranarayan
On Veda
Commentary on the Rig Veda Suktas 1-121 entitled सिद्धाञ्जना (Siddhanjana) & an introduction ऋग्भाष्यभूमिका (Rig Bhashya Bhumika) by T. V. Kapali Sastry
THEME/S
THERE are twenty-four sections in the First Book of the Seer-hymnodists, satarcin. Barring the twelfth hymn at the end, the Rishi of the first three Sections is Madhucchandas of the line of Vishvamitra. The Rishi of the twelfth hymn is Jeta, son of Madhucchandas. The metre is Gayatri for the nine hymns commencing with agnim iļe up to gāyanti tvā. The first Section consists of three hymns. And the first hymn with nine Riks (stanzas) known as agnimiļe is devoted to the Deity Agni. And of the nine this is the first:
agnim the God called Agni; iḷe I laud in longing ; God of what kind ? purohitam placed in front for the performance of the work; and again of what kind ? yajñasya devam ștvijam the God who himself has become the stvik for the carrying out of the sacrifice that is being performed in celebration of the Godhead; and again of what kind ? hotāram who calls the Gods by virtue of his capacity; and still how-made ? ratnadhā tamam who bears in excelsis the felicities that are charming.
The Etymologists explain the term agni in many ways. This much is clear from a scrutiny of their derivations: alternate meanings are advanced by reckoning the form of Agni in some way or the other on the strength of the utterances of the Brahmanas. It is considered that sentences in the Brahmanas such as “Yea, this one was born before, agre, the Gods, hence he is agni by name", are the basis of meanings like agrariḥ (one who is the first).
According to the Grammarians, the word agni is derived from the root ang. They illustrate the Unādi Sūtra, ’angernalopasca’. angati, goes upward; goes up to carry the oblation to the heaven; this is a possible derivation. If the roots meaning agni in all the branch languages of the ancient Aryans be scrutinised, it yields the constituent meaning of movement, strong and luminous. Thus do cohere all the words signifying the nature of agni.
Iḷe : I laud, says Sayana ; I beseech, says Yaska. There is no dispute about the roots having multiple significance. iļate signifies, says Yaska, beseeching, adoring or worshipping. The act of adoration is the most apposite in view of the form of agni, his office and his management of it. adhyeşaņa – intense longing - means impulsion, aspiration. The longing adoration consists in the welcome and honoured induction in the special performance of the adorable Vicar or Agni, the God. iļe I aspire.
purohitam: Agni is placed in the front of the yajamāna, sacrificer, for the carrying out of the work of sacrifice. That is why he is waited upon by the Rishi in the inner sacrifice and by the Yajamana in the outer sacrifice. Thus is the sense of adhyeşana, longing adoration, apposite to iļe. This agrees also with the traditional derivation of purohita—he holds him in the front. It is to be noted that the order given by the commentators viz., yajñasya purohitam hotāram devam ștvijam ratna-dhā tamam, is neither necessary nor proper. When terms yield the meaning in the order in which they stand, it is not right to relate words in one place with words in another. That is why we have commented upon the phrase yajñasya devam ștvijam as it stands.
hotāram : himself a God, he summons the other Gods to be present at the sacrifice. Thus is Agni, the Lord of the call.
ratnadhā tamam: all accept the derivation of ratna as the word ending with the termination kna of the Unadis, applied on the root ram.
To us who are concerned with the inner sacrifice, the derivation given in the Mantrārtha-mañjari, what bears ratna (happiness) is ratnadhā, him who bears the happiness excellently atiśayena ratnadhāḥ tam, is acceptable. It means that Agni alone is the bearer, the founder of the felicities signified by the term ratna- which are the fruits of the offerings made by the Rishi, the Yajamana who is engaged in the inner Sacrifice. For those who swear that there is naught else beyond the outer sacrifice, it means Agni, the donor in excelsis of the ratna, the treasure, which, consisting of cows, horses, etc., is the fruit of the sacrifice.
And this is the purport of the Rik :
I aspire intensely for Agni the adorable, the leader and the Vicar who carries out the Sacrifice, the God who as the Ritvik does and gets done in due season the sacrifice to be performed, who being capable of bringing the presence of the Gods in the sacrifice is their summoner, and who, again, founds in the Yajamana the excellences of Felicity.
Tr. I adore Agni, the Vicar, the divine Ritvik of the sacrifice, the summoner who most bears the felicities.
agniḥ the God equipped with the capacity of the Vicar, etc. as mentioned before; pūrvebhiḥ by the ancient ; rsibhiḥ by the seers of the Mantras, Bhrigu, Angiras and the like; idyaḥ laudable, adorable, to be aspired to; nūtanaiḥ uta adorable even by the new seers ; saḥ the God who is thus spoken of as adorable; devān the rest of the Gods like Indra and others; iha in this sacrifice; āvaksati brings.
iha: Skandasvami has it, “or here, in this world”. The purport is that Agni, located on earth, brings the Gods located in heaven, to this location on earth. The meaning is clear in the inner sacrifice.
It is impossible to determine the age of the ancient personages like Angiras. The phrase nūtanairuta implies that there were other contemporary seers, creators of Suktas, like Madhucchandas. It also points to the weight of tradition of a sempiternal, fruitful and established discipline devoted to Agni.
Tr. The Agni adorable by the ancient seers is adorable too by the new, he brings here the Gods.
agninā by the instrumentation of the God; rayim treasure, something inner, not merely outer; asnavat (the Yajamana) obtains ; what kind of treasure ? divedive day by day; posameva verily nourished, increasing, never decreasing; and again of what kind ? yasasam with fame, full of glory; viravattamam superbly endowed with hero-power; such is the treasure enjoyed.
Some object to the taking of the term poșa as adjective to rayi as it terminates with ghañj. They say it should be poşam, nourishment, and rayim treasure, that is aśnavat, enjoyed. If that be so, then the conjunctive word ca is to be taken as understood. Then the significance of the word eva in poșameva will have been ignored. Both poşam and yasasam are adjectives of rayi, used in the sense of possession (matvartha).
Such use is common in the Veda. In places like vapuşāmidekam (4.7.9.), vapuşāmapaśyam (5.62.1), the commentators interpret the meaning indicating matvartha as vapușām vapușmatām, possessed of bodies, devānām of the embodied Gods. That is correct. So also here, resort to indication is permissible. yasas is used as adjective of rayi to indicate the glory. Some moderns have it that aśnavat being in the form of leț (Vedic Present) should carry the sense of Imperative tense, loţ. The sense indicated by the Present tense (lat) is preferable and approved by the commentators of old.
The purport is: the Yajamana obtains the inner plenitude (denoted by the term rayi), superbly full of hero-strength and glorious, due to the power of the Grace of Agni who is the summoner of the Gods as described earlier.
Tr. By Agni one enjoys a treasure that increases day by day, glorious, most full of hero-power.
agne thou; yam adhvaram which is moving on the path; yajñam sacrifice; visvataḥ on every side; paribhūḥ surrounding; asi art; sa it that sacrifice alone; deveșu among the Gods; gacchati goes to the destination.
The ritualistic commentators take the line that adhvara is "free from violence.” The immolation of the animal in the sacrifice is a transgression of the injunction of the Dharma Sastra, “Harm not any creature.’ To affirm that in this case there is no violence, those who interpret in the external sense explain the term adhvara as that in which there is no dhvara, violence. Now the sacrifice is described in the Veda as a Person. This one consisting in the giving away of substances, embodying a total self-sacrifice, manifesting in the being of the sacrificer, sets out to the world of Svar above in order to reach the Gods. Therefore he does the journey, adhvānam rāti, gives the path for the ascent of the sacrificer. And in such a pilgrim-sacrifice, protection from all evil, as Rakshasas and the like, from all sides, is obtained only from Agni. Hence it is said that only that sacrifice which is well-guarded by Agni reaches to the Gods.
Tr. O Agni! The pilgrim-sacrifice on every side of which thou art, that alone goes among the Gods.
agniḥ himself; devaḥ a God; devebhiḥ along with other Gods; āgamat may he come; there are four adjectives to Agni; hotā summoner of the Gods; kavikratuḥ, kavi is the term for one with bright intellect; in the Veda kavi stands for one who sees the beyond, what is beyond the objects of the senses; so does Sayana comment upon it in many places; the term kratu is explained by the ritualists either as intelligence or act (ritualist) according to the context; kratu is the unshakable Will or a determined conscious-force capable of execution ; thus the term kavikratuḥ signifies a conscious will or will-force seeing the supra-sensible; satyaḥ true in seeing, in conscious action and also in self-form, without any touch with or defilement by falsehoods, hence undeviating in activities of seeing, etc.; citraśravastamaḥ, srava means fame and it is not incorrect to take it so in the external sense ; the words sravah, sravana, sruti derived from the root Śru recall the same meaning; because it is heard from all over, srava is taken to mean fame; hence here it means that the hearing, gravaḥ, of Agni is superbly (tama) citram, marvellous, manifoldly discernible.
The purport is that Lord Agni whose audition is varied and suprasensible, himself hearing, can make the seeker hear wonderful auditions.
Tr. Agni, the summoner, the Seer-Will, true and most full of richly varied listenings, may he come a God with the Gods.
Thus ends the first group in the first Chapter of the first Eighth.
anga dear; agne O Agni; dā śuse to the Yajamana who gives; tvam thou; yat that; bhadram happy good; karişyasi shalt do; tavet thine alone; tat that; satyam truth; angiraḥ O Angira, Agni of this appellation.
According to Sayana this is the sense : Agni gives wealth in the form of animals, progeny and the like to the sacrificer who has given the oblation. That is the good expressed by the term bhadra. With the instrumentation of the wealth thus obtained the sacrificer sacrifices again to Agni. That is why it is Agni’s alone.
In truth there is no disputation here. But the commentators have done a great disservice to this Mantra laden with delightful meaning in which some truth of Agni is indicated in clear expression. dāśuse to the giver, yad bhadram karişyasi what happy good thou shalt do, tat satyam that truth is thine alone tavet—this is the right and direct order.
This then is the purport. The happy good that is going to be done for the Yajamana by Agni is the truth of Agni alone. And what is that happy good which is said to be the truth of Agni only? They assert, on the strength of the utterances in the Brāhmaṇa, that progeny, animals, money, house and so on are all the happy good, bhadram. May be, progeny, animals, etc. are the good. Let us not quarrel. But there is no doubt that in the Rig Veda, bhadra signifies good, something exalted connected with Truth. In cases like, “Savitr God, send far away all calamities, send us only what is good, bhadram” (5.82.5), “Drive the evil dream away” (5.82.4), the term bhadra is used in contradistinction to the evil that follows from evil dream. If the meaning is understood in the sense that the truth of Agni is verily the happy good that ends the misfortunes resulting from false knowledge, then the use of satya as adjective to Agni in the first Rik, and here in the present Rik) the statement that such a good is the truth of Agni only, stand justified. Hence it is not some common good that is intended. The truth which is the good that opposes the false consciousness is verily the principle of Agni, his nature. All over the Veda the word bhadra is used in the sense of opposing the misfortune born of evil and false knowledge. And this is clear from the hymn to dispel the evil dream in which bhadram varam vşrute (a happy boon do they elect), etc. is chanted in opposition to Nirṛti, the deity of Sin.
In another place there occurs a Mantra meaning that those who malign the good (bhadra) are thrown into the environs of Nirriti: «Those who soil the good by their natures, may Soma give them over to Ahi, or to the lap of Nirriti consign” (10.104.9). So also is bhadra lauded as relating to the own home of Agni, the Vast Truth denoted by the word sta; as the objective to be attained by the mind and the will. “Create for us a happy mind” (4.19.20), “Send us a happy mind, and deligent will” (10: 25.1), “Awake to the right-mindedness of man’s happiest state, vast and great and happy is thy house of refuge, O Agni” (5.1.10).
It is to be thus noted that even in yielding the meaning of good, such a word occurring in the Mantra, indicates the speciality of bhadram. Even the Rik of Kutsa Angira confirms our interpretation of this Rik, yadanga dāšuşe. It says : “This is thy happy grace, that kindled in thy own abode, invoked with Soma, thou soundest forth most benign; thou givest wealth and treasure to the giver. O Agni, in thy friendship may we not suffer harm” (1.94.14). This Rik of Kutsa is to be remembered in grasping the meaning of the Mantra ahead, rājantam, etc.
Tr. Agni, the happy good that thou shalt create for the per, is the Truth of Thee alone, O Angiras.
agne, O Agni; tvā to thee; divedive day by day; doşāvastaḥ night and day; vayam we; dhiya by the thought capable of bearing; namaḥ obeisance ; bharantaḥ carrying ; upemasi we come, wait upon.
Here some take doşāvastā as Agni who covers the night by his light and doşāvastaḥ as his vocative. Actually doşā means night and it denotes darkness; vastaḥ means day and denotes light. The purport is that whether in dark or in light, in all states, every day, we wait upon you ceaselessly. evam namo bharantaḥ vayam, ’thus bearing the obeisances, we’, is apposite. The intelligence is capable of bearing the burthen of the obeisance. It is thus to be understood that for one who seeks (waits upon) Agni, the one sādhanā (means) is the intelligence rooted in meditation, day by day, ceaselessly, in a state of inner illumination or no illumination -in a word, in all conditions.
Tr. To Thee, O Agni, day by day, in the night, and in the light, we approach carrying by our thought the obeisance.
In the previous Mantra it was said, "Agni, we approach Thee.” “ Thou” of what kind ? The seer describes in three adjectival phrases: adhvatārām rājantam the master of sacrifices denoted by the term adhvara, path. journey ; ſtasya di divim gopām luminous guardian of the Truth ; sve dame vardhamānam increasing in his own home.
It is not proper to take gopām with adhvarānām when the terms yield meaning as they stand. Thought has to be bestowed upon the meaning in stasya gopāḥ (guardian of Truth), sa ca di diviḥ (and he is shining), sve dame vardhate (increases in his own home). In this one hymn itself is affirmed twice the Truth-nature of Agni by the expression satyah (Rik 5) and tavet tat satyam (Rik 6). In this Rik he is described as the guardian of Truth and as increasing in his own home. What else but Truth could be the own Home of Agni? The Truth, the Right, the Vast, alone is the abode of Agni. And his Truth, the supreme station is to be attained by the Yajamana; sacrifice is the means therefor. The one who performs is the Seer-Will, the Truth, one whose nature is the Truth, who is the guardian of Truth and whose dwelling place is the Truth : he is only Agni. In the Rik (1.75.5), Rishi Rahugana, son of Gotama, prays to Agni: “Sacrifice to Mitra and Varuna for us ; sacrifice to the other Gods; sacrifice to the Truth, the Vast, the Own Home.” From this Rik it is clear that Agni’s office of carrying out the sacrifice is not for the sake of the Yajamana only, but that the Vast Truth which is the own home of Agni is the supreme object of sacrifice. We hear the same in 3.10.2 where it is said : "Shine out guardian of the Truth, in thy own home.”
Such is the profound Mantra which has been given a commonplace meaning by the ritualist interpretation which has it thus: “The hall of sacrifice is the own home of Agni; there is Agni, who increases by consuming the ghee offering worshipped morning and evening by the practicants of Agni-sacrifice.”
Tr. Who reignest over pilgrim-sacrifices, luminous guardian of the Truth, increasing in Thy own home.
agne Agni; sa tvam such as Thou art; sūnave to the son; piteva like a father; naḥ our; sūpā yanaḥ he who is easily approachable, easy of access; bhava be; naḥ our; svastaye for good ; sacasva serve, cling to us, be contained in us.
Tr. Therefore, be easy of access to us as a father upto his son, cling to us for our happy state.
We have commented upon this hymn of Madhucchandas on Agni. In this very first hymn of the Rig Veda of ten Books, is revealed the Secret of the Veda, with a certain clarity. While commenting upon it, we have shown briefly as far as necessary, the line of high thought in the Mantras. Though in the case of certain Riks in the hymn, a ritualistic meaning can be somehow extracted, the line is not clear and straight for a ritualistic interpretation throughout. In the ritualistic interpretation a common-place meaning is brought out after a great deal of difficulty in case of words like kavikratuḥ, satyaḥ, citraśravastamaḥ, dhiyā namo bharantaḥ, sve dame vardhamānam, etc. The meaning derived by them of the Mantra ’yadanga dāśuşe’ is ridiculous in the extreme. The direct meaning is : "To him who offers to Agni what he has or what he is himself, Agni effects the happy good-denoted by the term bhadra-which eliminates the false consciousness and the misery born out of it. And the truth that is this good is founded in Agni only."
This is the argument that runs through the Mantras of the hymn, as seen through this direct opening on the Secret of the Veda. Thus, Rik by Rik:
First: God Agni himself is waited upon as the Vicar, the Ritvik, for the carrying out of the sacrifice of the Yajamana.
Second: This discipline of adoration of Agni is not something new adopted by Madhucchandas but what has come down in the tradition of the Rishis from a long past and by which Agni, the foremost of the Gods, brings the other Gods.
Third: The wealth obtained by the grace of Agni is not tainted by fear of decay like the worldly variety, but given to increase more and more.
Fourth : It is not the sacrifice performed by human effort unaided that can reach to the Gods, but only the sacrifice which is guarded in every way from all evil spirits by Agni.
Fifth: Endowed with vision and audition, wise, firm of will, Agni is the helper of the Gods.
Sixth: The giving of the special good which lies in Truth-Consciousness as opposed to the False is the truth of Agni.
Seventh : Every day, in all conditions, firm in meditation, weighted with obeisances, the Rishis wait upon Agni.
Eighth: Truth (the Vast Truth) is the own Home of Agni; there he increases for the Yajamana. That he protects.
Ninth: To such Agni who is realised or in order to realise him, does the Rishi pray with great trust: "Cling unto us like a father to the son, be easy of access to us.’
Certainly an Agni of this kind cannot be only the sacrificial fire which is but an external symbol. Neither can he be only the deity presiding over the material principle of heat. The Agni adored in this first hymn, whose prowess has been brought out by us and whose features set forth in the hymn, is truly the Truth, the Lord auspicious, our Seer-Will.
This is the Agni hymn, which gives a foretaste of the essence of the Secret of the Veda and which, in the tradition of the study of the thousand-hymned Veda, is called the epitome of all Vedic study; and it is to emphasise this feature that the ancients say: “Repeat the sūkta agnimiļe, destroyer of sin, creator of prosperity; the fruit of the study of all the Vedas is obtained thereby."
In the famous Soma sacrifice’ known as agniştoma, this hymn is recited by the Hotṛ prior to the pouring of the Soma in the morning recitation. 12
Here ends the second group in the first Chapter of the first Eighth.
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