First published in INDICA TODAY as a five part series. Links provided at the end.
PART 1
INTRODUCTION: The Word And The World
Indian Darshanas discuss grammar in enormous detail, which has a direct bearing on the explanation of the world around us. At the most fundamental level, Indian philosophy makes Consciousness (Brahman, Self) the primary entity and matter-mind, arising secondarily, appearing to stand separate from the Self. Western philosophy views matter as the primary entity, from which mind and consciousness later arise in succession. Hence, Consciousness is a primary entity in Indian traditions, while it is secondary to matter in Western traditions. Despite offering a more comprehensive explanation of numerous philosophical issues, Indian philosophies have been pushed into the realm of religious studies, while Western philosophy has received the majority of attention. The study of words has a completely different connotation in Indian traditions. The false ideas of secularism permeating Indian thinking prevent schools and colleges from teaching us this.
As Indian Darshanas hold, nouns, verbs, and all other kinds of words have four stages: the para (Brahman stage), pasyanti (incipient ideation stage), madhyama (effort for articulation stage), and vaikhari (audible stage). The first three stages surpass the comprehension of an ordinary person, engulfed in ignorance. The para stage of speech is like internal eternal light, and by its true intuition, a man attains moksha. In the world of objects, Turiya is the state of Brahman, Prajna is that of objects in their undifferentiated, unmanifest state, Taijasa is the sphere of ideated objects, and Visva is the sphere of gross physical objects. It is not difficult to see the correlation of the word to the world in Indian traditions.
The madhyama stage wherein meanings of words appear in the mind and the vaikhari stage wherein they appear as manifest objects – is the key to grasp the relation between mind and matter. Vivarta-vada of Advaita explains the paradoxical relationship between them. Vivarta indicates the emergence of an effect from a cause without there being any transformation in the cause. It points to the pre-existence of the effect in its entirety in the cause. The apparent difference between them must belong to some paradoxical power existing in reality—this power is maya. The Self perceives the object through two different modes of cognition. For the Self, the mind is an instrument to think about the object, while the sense organs are instruments for perception of the object. Therefore, mind and matter are the same thing, one appearing as thought and the other as a worldly object. Maya is responsible for the disparate perception of the same object across the two distinct modes of cognition.
In the Indian tradition, therefore, there is rejection of the idea of language having a physical substrate. Instead, language is coterminous with Consciousness, the Ground of the Universe. At its most primal level—the speech stage of Para or the object stage of Turiya—it is luminous and the same with Brahman. Grammar, too, can be a route to salvation in Indian traditions!
According to Chittaranjan Naik’s detailed explanation of these aspects in his book (Natural Realism and Contact Theory of Perception) and essay (Apaurusheyatva of the Vedas) Parmenides, the ancient Greek philosopher, and Spinoza, the recent philosopher, appear to have glimpsed something similar. However, they stand alone in Western traditions. If Consciousness or Brahman is the basis of all ontology, epistemology, and the origin of the world and the word, it is also possible that tracing the word, or any word for that matter, back to its roots through methods of Yoga described in detail in Indian traditions can lead us to the same Consciousness. In this context, the names of Gods are particularly significant because meditating on these names can provide a quicker path to the foundation of the universe, the Primary Consciousness or Brahman, and ultimately lead to achieving moksha. With the exception of some mystic sects, the Western world may not widely recognize the relevance of grammar or the names of Gods.
Sri Ram Swarup (1920–1998), arguably one of the most towering intellectuals and philosophers of modern India, demonstrates this path in his wonderful treatise. Unfortunately, the lay public remains mostly unaware of this brilliant book. Starting from the study of a simple word, he leads us by hand, in an extremely lucid journey, to the deeper meaning of the words, the idea of Gods, the unity in the meaning of Godhead, and finally a means to reach the highest state using only the name of God.
It is a supreme intellectual achievement in terms of impact, lucidity, and relevance. It is essential to read the book as if it were a sacred text, taking time to comprehend each sentence, paragraph, and chapter. The book would surely transform any individual who would perhaps stand gaping with new respect at the depth and breadth of Indian philosophy. This five-part series of essays is an abridgement, paraphrase, and summary of Sri Ram Swarup’s important book, which should hopefully inspire readers to dig deeper into the original work.
THE SPEECH-SOUNDS
Words: Pre-existing Essence or Labels
What is the source of words? Are words merely labels for already existing things, or do they represent a pre-existing essence of things named? Is onomastics, a scientific study of words, possible? These answers seem simple and self-evident. Man’s intelligence and organs of articulation make it obvious that he develops a system to express fears, attract mates, warn others, show off, and generally facilitate communication.
It appears that things come first, and their names follow later. Things are real; words are airy. We use a small portion of our speech to assign names to an even smaller portion of the world. Words almost seem to be an unfortunate accident, given that animals survive quite well without them, free from wars, propaganda, and deceptive advertisements. Just as a man may have lived with a primitive language in the past, the future may be similar, either because wars degenerate him into barbarism or because he has evolved to such an extent that imprecise words give way to precise mathematical signs and equations. Thus, we might discuss the grammar, syntax, or structure of a language, but its deeper origin and significance can only be idle speculation, as some believe.
However, words have a deep mystery and a subtle inner life. When we go behind the superficial transient appearances, words have core meanings that persist eternally. Speech and psyche are intimately connected. If there is a close connection between mind and speech, speech ceases to be an external decoration or a utilitarian tool, instead appearing to stem from an inner, psychic core. Language, no longer a collection of disparate words and signs, becomes a tree. Its different parts come out of a common root and held together in the unity of mind. Language will no longer be an accidental, arbitrary, and detachable invention of the mind but rather its indispensable expression. This difficult study necessitates patience.
The Greek Philosophers
According to Plato, knowledge of the good is hard, and names are an important part of that knowledge. Our goal is to understand how language expresses the deepest truths of the heart. Language also expressed men’s sense of mystery. In our culture, the Vedas, of course, represent this sublime inspired speech. Over time, the inspiring words have become difficult to understand. Can a study of language help us recapture the meanings of older scriptures and understand man’s deeper life and vision of God and the good?
In one of his dialogues, Plato discusses whether there is any principle of names other than agreement or whether they, by nature, have a truth to express. Socrates agrees with the second position. In the absence of a voice, communication would rely on limbs and other body parts imitating thoughts. Similarly, Socrates believes that words and vocables also subtly imitate things. Thus, letters and syllables express the essence of each thing. Socrates says that by breaking a word into its primary letters, one can see that separate vowels, consonants, and mutes (contributing nothing to the pronunciation of a word) do imitate things of nature. Elemental constituent sounds appear to have different expressive values. Socrates does not develop his suggestion further, but he restricts himself to a few examples.
As examples, Socrates (like ancient Indian thinkers) associates the sound rh (letter rho) with motion. This sound evokes a state of agitation in the tongue. Therefore, words meaning flowing, trembling, striking, crushing, breaking, bruising, crumbling, and whirling use this sound. Similarly, pronouncing the sounds represented by the letters psi, phi, sigma, and zeta requires a significant amount of breath, which is why they mimic sensations like shivering (psukhron). The sound n appears to emanate from within, implying an inward quality. Hence, we find this sound in words like endon (in, within) and entos (inside, within). Words that mean roundness contain the round o sound.
Core Sounds and Languages
Only a few thousand people speak each of two-thirds of the 3,000 languages in the world. Twelve languages (Chinese, Hindi, English, Russian, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Italian, Malayan, Portuguese, and Arabic) cover an overwhelming majority. All language groups together have no more than a thousand sounds, and the speech sounds in any language never exceed sixty.
The English language, with 26 letters, does the work of 55 phonemes (the smallest unit of sound), including 21 vowel sounds. Different languages have different phonemes. In classical Sanskrit, there are 48 articulate sounds, including 13 vowels and 35 consonants. Chinese has 39 phonetic letters, which do have equivalents in Indo-European languages.
A language does not use all 50 or 60 speech sounds equally. In the English language, the frequency of words varies as follows:
- The percentage of e, t, a, o, n, i, r, s, and h is 70%.
- The percentage of d, l, u, c, and m is 16.5 percent.
- The percentage of p, f, y, w, g, b, and v is 11.5%.
- The percentage of j, k, g, x, and z is 2 percent.
However, different letters may not coincide with different sounds in the English language. One letter may stand for several sounds, and several letters may express the same sound. These opposing tendencies may cancel each other out, and the frequency chart is broadly true of sound values.
In Sanskrit, the frequency of letters generally goes as follows:
- a, t, a, n, i, y, v, r, e, s, and m: high-frequency group. The frequency of the letter a is two and a half times that of the letter t, and it is nearly eight times that of the letter m.
- d, h, u, c, p, h, k, bh, j, n, th, s, and ai: medium-frequency group.
- dh, u, r, au: low-frequency category.
There are two kinds of sounds: vowels and consonants. The larynx primarily aids in the speech of vowel sounds. The mouth cavity above the larynx forms consonants. They can be guttural (from the back of the throat), palatal (from the palate), cerebral (from the roof of the mouth), dental (from teeth), and labial (from the lips). All manifest speech is characterised by constriction at one or more points in the breath stream.
Certain languages also associate sounds differently. For example, io may be more frequent in one language and oi in another. Some letters may appear more often at the beginning than in the middle or end of words. Sounds have many individual qualities, like hard, soft, nasal, sibilant, short, long, protracted, acute, grave, aspirated, voiced, sharp, penetrating, hissing, or deep. We can prolong all vowels and some consonants like j, m, n, r, s, and z indefinitely, but we cannot prolong sounds like b, p, t, d, k, and g. Thus, each sound has its own peculiar stress and accent.
The Socratic View and Alternatives
The Socratic view is that speech sounds are not merely physical; they represent psychic qualities and ideas that enter the making of a name. This could be an unconscious process. However, is it really possible to derive the rich vocabulary of a language from such a limited base of meanings? Speech sounds are general, while names are specific.
A cruder but more popular alternative to the Socratic view is that names are echoic; they derive from vocal imitation of the sounds associated with things and actions named. Examples include words like buzz, hiss, click, crack, and even pigeon, pipe, and chirp. The second view presents a challenge as not all objects, actions, and ideas possess sounds that are physically reproducible. Moreover, a sound appears to conform to any given fact, object, or experience. A pig is a pig because it is so dirty, as some say. But reflection would show that pig smells because of its referent, not its sound. Finally, speech is more than grunts, hums, or gnashing of teeth. These may explain words for a primitive order of life, but they do not explain words for the higher reaches of life, mind, and intellect.
Perhaps a name and its referent absorb each other’s qualities and meanings by a process of osmosis. Similar to water assuming the shape of the vessel it pours into, a sound adopts the shape, color, and smell of the object it represents (vastusa-rupyam). Socrates posits that every speech sound, regardless of its generality, carries a specific idea, and when this idea aligns with that of an object or action, it becomes a true name. For example, the word r suggests motion. Names thus come into being through unconscious wisdom.
However, there are also arguments against this position. The unchangeable meaning of r must be clear in all languages. Secondly, certain English words such as “go,” “walk,” “move,” and “jump” suggest movement, yet they incorporate different speech sounds. Similarly, a sound could enter into words meaning the same general idea, but it could also enter into words meaning quite opposite ideas. For instance, the sound r can be found in both the words “run” and “rest”. Thus, a visible correspondence between a system of speech sounds and a system of objects and ideas appears difficult. Socrates’ other suggestion was that names express the forms and essences of things. He doesn’t go into further detail, but Hindu thought may provide answers to this.
The Hindu View
According to Hindu Rishis, whenever the mind thinks of anything, it also invokes its corresponding form. All phenomenal existence is nama-rupa or names and forms. An object is merely a material representation of the more internal and essential nama. According to the science of acoustics, sounds become articulate speech as air passes through different organs of articulation. Where do the sounds reside before they acquire audibility? The only valid assumption is that these sounds exist as incipient speech and in the mind in an undifferentiated form, as inclinations or intentions. Every act of cognition invokes a mental disposition that expresses itself in some lingual form. Though this proclivity alone will not explain the birth of a word or name, it is obvious that the sound exists at a more subtle level than we ordinarily know.
Indian sages go further and enumerate four levels of speech of increasing subtlety: vaikhari, madhyama, pasyanti, and para. The vaikhari level is the one we typically recognise, with the throat serving as its seat. Behind it, and supporting it, is the madhyama vak, with its seat in the heart region. The inner ear, srutigocara, can hear it. Beyond this lie two other levels, pasyanti and para, with their seats at the navel (nabhi) and the solar plexus (muladhara), respectively. They are beyond the reach of the ordinary mind, and only Yogis can access them in a deep trance. In pasyanti, there is no sound but only meaning. In this state, the fusion of forms and sequences resembles that of a seed. Before any modifications begin, the speech in para establishes itself in its own luminous, original, and primal form. Here sound becomes silence, aSabda, and only a potentiality, avyakta.
According to Panini’s Siksa, the Self first recognises and formulates intentions through buddhi, which then inspires manas with the desire to speak. Manas then activates kayagni, the nerve force, which in turn triggers marut, the wind or breath, producing articulate sounds that are classified according to tone, time, place, and effort. The meaning of a word does not reside in this last audible fourth limb; rather, it resides in the subtlest first status of the word. In this state, the word lacks any external expression, vocal limbs, and is eternal, referred to as nitya. Indeed, in this state, the word is the origin of the world, known as jagannidanam, and it is Brahman itself. We can observe that sounds exist on two levels: the familiar level of speech and the more subtle, unmanifest level.
This could address the Socratic objection, which argues that different sounds cannot represent different specific ideas, given that all speech sounds express all kinds of ideas. At a subtle level, a sound embodies the general essence of multiple sounds simultaneously. This may explain why different words exist for the same thing, or why similar sounds can express different things and ideas. At a subtle, essential level, the sound used to express a particular object or idea remains the same, but at a gross, phenomenal level, its forms and disguises can vary from language to language, even within the same language. A race chooses one sound and develops one language rather than another according to its own genius, inclination, growth, and law of karma. Socrates did say that there is something more to a word than its syllables or outer sound but did not pursue it further.
Sounds and the Essence of Objects
How do sounds represent the attributes of things and objects? As Samkhya explicitly explains, the world derives from the mula-prakrti (nature). In its downward evolution toward manifoldness, Prakrti takes two paths.
- The Sattva path of light becomes the subjective world. This subsequently creates the antahkarana, the buddhi, the ahamkara, the manas, and the senses.
- Tamas path of darkness transforms into the objective world, the world of Tanmatras, and the five elements.
Thus, Prakrti is two-faced, one turned towards the subject and the other towards the object. However, these two are aspects of the same original reality. They leave their echo, image, and vibrations behind in each other. Thus, sound at its subtle level expresses the subtle vibrations and qualities of an object. The vaikhari sound represents the physical body of a word that is subject to change. But the subtle sound—the soundless sound in the word—represents the soul or the permanent inner meaning.
A word, however, may lose its inwardness, or it may have been invented to represent a thing’s more outward appearances and qualities. This explains Socrates’ observation that not all things are known by their true names. Our intuition that names are artificial labels is true in this sense.
HOW NEW THINGS ARE NAMED
From the Old to the New
Name-giving has been continuously taking place from ancient times till now. New experiences, things, and concepts call for new names. With a new concept or idea, we generally review our old experiences to characterise the new ones. We may use one of these words, modified appropriately, to describe the new fact while retaining the old.
‘Car’ is an old word. Celtic karr (chariot), Irish carr (cart), Latin currus (chariot), and German karre also conveys the same meaning. Therefore, people could use it to refer to carts, barrows, or chariots, as well as to describe new forms of transportation. This led to the emergence of other terms, such as career, cargo, charge, and so on.
‘Vehicle’ originates from the Sanskrit word vah, meaning ‘carry’, which in turn leads to the word vahana, meaning ‘vehicle’. It is also the root of modern words like way, waggon, envoy, and voyage. The word ‘telephone’ originates from the Greek words tele, meaning far away, and phdné, meaning voice or sound. The Greek words ‘tele’, which means ‘far off’, and ‘skopein’, which means ‘to behold’, give rise to the term ‘telescope’, which in turn relates to the Sanskrit word ‘pas’ (see). In ‘telegraph’, ‘graph’ derives from Greek graphein (to write).
The word ‘airplane’ or ‘aeroplane’ originates from two Greek words: aér, meaning ‘air’, and planos, meaning ‘wandering’, which in turn gives us the word ‘planet’ from ‘planét’ or planés, meaning a wanderer. However, it could have derived its name from any root that yields words such as ‘eagle’, ‘kite’, or ‘bird’. Some Indian dialects refer to an airplane as a cila gadi, or kite vehicle. The Greek words aér, meaning air, and nautés, meaning sailor, which derive from the word naus, meaning a ship, are the origin of the term ‘Aeronaut’. In Sanskrit, ‘nau’ also refers to a ship or boat. Astronaut derives from Latin astrum, Greek astron, and Sanskrit tar, all meaning star.
Expression of Other Factors
On a different scale, simple words evolve to express social and psychological factors—the history of nations, classes, Gods, and ideologies. It encompasses a significant amount of historical and sociological information that has been concentrated in one location. Ram Swarup gives a few examples here.
- The word ‘barter’ means the exchange of goods. Its earlier form also meant ‘to cheat’, ‘to beguile’, ‘to betray’. The word conveys the profound human experience that an exchange can serve as a vehicle for significant deception.
- ‘Exploit’ originally had a good sense of ‘to achieve’ or ‘to act with effect’. In the last century, the word has acquired another meaning, ‘to utilise for selfish purposes’.
- ‘Capital’, of Latin origin, initially meant wealth, stock, worth, or property. In the pre-industrial age, capital mainly meant property in land, animals, and even slaves.
- Capital gave rise to a doublet, ‘cattle’, and ‘chattel’, which developed these senses more fully.
- ‘Cattle’ originally referred to property in general, but it later began to refer specifically to property in bovine animals.
- The term ‘chattel’ has taken on the additional meaning of a slave or a bondsman. Today, capital fulfils some of its old functions, implying control over factors of production (soil, nature, or fellow men).
- ‘Slave’ is derived from Slavs, the Slavonic peoples of Central Europe who were captured and made bondsmen. Previously, it was associated with the Russian word slava, signifying glory and fame. Thus, the word, which once signified glory, fame, and intelligence, now represents servitude.
- ‘Slave’ also gave the word ‘serf’. Originally, ‘serf’ referred to a slave in general (Latin seruus), but during mediaeval times, it acquired the specific feudal meaning of a bonded servant.
- The word ‘proletariat’ derives from Latin proletarius, a member of the lowest class but useful for producing children (proles, progeny) for the state for military purposes.
- ‘Gentleman’ means a man of noble and generous character. The Latin word gentilis, which denotes belonging to the same clan (Sanskrit jan, to beget), is the source of the word. With the passage of time, the word acquired a class significance. Later it acquired a legal definition for only those entitled to bear arms. But under the influence of new equalitarian concepts, it signifies all male members of any social class or condition. It has also come to mean, jocularly, a man without means of livelihood, a gentleman at large.
- In India, we used the term ‘Sahib’ for both European rulers and our own upper class. It is an Arabic word that originally meant ‘companion’. However, when the Arabs became imperial rulers, the word began to mean ‘master’, a meaning it still retains today.
- The Spanish word camarada, which refers to a cabinmate, tent sharer, or companion, is the source of the word ‘comrade’. Initially, the Communist parties used the term to refer to equals engaged in struggle. But as the power equation changed and the rebels became rulers, it came to mean something like ‘lord’ or ‘ruler’ to the common people.
- ‘Minister’ originates from Latin and has been used to refer to various roles such as a servant, a religious cult assistant, a public officer, and the head of a political department. In India, ‘minister’ now refers to a position of great importance and privilege. There is nothing self-effacing and humble about a word what it originally meant.
Branching Out and Growth of Words
The aforementioned examples don’t invent a brand-new word to describe a novel fact or object. A word sometimes suffers contractions or expansions in meaning. Sometimes, it acquires a more abstract and general meaning. Sometimes words from the same root bifurcate in different directions. Sometimes two words of different origins may mean the same thing, but one might be dropped or both retained with different shades of meaning.
For example, ‘shop’ in England meant a small retail establishment. In America, the word ‘store’ replaced this meaning. ‘Shop’ itself began to mean a ‘factory’. The term merchant’ originates from the Latin word mercari, which means to barter, and eventually evolved to refer to a trader. America retained this sense, while England restricted the word to refer to a wholesale trader, particularly when dealing with foreign countries. In England, the word ‘corn’ referred to grain in general, particularly wheat, but when it migrated to America, it began to mean maize’ instead. The terms ‘sick’ and ‘ill’ share a common meaning. However, the English prefer the term ‘ill,’ which originates in Scandinavia, while the Americans continue to use the more common ‘sick.’
We retain words that have the same meaning but come from different sources not only because they can adapt to different shades of meaning but also because of a variety of motives and social factors playing a role. The prevailing scale of preference determines the acceptance or rejection of words. In England, the genteel tend to use words such as ‘stomach’ instead of ‘belly,’ ‘domestic’ instead of ‘servant,’ ‘assist’ instead of ‘help,’ and so on.
New ideas, theories, and associations replace one word with another. For instance, some propose substituting the word ‘alms’ for philanthropy, relief, rehabilitation, or family welfare. Those who want to change their social status start by first changing their names. Barbers, undertakers, and janitors now respectively call themselves beauticians, morticians, and superintendents. Gandhiji changed the name of the untouchables and called them Harijans, people of God. Thus, a word is not a mere referent. It must refer to a thing in a particular way, responding to the ideas, ideologies, and idiosyncrasies of the age.
The process of naming also involves multiple instances of sound imitation. At a fundamental level, this process only applies to primary and basic ideas, notions, and situations. But the principle remains that the word is not merely phonetic but is semantic. Thus, a true name consists not in what it refers to but in what it means—not in what it denotes, but in what it connotes.
Objects receive names based on their most notable characteristics. Many birds and animals, including crows, pigeons, owls, and partridges, receive their names based on their cry or sound. The swiftness of a horse’s movement, not its neighing, is what gives it its name. Many etymologists connect the word to the Latin verb currere, meaning to run, which also gives us the term ‘courser’, another name for a horse. Similarly, a ‘tiger’ derives its name from the same trait, from the rapidity with which it attacks, and from its arrow-swift movement (Sanskrit tigmas, sharp, pointed; modern Persian and also Hindustani tir, an arrow). Among the birds, the hawk likely earned its name due to its habit of pillaging and plundering, which is derived from the ancient meaning of havoc, which probably originated from the verb heave, which means to lift or seize. The bird ‘plover’ arrives with the rainy season; it derives its name from this fact (Latin pluvia, rain).
An object’s first name may be imitative, but it can inspire other names. The cry pi-pi, for example, may give us the word pigeon, but it also becomes the base of new names. It characterises new ideas in a nonechoic manner. This gives us words like ‘pigeon-hearted’, ‘pigeon-livered’, and ‘pigeon hole.’ Similarly, the echoic ‘crow’ supports other tiers of meaning. It also means ‘to gloat’, ‘to exult’. In phrases like ‘as the crow flies’, it means ‘in a straight line’. The echoic ‘garg’ and ‘gurg’ may give us the word ‘gorge’, meaning throat. ‘Garg’ probably also gives us ‘jargon’, a noise made in the throat, mere rhetoric. A language also abounds in names of general import, which derive from the names of individuals. In English, we find numerous examples such as ‘boycott’, ‘lynch’, ‘chauvinism’,’sadist’, ‘jingoism’, and so on.
In a sense, all names are conventional. A child in the process of growing receives his vocabulary from his elders who hold authority. However, it makes no difference. Even if the first name receives authority, it quickly absorbs the referent’s meaning and assumes similar qualities in the future. The fundamental semantic process now works through the conventional name.
Naming is complicated and psychological, operating at a subconscious level. Ordinarily, the mind thinks like this: A mosquito is so named because it is so inconsequential; or an elephant is so named because it is so huge and majestic, realising little that the elephant derives its name not from the hugeness of its body but from its ivory tusk. But even then, the mind’s instinct is right. The word ‘elephantine’ conveys a semantic relationship between an elephant’s massiveness and enormous size.
The process of naming may also be too forced or fanciful; it may not be in keeping with the deeper wisdom of the mind. Such derived names may temporarily gain popularity, but they will eventually fade away. Aldous Huxley made a verb out of a proper noun from a novel, Madame Bovary. ‘To bovarise’ means to believe that one is different from what one really is. The word failed to catch. Sometimes, certain names and thoughts go out of fashion because they do not agree with the ruling passion and ideology of the age. When the heart loses sympathy or the mind loses vision, words also lose their innerness and contract in meaning. Through a certain shift in consciousness or in the gravity of life, even good and honorable words may become false—words of courtesy and consideration may become words of mere insincere politeness; words of righteousness may become words of self-righteousness; and words may be used not to express but to conceal thought.
In the next part, we shall see how Sri Ram Swarup discusses the development of of language in terms of synonyms and multiple meanings develop from the roots of the word.
PART 2
In the first part, we saw the general characteristics of language and how words signify deeper truths and meanings. In the second part, we shall see how Sri Ram Swarup develops the idea of roots, synonyms, and multiple meanings in the evolution of language.
ROOTS
Etymological Roots and Seed Sounds
Etymology is the study of word origins, language transmission, and sound shift laws. Etymology reveals that words often consist of several component parts. Different languages transmit the root word, which is the basic core part. Etymology studies these root-words and cognate (similar) words. It also studies etymons (earlier forms of a word), morphemes (a meaningful and further indivisible morphological unit), vocables (utterances or writing fixed in a culture), phonetics, and meanings across time and space.
Words become parts of a family, brothers and sisters, cousins, and in-laws. When the generations that speak a particular language die, words stay, and their meanings stay with them. In population dispersions, the deeper, unconscious part of the words preserves old memories.
A word often consists of several limbs, some of which are more essential than others. The most vital parts are the radical root and its core sound. This radical root takes on many forms, enters into different combinations, and transmits to various languages. But the essence of life resides there. We could refer to the entire rich vocabulary of the Sanskrit language as 2,000 roots. Panini gives a list of 2,343 roots, excluding the Vedic roots, which he omits. Of these, only 500 are in use today.
These roots are generally monosyllabic, consisting of only a vowel or one or two consonants combined with a vowel. Affixes, suffixes, infixes, prepositions, and compounds expand these forms, creating an edifice of half a million words. We can see the same process at work in other inflectional languages like Persian, Arabic, Greek, and Latin.
In Arabic, a simple root with two or three consonants could have hundreds of derivatives. For example, the root ktb, meaning to write, gives kitab (book), katib (writer), maktub (letter), maktab (office), kutab (primary school), and so on. The Persian language is also inflectional (modifiable) in character. A root like guftan, to speak, gives guftah (that which has been said), guft (saying), guftagu (mutual talk), guftani (worth saying), and so on.
Despite being a Germanic language, the vocabulary of English heavily borrows from Latin and French. Many of its words are inflectional in character, though this is not widely realized. For instance, in the Sanskrit language, the verbal root da, meaning to give, gives rise to the words dana (giving), praddna (gift), abhidana (bestowing for a purpose), and so on. Similarly, in English, words such as donation, endowment, dowry, anecdote, and data originate from the same root. But English is tending to become, at least in its names, nomenclature, and word-formations, an isolating type of language. People tend to forget their interconnections, family relationships, history, and growth.
An average English-knowing man may still see that prefixes and suffixes have gone into the making of such words as im-possible, il-legal, al-mighty. However, few people would guess that words like “af-fair,” “am-brosia,” and “an-oint” are actually combinations of words and prepositions. Similarly, who could guess that the following words, pend-ent, pend-ul-um, pens-ible, and dis-pense, share a common root, Latin pendére, meaning to hang, and are allied to a still older Sanskrit spand, meaning to vibrate? Similar to the Sanskrit language, the Greek and Latin languages also attach prepositions and affixes to basic roots and words, resulting in compound words with altered meanings.
The Unity of Words
Verbs, nouns, and adjectives are distinct only grammatically. In thought, they melt into one another. Behind seemingly dissimilar words, we find a syllable, a nucleus, that endures through various changes in the outer structure. For instance, the Sanskrit root stha transforms into words such as sthala (place, firm land, tableland), sthanu (stationary, firm), sthana (place, position, posture), and so on. Prefixes to the root give another order of words with modified meanings like adhi-stha (to dwell), anu-stha (to perform), and ava-stha (to stand still).
Other Indo-Aryan languages also use this word, albeit with slight variations due to sound shifting. In Greek, the word is histasthai, which means to stand; in Latin, it is stare, and in German, it is stehen. The original root influences modern English words like “stand,” “state,” “station,” “stationary,” “statue,” “apostasy,” and so on.
The Sanskrit root bhi has given us hundreds of words, like bhava (existence), bhavana (abode, mansion), bhiiti (existence, might, prosperity), and so on. The addition of certain prefixes has given other words like pra-bhu (excelling, mighty, lord), pra-bhava (might, power, majesty), pari-bhava (insult, disgrace, injury, contempt), etc. The Greek form of this root is phynai (to be borne by nature) and phyein (to bring forth). The English language has derived words such as physic, physics, physiology, and physician from this root.
There are numerous examples that demonstrate the unity of words across seemingly dissimilar languages. The roots provide a common thread. Once we choose a specific sound or syllable to represent a specific seed-idea, or action, the rest of the process becomes relatively clear. A seed-syllable raises a family of words that may appear to be unrelated. For example, what is there in common between a statue, stall, statistics, and apostasy? The many examples show that a word is a living thing. It grows and unfolds its meanings in a hundred directions. The process is unconscious, yet upon closer examination, it is truly intelligent and wise.
Words establish a shared understanding of the fundamental concept. The terms “dip,” “deep,” “dive,” and “dove” serve as examples. Their shared root-syllable origin highlights this relationship. Similarly, in Sanskrit, we have the words ratha (chariot), rathin (charioteer), and rathyd (carriage, highway), illustrating the same principle. In Sanskrit, one word for a tree is vrksa. Some derive it from the root brh, which means both to tear, pluck, and also grow; others connect it with the root vrasc, to cut down, hew.
Similar to words like erosion and corrosion, the word ‘rat’ also derives from the Latin rodere, to gnaw. This likely stems from the Sanskrit word rad, which means to bite or scratch, and gives rise to the word rada, which refers to a tooth. Another name for a rat is mu=s+ika or mu=s+a in Sanskrit. The verbal root mis, which means to steal, is the source of this term. This verbal root also gives us the Greek mus, Latin mis, Swedish mus, Russian muish, German maus, and the English word mouse. The mouse has contributed to the creation of several other words, including the word “muscle.” A muscle must have looked like a little mouse (Latin musculus) to the name givers.
Development from the Root to the Word
A word does not merely develop the meaning of its root. Association with other words of similar sound or import modifies its meanings. For instance, the word “surround” originates from the Latin word undare, which means to flow, or the Sanskrit word und, which means a wave. Latin unda, a wave, had the sense of ‘overflowing’, ‘plentiful’. These two senses permeate all words such as abundant, redundant, abound, and surround, which are derived from the Latin word undare. Although the primary meaning of the word ‘surround’ was ‘overflowing’, its association with the word ’round’, which has a quite different derivation, has modified its meaning. Therefore, the term “surround” now refers to the act of enveloping, encompassing, rather than abounding.
The meaning of a root syllable is broad and protean, capable of many applications. Sometimes a stem gives rise to words that develop their various potential meanings; at other times, a single word must adapt and express the multiple meanings of its root. For instance, consider the words ‘satisfactory’, ‘sate’, ‘sate’, and ‘satiate’. All are derived from the Latin sat, satis (enough), satur (full); but while the ‘enough’ of a thing could ‘satisfy’ one, it could ‘sate’ another. Therefore, the same stem yields two words, each expressing a different possibility within the mind. Satiation makes for weariness, tiredness, and eventual sadness. Even though these meanings seem contradictory, these words originate from the same root.
These two senses, higher and lower, appear to be inherent in the meaning of any stem. The word ‘morose’ derives from the Latin morosus, self-willed. In a positive sense, it meant scrupulous; in a lower sense, it meant peevish. The word ‘moral’, like the word ‘morose’, derives from the same source, Latin mor from mos, custom, will. ‘Moral’ now means ethical behaviour, while morose, from the same source, means someone sullen and gloomy. Of the two senses inherent in a stem, sometimes one age develops one sense, another age develops another sense.
In any case, a word typically carries multiple inherent meanings within its stem. Sometimes we drop one meaning and take up another, or place one in the background and place another in the forefront. The word ‘cavalier’ derives from Latin caballus, a horse, and means a horseman. In its higher sense, it meant a gallant, chivalrous person. But it also means a debonair, one given to off-hand dismissal of men and matters. The word ‘chivalrous’ too had the same two senses. It derives from Old French cheval, a horse, and meant a mounted man-at-arms. Then it came to describe his qualities of martial valour and knightly skill. Later on, it began to describe a specific social class of distinguished gentlemen.
Words Carrying Psychological and Deeper Connections
In addition to words with a historical background, there are also words that express deeper moral truths without a historical context. For example, the word ‘virtue’ has a Sanskrit ancestor, “vira,” meaning brave. The Latin word uir, meaning man, or uirtis, meaning manly, is its immediate source. Subsequently, it evolved to signify virtue in the contemporary context of ‘excellence’ and ‘goodness’. Convention does not join these meanings, but a psychic force, an inner nuclear pull, and an inner spiritual appropriateness do. A word carries inherent meanings, some of which manifest while others remain in their seed form.
These meanings are consistent even when two distinct words from different languages originate from different roots. For instance, the word ‘beauty’ originates from the Latin word ‘bellus’, meaning handsome, fine, and fair. However, bellus itself is a specific variant of the word bonus, which means good. Bonus in turn connects beauty to ‘bounty’ through bonitas. Some people also associate these concepts with the Vedic Duvas of honour, reverence, worship, and gift. Thus, the unconscious wisdom of the mind sees a connection between beauty, goodness, and liberality.
‘Glad’ typically connotes cheerfulness and happiness, but its original Anglo-Saxon connotation was ‘shining,’ ‘bright’. The old Germanic form ‘glatt‘ also denoted smoothness and evenness. It also shares a Scandinavian connection with the word ‘glade’, meaning an open space within a wooded area. The mind has perceived a link between joy, light, and space. In Sanskrit, the words Prasanna and Prasada, both derived from the root pra-sad, bear a psychological resemblance to the aforementioned concepts rather than etymological ones. The word Pra-sad means to sit down, to settle down, to grow clear and bright, and to become satisfied. In these concepts, the flow from one meaning to another is fairly obvious. Some words, particularly in the higher realm, have the ability to unite even seemingly opposite concepts. For instance, Hindus apply both the auspicious “Siva” and the terrible “Rudra” to the same God.
Thus, in conclusion, words develop from root syllables and branch off into several pathways. During their development, they incorporate new historical experiences, which in turn shape the seed meanings of the seed syllables. A stem could develop in hundreds of directions, but a language develops only some of its possibilities. One language develops one possibility; another language develops another. One language may lose the memory of its ancestry, while words in a sister language may retain it. All these factors—sound shifts, developments of seed-syllables in different directions, changed meanings under new circumstances, forgetfulness of original forms—contribute to making a new language out of an old one.
SYNONYMS
Is a name a mere label, or does it express in some way the truth of its object? The study of history and the process of naming reveals that, whenever a new thing needed a name, an old, functionally related word designated it. The study of the history of words led us to the study of the roots in which their root meanings reside. A vocabulary as a whole is built upon the foundation of a thousand or two thousand seed words. There is nothing arbitrary in the birth of those words. Those words developed the multiple meanings inherent in the seed word.
The majority of words in a language are explained by them. As these words unfold themselves, they express the nature and attributes of their objects and bring out their mutual relationships. But are these enough explanations? For instance, even if the English word ‘dog’ suffices, does it serve as more than just a label for a specific object, given that the same object could be equally well-indicated by words that differ in sound? Will it be satisfactory to say that words in different languages embodying different speech sounds express the same subtle sound conveying the same object—the dog?
Common Source of Words in Different languages
Any object invokes more than one suggestion and one idea. No object is simple enough to be conveyed only by one root word. Therefore, generally, a language has several words to describe several ideas suggested by the same object. Also, one language may develop one suggestion; another language may develop another suggestion. This could explain the existence of different words in different languages, as well as multiple words within the same language.
For example, a river evokes many images and thus many names. In Sanskrit, its various names are nimnaga (moving and going down); samudraga (joining the sea); and tarangini (full of waves). The roaring sound nada and nadi, from a Sanskrit root nad, means to thunder, to roar, to cry. The word sindhu originates from the root sidh, which means to go, and it develops the idea of movement. In English, the word ‘river’ originates from the verb ‘rive’, which means to split or tear, but it lacks a specific name for a river, thereby suggesting a ‘roaring noise’. The word ‘stream’, which originates from the Greek word rhein, conveys the idea of ‘flowing’. The Sanskrit word sru, which means to flow, has its ancestral form, srotas. Besides ‘river,’ the verb ‘rive’ also gives us the words ‘rift’ and ‘rifle.’ Similarly, the root sru provides us with the words “stream” and “rhythm,” which refer to harmonious movements. It also gives us the words ‘rheum’, discharge from the lungs or nostrils, ‘catarrh’, and ‘diarrhoea.’ Etymologically speaking, ‘river’ belongs to the family of ‘rift’ and ‘rifle’; and ‘stream’ to that of ‘rhythm’, ‘catarrh’, ‘rheum’, and ‘diarrhoea.’
Let us take a few ordinary objects like fire and water and see what kind of names they have given birth to in some of the languages of the Indo-European family. ‘Fire’ evokes multiple ideas, suggestions, and emotions. It glows; it shines; it blazes; it heats; it cooks; and so on. In Sanskrit, it has many names. Sanskrit names it anala (from the root an, to breathe), agni (from the root ag, to move tortuously), tejas (from the root tij, sharp), and so on. The physical qualities become psychic and spiritual attributes. “Arcismat” does not merely mean resplendent; it becomes the name of one of the ten stages through which a Buddha must pass before becoming a Buddha. The Sanskrit root pu, which means to purify, originally derived the English word ‘fire’. In Sanskrit, the root has given us the word pavaka, which purifies—another name for fire. The Greek word was pyr, German feuer, Danish, and Swedish jyr.
The root pi gave us the words ‘pure’ and ‘fire’; ‘fire’ in its turn provided us the word ‘fiery’. Despite their apparent differences, the same object suggests all three words. These ideas are physical and basic and are found in all the languages, but psychological ideas based on them are differently treated in different languages and at different times.
Fire warms. The English word ‘thermal’ carries this sense, originating from the Greek word ‘thermos’, meaning hot, or the Latin word ‘formus’, meaning warm, hot. Some people also ultimately derive the word ‘thermal’ from the Sanskrit word gharma, which means heat or warmth. Fire’s suggestion of heat has given rise to a unique set of words. In English, these words are calory, caldron, cauldron, and calefaction. The word “calory” originates from the Latin word “calére,” which means “to be hot,” and also gives rise to the term “caldaria,” which refers to a hot bath.
‘Estuary’ means a water passage where the tide meets a river current, especially an arm of the sea at the lower end of a river. The word ‘estuary’ originates from the Latin word ‘aestus‘, which means ‘boiling’ or ‘tide’, and shares similarities with the Greek word ‘aestas‘, which means ‘summer’, and their Sanskrit ancestor ‘indh‘, which means ‘to kindle’. A river current generates heat or warmth when it meets the sea tide. Perhaps the term “estuary” originated from this concept. Sanskrit has another word, agni, the most common name for fire. Its Lithuanian equivalent is ugnis, and in Slav it is ogni. In English, this gives indirectly the word ignition, derived from Latin ignis. We no longer use Ingle, the Celtic name for fire.
For another example, consider the common yet significant object that the word ‘water’ represents. In Sanskrit, there are many words for it, like vari, jala, udaka, toyam, apa, nira, ambhas, and paniyam. The words must have originated from a variety of sources and evolved into distinct concepts inspired by water or its various forms. One language developed one sense; another dropped it altogether. One language formed a word to develop a particular suggestion of the object; another language borrowed it as a mere designation to indicate that object in a general way.
Sanskrit word var or vari means water, also giving us the word varsa, rain. Vari still means water in Sanskrit, as it did long ago. But in English, it retains that connected sense only in a disguised form, as in the word ‘urine’, itself derived from the Latin zrina and Greek ouron. The Anglo-Saxon word is waer, meaning the sea. The Icelandic words are ar, drizzling rain, and ver, the sea. Thus, we can observe how the senses shift, yet the overall meaning stays consistent. We derive the Sanskrit word udaka from the root und or ud, which means to flow out, to wet, or to bathe. The meaning of udaka is similar to that of English water, Swedish vatten, Old Norse vatn, Russian voda and vodka (water and little water), Greek hudor, and Latin unds.
We can now better understand why the object “dog” has multiple names in different languages, as well as multiple names within the same language. We often forget the origin of the word dog, yet it has spawned another word, doggedness, which symbolises the tenacity and obstinacy that a dog embodies. Sanskrit has many names for dogs—bhasaka, ratri jagara, vakra puccha, kukkura, etc. Latin canis meant a dog, and it had a particular reference to the family (canidae), which included dogs, wolves, jackals, and foxes. It has contributed words like “canine,” “kennel,” and even “cynic” and “cynosure” to the English language. Latin canis is a variation of the Sanskrit svan. The purpose of different names was to develop different senses of a thing. Only later did time erode some of these distinctions.
Words and Thought: United In Essence
Not only can an object evoke a variety of suggestions and ideas, but a wide range of objects, experiences, and situations can also evoke the same idea. This provides a new point of unity between different objects on the one hand and their names on the other. For instance, the terms menace, danger, threat, hazard, risk, and peril have similar meanings, despite their unique nuances. However, diverse circumstances have called for their use. The word ‘menace’ originates from the Latin verb éminére, which means to jut out or project.
‘Danger’ is from Latin dominus, master; ‘Dangerous’ in Mediaeval English meant ‘haughty’ (like a master) and hence difficult and likely to inflict injury. The word ‘threat’ originates from its ancestral Anglo-Saxon form, which refers to a threat, a crowd, a throng of people, or overcrowding. The original meaning of the word ‘hazard’ was a game of chance played with dice from an Arabic word al-zahr, the die; this gave us the Spanish word azar, unlucky throw (at cards, etc.), unforeseen disaster.
‘Coward’, ‘pusillanimous’, ‘effeminate’, ‘timid’, and ‘timorous’, broadly mean the same, but the situations that invoke it are different. The figure of an animal dropping its tail suggested the word ‘coward’. The Old French word coe, which means tail (Italian coda), and the suffix ard combine to form the word. ‘Pusillanimous’ derives from Latin pusillus, very small, and L. animus, mind, soul. Therefore, pusillanimous refers to a person who exhibits behavior akin to a small mind. Concepts such as lack of courage, lack of resolve, and contemptible timidity arose from this.
Words like ‘heavy’, ‘weighty’, and ‘ponderous’ have a similarity of meaning, though they come from different experiences. ‘Heavy’ is that which is difficult to heave. The term ‘Weighty’ originates from the Old English word wegan, which signifies difficulty in carrying; it shares similarities with the Latin word uehere, which means to carry or transport, and the even older Sanskrit word vah, which means to move or carry. The Latin word ponderare, which means to weigh, is the source of the word ‘ponderous’, which refers to something weighty or unwieldy and gives us the word ‘pound’, a unit of measurement for weight.
Thus, outside objects could vary, but the corresponding basic experience could remain the same. This fact has important implications. Do these common qualities of experience belong to things or to thought? Are thought and its objects truly as exclusive and separate as we perceive them to be? Another implication is that a particular language is not the mere product of a particular environment, economic system, or social culture. Nations and races that belong to different social systems, levels of culture, and environments are not necessarily different in their basic life experiences. Thus, despite their apparent dissimilarity, many objects and names with different etymological origins come together in a shared experience.
MULTIPLE LEVELS OF MEANINGS AND THEIR UNDERLYING UNITY
A word has multiple meanings through various channels. The meanings of a word also exist in different layers and modes. The primary physical and sensuous meanings support a secondary and tertiary layer of psychological or intellectual meanings. This does not imply that the physical meanings are basic and the psychological and intellectual meanings are derivatives. This is simply based on a specific viewpoint.
Burning, heating, and shining possess certain physical qualities that are easily associated with fire. However, they also connect to psychological and moral concepts, such as energy, eagerness, and vigor. Similarly, water suggests the more physical ideas of moistening, sprinkling, and soaking; it also refers to concrete things like a stream or an ocean. However, phrases like “make one’s mouth water” and “keep one’s head above water” convey more meaning. An ocean can stand for many ideas: an unsurmountable obstacle, something that divides, unplumbed depths, infinity, the principle of life, and immortality. The word ‘stone’ denotes not merely a mineral substance, but it also stands for ideas and qualities of inflexibility, obduracy, and insensitivity. Earth, or soil, denoted by the Latin word humus, gives us such larger ideas as homo, man (the earthly one), humanity, and homage. ‘Flower’ also stands for the idea of development and flourishing. Similarly, fruit conveys the idea of progeny and results.
One school says that such words (like flower) are merely names for certain physical facts and that their other non-sensuous meanings are just extensions. Another school says that they are names for larger ideas, intellectual and moral in essence; physical facts merely exemplify them on a physical plane. Which comes first? Without going into further detail, it is crucial to acknowledge the intimate relationship between the physical, psychological, and spiritual realms. A word exists simultaneously at several levels.
“Eagles do not breed doves” and “the raven does not hatch a lark” are examples of two widely different animals expressing the same truth. The phrase ‘When the fox preaches, then beware of your geese’ conveys truths that extend beyond their literal meanings. In fact, every creature, however humble—a fly, a flee, a fowl, a fish—is capable of conveying a larger truth. The same is true of the non-animal world: ‘empty vessels make much noise’.
The role of words as referents is only a minor aspect of their existence. But as they rise from mere physical status, they begin to speak and tell a worthwhile story. But the tethering of a word to a physical fact does not take away anything from its power, beauty, and independence. It lends to the words a certain discipline. It also makes these words fit for poetry. Poets use one level of experience to suggest another. They use figures of speech—figures of comparison and contrast, analogy, alliteration, metaphor, allegory, personification, parallels, and allusions. They substitute the container for the contained, the sign for the signified, the cause for the effect and vice versa. They substitute one name for another, one part for the whole, etc. This is not just a poetic license or linguistic trick. These are effective methods of expressing ideas.
Misuse of these linguistic qualities can lead to confusion. Literary writing can be clever, deceptive, and insincere. Ram Swarup specifically picks up the social sciences, which he says are even worse than literature in this respect! Jargon and pretentious terms conceal profound ignorance. However, language is an important part of man’s higher life too. If we approach a language with humility and a loving spirit, it can accelerate our understanding and unveil new dimensions of our mind and spirit. They fulfill this function by expressing the truths of reality.
The life of the Spirit penetrates the physical world. Words do not merely provide a system of signs for outside things. They express the hidden life of the mind in all its wide-ranging ramifications. And the mind does not live in a world of things, facts, and utility; it lives in a world of meaning and significance. Words importantly express the larger life of the mind and a human’s psychic and spiritual life. Words and language encompass motivations, hopes, concepts of right and wrong, life and death, love and worship, the quest for the beyond, the eternal, the infinite, and the vision of a perfected life. Language is born out of the fullness of man’s heart, and, therefore, it must express that fullness. In their characteristics of being alive, protean, and multifaced, words image the unity of mind and thought. Therefore, words do not merely indicate things; they also possess a meaning and a place in man’s thought. That is why animal names and inert objects convey morals and wisdom beyond themselves.
Is there some other way of grouping them according to their meanings, giving us a sense of unity? Roget’s Thesaurus does this for the English language, but the principle should apply to all languages. Words are not self-sufficient entities, monads, or absolutes that never meet except in confusion, as logical positivists say. Words are free wanderers, yet their freedom is lawful and guided by an inner wisdom, which provides a coherent language.
Similar to sounds, we can break down the thought structure into more fundamental elements. The Thesaurus categorizes all thoughts into six categories, further dividing these categories into twenty-four classes, each of which has a thousand sub-classes. The Thesaurus distributes most concepts based on their meanings. A word has several meanings that belong to multiple levels. Thus, a word can appear multiple times under various categories, often associated with words of different origin but with similar meanings.
For example, the first meaning of ‘elevation’ belongs to the category of space. In this context, the word ‘elevation’ also conveys concepts of linear dimension and motion. In both contexts, the word ‘elevation’ shares its meaning with numerous other words, such as ‘height’, ‘altitude’, ‘ceiling’, ’eminence’, ‘pitch’, ‘loftiness’, or ‘raising’, ‘erection’, ‘lifting’, ‘upheaval’, among others. The word also appears under the category of sentient and moral power, in association with a dozen moral qualities that go along with an “elevated” mind”—generousness, altruism, benevolence, and so on. The word also falls under the category of intellect when used in phrases such as ‘elevated style.’ Words such as bold, glowing, spiritual, pointed, and so on embody the sense of an ‘elevated style’. Therefore, the word ‘elevation’ will be akin to a thousand words having an underlying unity of thought, which itself is an expression of a deeper psychic and spiritual unity.
In the next part, we shall see how Sri Ram Swarup deals with the higher meanings of the word at the intellectual and spiritual level, rising from the physical and the worldly.
PART 3
In the previous sections, we saw how words evolve from the roorts and attain a unity of meaning that cuts across many languages. In this section, Sri Ram Swarup explores the attainment of deeper meanings of words at both the intellectual and spiritual levels.
ANTAHKARANA: INTERNAL ORGANS OF THE MIND
Words in their diversity inevitably pointed toward unity. Ordinary objects tend to yield larger meanings and become symbols of a larger reality. An inquiry into words tends to become a study of thought, of mind, and even of being. There are two ways of approaching a language: (i) from the external world and (ii) from the mind. The Western approach, stimulated by its contact with the Sanskrit language in the last century, kept to the first approach, but in India, the second approach had received its full due.
Different names in Indian thought and yoga indicate these principles. The Upanishads refer to these principles as deha (physical), prana (sensuous), manas (mental), and buddhi (intellectual). We can further reduce these principles to three: indriya (senses), manas (the organ of perception), and buddhi (intellect). These taken together are known as antahkarana, the internal organs of cognition. Joining indriya with manas, we can reduce their number to two—manas and buddhi.
The two have their own characteristic ways of approaching reality. Manas looks at an object in its materiality and particularity; buddhi as a thought, a concept, an idea. At the level of indriya and manas, one has the sense of confrontation (pratigha) and contact (sparSa); but at the level of buddhi, the objectivity is of a different kind. In its purified state, Buddhi also represents a spiritual faculty that gives deeper meaning to words. A language reflects this peculiarity and structure of the mind. The different principles of mind contribute different words to a language and also different layers of meanings to the same word.
Some are predominantly manas words; some are buddhi words. Some are names of physical objects like a table or a chair. Even at this level, there are various degrees of abstraction. As one penetrates deeper, one leaves behind individual objects of ordinary experience and enters the world of functions and structures, as in modern physical sciences. Here the names become symbols. Sensible words like ‘forces of production’ take a different direction and belong to a conceptual and intellectual order.
There is an internalising along with this generalising and conceptualising process of the mind. They become associated with our emotional and affectional mind, and thus they enter our prana-kosha (vital mind). There are other words, like “mother,” “father,” “friend,” “neighbor,” and “country,” that stand for some deep psychic qualities in the individual. In these higher meanings, motherhood, for example, is not mere viviparity, and fatherhood is not just a capacity for planting children. There are other words that apparently refer to only physical objects—plants, trees, rivers. Similarly, elements such as earth, fire, sky, and sun already exist within us. We respond to both in an intimate way.
All deeper truths of life are psychic. The experience of the outside world merely helps illumine the psyche, reminding it of its own truths. Similarly, any truth, regardless of how physical, can transform into a psychic truth. And the psyche, too, illuminates the physical. Words like non-violence, justice, and truth refer to the moral nature of man. These too are psychic truths. Words such as love, compassion, and service also originate from a similar spiritual source. In their less pure states, they still have vital content, but as the mind gets more purified, their meanings become deeper.
Some words like dama (self-restraint), yama (tranquillity), Santi (peace), dhyana (reflection), dharana (continued meditation), and samadhi (absorption) form no part of man’s experience, moral or intellectual. And yet they indicate a higher life.
The Expansion of Words
Words are based on many principles that coexist. A word simultaneously carries all the different meanings, depending on how different organs of the mind interact with the world. Thus, the mind sees an object as an individual, as a member of a class, as a symbol of something larger. A word has to stand for an object, a feeling, an idea, or the truth of the spirit. There is no word that is solely a physical referent, lacking larger intellectual and psychic meanings. Indeed, sensuous contact plays a larger role in words like table or chair, while words like friendship and justice indicate intellectual magnitudes.
Words have multiple meanings, and even the commonest words, at their most sensuous, have larger meanings. These meanings follow the structure and function of the mind. This mind peculiarity expands word meaning from particular to general, from object to quality, from concrete to abstract, and from objective to subjective. ‘Thorn,’ in its most rudimentary meaning, is a referent to a physical object. At a deeper level, the term can also refer to objects that possess similar qualities, such as nails and needles. Thus, the name of a thing becomes the name of a quality. The name could refer to a painful experience. A thorn pricks and exhibits a similar sensation to that of stinging, piercing, biting, and cutting. These all share a common quality of being “sharp.” The term ‘sharp’ is likely associated with the term ‘scrape’, which refers to the act of shaving, scratching, or eliminating a surface using a sharp tool.
The word ‘thorn’ expands from the name of a specific physical object to represent a particular characteristic sensation. This sensation, due to a shared quality with other similar sensations, gains a new membership in a larger club that includes words such as stick, stake, knife, and so on. A thorn’s sharp, piercing pain can represent any pain, distress, vexation, or irritation. Eventually, it could stand for anything that has a sting in it, which is ticklish, difficult, intricate, or challenging—a “thorny” issue. All these uses elevate the word from physical to sensual, mental, and intellectual.
Samkhya
The Samkhya philosophy, presenting these ideas more systematically, moves from the subtle to the gross. The first modification of an undifferentiated Primordial Reality (avyakta, Prakriti), more like mind than matter, is buddhi or mahat (intelligence, Vast). The latter gives birth to the principle of ahamkara (individuation or Ego). Ego bifurcates into both the spectator (mind or manas, and the senses or indriya), as well as the spectacle—the object. Thus, the perceiver and the perceived have a common matrix. If exclusive, the mind could not know its objects.
All objects of an indriya or sense meet in that indriya. The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad says that the uniting point of all forms is the eye, of all smells the nostril, of all sounds the ear. Then, all sense experiences meet in the manas. In fact, it is not the eyes that see but the manas. Different senses bring their reports to the manas, which then imposes its unity on them. While they may still retain the flavour of their origin, they become interchangeable within the manas. The term sharp’ primarily refers to a tactile experience, but it can also describe an auditory experience, as in the phrase ‘sharp notes’.
Even in their roots, some words refer to two senses and experiences: the mind and sense. For example, the Latin word sapare means both to taste as well as to discern, or to know. ‘Saporous’ belongs essentially to the sense of tongue; other derivations like ‘savant’ and ‘sapience’ refer to qualities of the mind. The Sanskrit vid, to know, has two senses, as we see in its two Greek variants—eidenai, to know, and idein, to see. In Sanskrit, the root gives us the words vidya (knowledge) and veda (the Vedas). In English, from the two senses of the same root, we have vision, view, vista, and visit, in which the sense of seeing predominates; and also, words like wisdom, in which the sense of knowing prevails.
The manas serves as the gathering and beginning point for all organs of action. Instead of saying, ‘My hands work’ or ‘My legs walk’, we refer to an entity, ‘I’, that both works and walks. The manas also unifies the receptive and expressive functions of the mind, reconciling the concepts of knowing and doing. Every piece of knowledge is also action and vice versa, and behind both action and thought is the same power of consciousness (the primordial Reality).
From Mans to Buddhi
The senses bring their data to the manas; the manas brings its data to the buddhi. The latter brings unity to the manas-data, though on a still higher plane. It raises that data from the level of perception to the level of conception and understanding. It rejects everything that is sensuous and particular and converts it into the ideal, the abstract, and the essential. Buddhi can store, communicate, and transmit them. In summary, the freedom of buddhi-knowledge does not equate to its capriciousness. In philosophical language, manas-knowledge is ‘contingent,’ but buddhi-knowledge is ‘necessary.’
Not merely an extension of manas-knowledge, Buddhi knowledge possesses a new dimension, character, and power. It gives us conceptual and rational knowledge. In this sense, it is known as reason in the West. But in Samkhya, buddhi has a still higher existence. It is a principle of direct seeing, not so much of logical inference. Words also reflect the buddhi-level of meaning. A word like “thorn,” for example, at the manas level, refers to a particular object. At the level of lower buddhi, it becomes a name of a whole class of similar objects; but at a still higher rung of buddhi, it becomes a name of an ‘idea’ (like ‘to sit upon thorns’). Thus, thorn as an idea is very different from thorn as an object, as it acquires a new independence, a richer context, and enters a larger world.
Buddhi has this independence because it sees more, while manas only see what is presented to it. For instance, every feeling has numerous bodily correlates; the buddhi recognizes this fact and harnesses it for its own liberation. To illustrate, a strong feeling of fear could make a man’s blood run cold, chill his spine, make his flesh creep, or make his hair stand on end. Since Buddhi observes all of this, it can use any of these images to convey the same feeling.
Samkhya gives us a unified and ordered theory of all knowledge and meanings. Samkhya shows how consciousness moves from the physical to the psychological and the intellectual, as well as from the intellectual to the psychological and the physical. In life, the physical or the sensuous mind comes first. Psychological and intellectual meanings are extensions of the primary meaning. But in the statement of principles, tattvas, and to a mind that has turned inward, the order is reversed. The physical and the sensuous worlds reflect inner realities; outer objects convey information about inner states of mind. They represent, in a physical and sensuous form, the ‘idea’, some universal truth of the deeper psyche and mind. The sky, to this mind, symbolizes the infinity within, a concept that can also evoke the image of the ocean, stars, or even mathematical numbers.
So, to an inward mind, words convey a different order of meanings and reveal certain truths that already live in the psyche. When the soul awakens, this seeing does not negate other meanings; on the contrary, it unites them, raises them up, and provides a new comprehension and a new perspective.
BHUMIS: LEVELS OF PURITY
Words derive their meanings from different organs of the mind that function at varying levels of purity. According to Samkhya, the organs of the mind have three qualities: tamas, rajas, and sattva, which make it dull, passionate, and pure, respectively. According to the Yogas, the mind functions at two levels (bhumis) of purity. We refer to these as kama-bhumi (the sensuous plane) and dhyana-bhumi (the contemplative plane). In kama-bhumi, the desire principle predominates. The mind binds to the lower meanings of the word. But as desire drops, one acquires increasingly more purity and enters the dhyana-bhumi, or meditative level. In this state, the mind becomes focused and ekagra, bringing to light the luminous forms of objects and unveiling their deeper meaning.
In Indian philosophical thought, we refer to all phenomenal reality as nama-rupa, which means subject and object, or thought and things. At the level of kama, both concepts are considered impure. The words belonging to kama-bhumi possess only surface meanings, which are loud and external. The sound signs attached to them are conventional.
A most lowly word is capable of having a higher meaning. The reverse is also true. The deterioration in the meanings of words like self, Brahma, God, soul, and truth is of many kinds and degrees. The words become too familiar, stereotyped, and innocuous. The spirit leaves them. Religious ideas and institutions become opiates of the people. Such is the tamasic degeneration. When people use the truths of the Spirit for self-aggrandizement and self-promotion, they undergo Rajasika deterioration. God transforms into a desire God, an ego God, or a God of a specific tribe or church, attempting to become the God of mankind through propaganda, salesmanship, crusades, proselytising, and wars.
In religious cultures, these words carry within them ego-satisfying meanings. The Roget’s Thesaurus demonstrates this in the English-speaking Christian world. ‘Revelation’, for example, arouses connected pictures of the “Word, Word of God, Scripture, Bible, etc.”; but the word ‘Pseudo-Revelation’, on the other hand, inspires the words like “Koran, Vedas, Zend-Avesta, etc.” Similarly, the term ‘Deity’ encompasses concepts such as ‘God, Lord, Jehovah, Holy Trinity’, while terms like ‘Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna’ are associated with ‘Baal, Thor, Mumbo-Jumbo, etc.’ Understandably, ‘false prophet’ is synonymous with figures such as Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, and Mahomet.
The people at Kama-Bhumi do not lack Gods, worship, a value system, or compassion, but their interpretations are ambiguous. People invoke the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity but practice colonialism, wars of liberation, mass liquidations, unequal treaties, slave labor camps, and thought control. Many religions have a strong political and ideological component. If we study religious words from this viewpoint, they provide intriguing psychological, sociological, and historical data. The different names and conceptions of Gods tell us the story of the rise and fall of different empires and cultures. The word ‘orgy’ arose from the Greek orgion, a sacred act or rite towards Bacchus and other Greek Gods. When these Gods fell before the new, rising Christian God, the word acquired a new meaning—revelry and drunkenness.
People use words that can be contentious, flattering, deceitful, hurtful, bragging, or contradictory. Even when words are not violent or offensive, they can still be inane, filled with jargon, irrelevant, and empty. Ram Swarup uses academicians and faculty members as an example! The words people use express, for most of the time, man’s essential thoughtlessness, ordinariness, triviality of interests, malice, or pride. As a result, these words lose much of their usefulness in conveying the higher life of man. Competent teachers have repeatedly warned against words that hurt and that tell nothing. The spiritual teachers celebrate ‘the mouth of a righteous man’, which they liken to a ‘well of life’. They hold that the wholesome tongue is a tree of life. The warning is against their lower meanings and outward use. Most of the time, most people do not refrain from using it.
This kind of degeneration is simple to spot. However, impurity also exists at a more sattvika level, where it mixes with the rajas and the tamas. It exists even in the thoughts and works of the poets, legislators, and philosophers. Humans rise above ordinary desires and enter a state of mind that is more imaginative and intellective. Here words become symbols and evoke unsuspected shades of meaning. They modify the meanings of other associated words. Poets best utilize the intuition of sensitive minds, even though a concrete definition is impossible. Such poets’ language best represents the finest aspects of a culture and literature. Such language raises the common folk from a vegetative existence to give them a sense of authenticity.
However, such literature, when not saved by a higher vision, becomes a substitute for reality. Many writers have taken to experimenting with hard-headed intellectuality where they explore the morbid and the sordid, the trivial and the inane in order to feel the touch of the real and to evoke the sensation of depth and solidity. However, they fail to capture the essence of reality. Another danger is that the poetic meanings have a quality of far-away suggestions and echoes of floating and ethereal forms. Many people may mistakenly interpret their subtle meanings in the ordinary sense. However, at another level, words possess more stable meanings that defy manipulation. These are spiritual meanings revealed to a mind that has attained a certain level of purity, freedom, equanimity, and self-status.
Another impurity arises when a man’s words exceed his experience. Here, no active evil is involved. However, speaking without authority can be jarring. Socrates was very sensitive to this impurity of speech in the poets, legislators, and philosophers. People speak words of wisdom without being wise; they speak brave words without being brave. They speak without feeling the words and intensities they use. They are unauthentic.
The Gita warns against flowery speech, but this is not against the scriptures but against those who approach them without adequate humility and preparation. While speaking about God, al-Ghazzali, an illustrious Muslim theologian of his time, fell silent and remained so for many months. He later explained that a voice had descended upon him, asking, “What do you know of what you are talking about?” He was literally struck dumb. The more one goes into the depths of a word and sees its hidden meanings, the quieter one becomes.
People of rajas and tamas, who do not care about the quality of their words, tend to be loquacious. On the other hand, people who have modesty, truth, and spiritual perception weigh every word. They are frugal in their speech because they know that speech is a portion of themselves. Words are holy, deserving reverence and circumspection.
Beyond this lies dhyana-bhumi or ekagra-bhumi. The mind acquires purity and one-pointedness, and desire forms begin to melt, revealing a more luminous world of objects. As meditation deepens, one discovers that the object’s light is the mind’s own. Words now refer to a reality that is more akin to mind than to matter. Samkhya postulates that it is not the eyes that see, but it is the seeing that creates the eyes, the caksu-dyatana. The purified mind moves to subtler levels of reality, and words also refer to these subtler levels. At a still deeper level of purity and impersonality, they begin to point to the unmanifest in the manifest, the non-being in the being, the imperishable in the perishable, the unspeakable and the silent in the spoken, the nameless in the name. On this bhumi, the language reaches the highest meaning, where words only heal, soothe, and bless. Words finally express the Gods within.
HIGHER MEANINGS: THEIR SECRET ABODE AND SECRET KEY
As words are capable of expressing deep meanings, they are eminently suited for expressing man’s higher life. A word is as high and deep and as shallow and outward as man’s mind. Where do these meanings reside? Why are they not so self-evident? How can they be unlocked? The Rigveda speaks of the secret name and secret words. It says that the speech, surrounded by a thousand syllables, sahasraksara, resides in the highest region of heaven, parame vyomani.
This tradition holds that a word has deep roots in our being, hiding its greater life there. The Rgveda asserts that a word exists on four levels, with three of them concealed within the heart’s cave. According to the Jewish mystic tradition too, God has a secret name that “has not been sent into the world.” What do these statements mean?
We hardly know much of anything. If this is generally true for all life and spirit, why should speech, one of their most important expressions, be an exception? This approach to speech aligns with the broader perspective of Indian thought, which views reality as existing at different levels of subtlety, ranging from the gross to the subtle. It can be likened to a seed that contains a tree, and then the tree transforms back into the seed. The above image also influences the conception of the word. One way, it’s the outermost thing; another, it’s central to man’s experience. It resides in the heart, surrounded by rings of lightning and fire.
Words encompass all the planes of existence, all the levels of experience, and they also carry the inner life. Thus, a word has several layers of meanings, the deeper layers remaining hidden from the surface mind. We could say that a word possesses three bodies, each within the other: physical, subtle, and causal. The first body encompasses the direct physical meanings of a word, as well as its secondary meanings that are accessible to ordinary minds. The subtle body contains many psychological seeds—meanings shining with a great inner intelligence. A reflective mind understands them. The third subtlest heath contains original and pure meanings, which also support all the phenomenal meanings of a word, mental or physical. This is the highest status of a word, and it remains invisible. They are accessible to the intuitive mind.
Indian thought studies the word from two main angles: as sound, Sabda, and as the object to which that sound refers, artha. Word as sound exists on several levels, like vaikhari, madhyama, and pasyanti. Vaikhari is the spoken word. In madhyama, the word becomes mental, apprehended by the inner mind. Pasyanti is a conscious principle that resides in the body of a word, acting as a knower and a shaper.
Pasyanti eliminates the distinction between the denoter and the denoted, Madhyama blurs it, and Vaikhari fully perceives it. Whether we start with the sound of a word or its object, both soon meet and become thoughts, which then become a principle of consciousness. Conventionally, we link the spoken sound and the physical meaning at the surface level. But as we go deeper, the subtle in the sound responds to the subtle in the object, both being self-formations of the same mental stuff. The Greeks, too, held similar thoughts on this subject. They also believed that a word is a sound, rooted in thought.
The meanings of a word live in the spirit and in its different organs and instruments. They live as images, concepts, thoughts, the names of Gods within, as powers, and as attributes of the self. Words mean more than the commonplace experiences of a man. People who speak a language shape it in one sense. The American language, for example, is smart, racy, scintillating, animated, and brilliant but somewhat shallow. Nor can the language of a nation rise above the vision and purity of its poets and thinkers. Shakespeare gave the English language power and eloquence by not using more than 10,000 words. The Bible has helped raise the English language morally and spiritually.
Most of the Indian languages are deep and rich. Even the most gifted individual cannot significantly contribute to these languages. But even the richest language needs constant ventilating. This is what the great Tagore did for the Bengali language. We think erroneously that a language is lived by its grammarians, journalists, writers, and poets in the ordinary sense. A language lives through its men of truth, vision, seeking, and austerity. Chandidas and Tulsidas revealed new worlds of love, devotion, and purity. In Vyasa, the language became deep like the ocean. In him, they become revelatory, veritable mantras. To read the Mahabharata is an act of deep meditation.
How do we unlock the higher meanings? The higher meanings are revealed by invoking the deeper layers of the mind through the cultivation of purity, dedication, and aspiration. A language is divine in origin. But it has picked up lower associations and connotations. Therefore, words that are filled with grand inner eloquence become spiritually dull. A word conceals its meanings and powers within itself, hidden behind numerous outer coverings. The word becomes pure as it breaks through its outer layers of images, noises, and echoes. The word merges into thought, and thought in turn merges into silence. What the word initially concealed, it now begins to reveal.
The Yogas use concentration and meditation for entering into these larger meanings of a word. When the mind learns to linger on its object for some length of time, it acquires self-concentration. Deepening meditation leaves even luminous rupa behind, ushering us into the realm of vijnana, the mind. Here there is only one reality—the reality of a universal mind. Beyond this lies the realm of the Spirit.
Meditation brings interiorization. Behind luminous forms is Godhead. The One interpenetrates the many, and the concrete finally becomes the vehicle of the abstract. The manifest reveals the Unmanifest. An inward look thus transforms even physical objects into truths of being, abodes of Gods, whereas to the outward mind, even Gods become mere physical objects and acquire merely utilitarian meanings.
The Illustration of Fire
‘Fire’, in ordinary perception, reveals only its physical forms. Under the concentrated power of meditation, fire reveals its tanmatra, its mahat form, and even its avyakta form. As we meditate on it, the ordinary fire reveals its more subtle and luminous form. Later, it reveals the more universal aspect. Fire inhabits our hearth, cooks our food, resides in our digestion, and also shines in our intelligence. It is also the energy behind our spiritual labor. It illuminates our path and coexists with the sun and eye. It is both the embodiment of God and their messenger. The Vedic Rishis worshipped this fire, which burns up all impurities and only the pure remaining. The word fire derives from a Sanskrit root pa, which means to purify.
Ordinarily, the sky refers to an outside phenomenon. But in meditation, it becomes a symbol of infinity, pervasiveness, and freedom. It becomes a power of the soul and an attribute of the Godhead. The sky is infinite and formless; it supports all forms. The infinity of the sky reconciles all contradictions. It remains motionless, moving faster than the speed of the mind. It moves—it does not move. It is far; it is near. It is within; it is without. With its psychic attributes, the sky enters the four samapattis of Buddhist yoga, which are very advanced stages of meditation. The Upanishads repeatedly mention contemplation on the sky.
One could also choose non-material objects for meditation. Buddha chose the widely common experience of suffering or pain. Meditation gives the word increasingly deeper meanings as one begins to suffer in the suffering of others. One also learns from suffering indifference, which conveys the message of a higher joy, deliverance, and freedom. Similarly, when we meditate on moral and spiritual truths like non-violence (ahimsa), truth (satya), non-stealing (asteya), celibacy (brahmacarya), non-possession (aparigraha), and so on, the meanings become increasingly profound. Meditation reveals the larger, inner truths that transcend their ordinary, egoistic meanings.
One could also choose for meditation some psychic truth embodied in one of the names, forms, aspects, or incarnations of God. Rama and Krishna are popular in India. If Krishna is the chosen deity, first one reads about Krishna’s life and his stories. Simultaneously, reflection and meditation on the name and form of Krishna start the process of a deeper understanding. Therefore, the practices of svadhyaya, sravana, kirtana (studying scriptures, listening to and singing God’s names respectively) are essential components of meditation. Once the mind stabilizes and focuses inward, it develops the ability to comprehend the righteousness of this name.
We call the deity Krsna (popular spellings ‘Krishna’) because He draws His devotees (krs) to Himself; we call Him Visnu because He surpasses (vis) all. Hari, because He steals away (hr) the hearts of His worshippers or takes out their sins; Rtadhaman, because He is the resting place (dhama) of the Law and the Truth; Sattvata, because He always abides in His true nature (sattva); Acyuta, because He never lapses (cu) from His true being; Aja, because He is unborn; Damodara, because spiritual aspirants attain to Him through self-control (dama); Govinda, because He saves the world or the Earth (gam) from sinking; Vasudeva, because He is the dwelling place (vasa) of all creatures; and so on. These are some examples that demonstrate how meditation can unlock the deeper meanings of moral and spiritual truths. Whether one meditates on physical elements or directly on moral and psychic truths, the results are the same.
In the next part, Sri Ram Swarup deals with the names of Vedic Gods and shows us how they deal with the highest philosophical truths.
PART 4
In the previous sections, we observed the evolution of words, beginning at a worldly level and gradually progressing toward the most profound philosophical meanings. In this section, Sri Ram Swarup explains the significance of the names of the Vedic Gods, which serve as illustrations of the highest spiritual truths.
VEDIC GODS: CONCRETE IMAGES
Higher meanings become names of the Gods within and the attributes of the Self. These meanings are the true objects of the mystic quest. On the terrestrial plane, the path to self-discovery lies through world discovery. A study of the most ancient and still alive Hindu religious thought, particularly its ancient Vedic expression, is important. Such a study completes our investigation into higher meanings and also throws light indirectly on the many forgotten, but related, ancient Gods of many Asian and European countries.
For various reasons, the old Gods were replaced by new ones. The persecution persists, not from theologians and religious zealots, but from staunch academicians. The latter hold that these initial Gods represented an attempt by the primitive mind to understand nature. They postulate a progressive evolutionary growth of religion culminating in Christianity and modern Europe.
The Hindu pantheon of Gods is still active, though slightly modified across time. Hindu India has a unique sense of continuity with its past, preserving its many old layers and forms. Therefore, its study may link us not only with its own past forms but also with the religious consciousness, intuitions, and forms that prevailed in the past in Europe, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, Baltic countries, Germanic and Slavic peoples, and the Middle East. The study may reveal a fundamental form of spiritual consciousness.
‘God’ today has acquired a different meaning yet retains the memories of more intuitive people. Etymologists connect this word with Gothic guth (Sanskrit Auta), which means ‘one to whom oblations are made.’ It connects us with the period when fire and nature elements like the sun and sky were living symbols of deities. In the Old Testament itself, certain hymns are considered ‘nature hymns.’ Etymologists also connect the word with the German word gotse, whose original meaning was an image or a figure.
According to Spengler, Christian propaganda transformed the old German word for God from a neutral plural to a masculine singular. God changed his gender and number after the conversion of the heathens. The Hebrew and Semitic words Elohim and El, too, are plural in origin, form, and sense. El is a common name for different deities in the Semitic world. Thus, the ancients neither excluded the plurality of Gods nor the use of images from their religious sensibility.
The Vedas, Upanishads, and Mahabharata extensively employ concrete images. Many important Gods like Surya, Agni, and Marut take their names after natural objects. The plurality of Gods expresses the spiritual consciousness of the race. The names of physical objects become the names of ideas, psychic truths, and Gods; sensuous truths become intellectual truths, which in turn become spiritual truths.
The knowledge of the senses becomes the knowledge of the manas and the buddhi. Similarly, the knowledge in the higher organs of the mind filters to the manas and the senses. Here, as we traverse the path, we meet physical forms, sound forms, vision forms, thought forms, and universal forms, all echoes of each other. We meet mantras, yantras, and icons of various efficacies and psychic qualities. Hence, the names of the most concrete things have a meaning larger than their immediate referents.
In the Vedas, words like the horse or the cow have larger meanings. The word for a horse in the Vedas is vaja (root vaj or uj). This also gives us words like ugra (mighty, strong, terrible), vajra (hard and mighty), and ojas (strength, vigour). People seek the general ideas of power, energy, swiftness, and heroism associated with the horse as boons. In the same way and by the same process, familiar objects like the sun, the moon, and the sky assumed divine forms. They expressed the light, the power, the grandeur, the beauty, the freedom, the joy, and the law of the Spirit.
Physical images never limit the presentation of the most abstract truths, as seen in the Upanishads. Here, the person in the yonder sun is the same as the person in the eye. The Upanishads use the figures of the sun, the moon, the quarters of heaven, the atmosphere, the waters, the fire, eyes, ears, nose, hands, and legs to guide us to the most secret truths.
When the mind becomes calm and the spiritual consciousness opens, things are no longer lifeless. This state infuses previously ordinary things with life, light, and consciousness. In this state, there’s no necessity to distinguish between the abstract and the concrete, as both eloquently convey the same message, mirroring each other. In this state, everything expresses the divine; everything is the seat of the divine; everything is That, including mountains, rivers, and seas.
There is a school of thought that says that the sages secured Vedic secrecy by using words that have double and triple meanings. True, the teachings are secret but unintended. Secrecy is in the nature of things. Only an elevated consciousness can reveal higher meanings. There is no planned secrecy and no linguistic trick to secure it. The path to their knowledge is through love and sacrifice. But this is a difficult path. The soul employs outer symbols to convey inner realities. The soul uses them for its own self-discovery. Every spoken word contains the unspoken, and every known word contains the unknown.
The Vedic seers made this distinction quite clear. In all the visible signs they used, they saw the invisible. They declared Soma to be an intoxicating herb to the physical mind, yet a veritable deity to the spiritual consciousness. The God Agni, too, is not ordinary fire. In fact, to the seers, the ordinary fire derives from the transcendental fire and not the other way around. The most secret knowledge pertains to Agni’s true abode, forms, and appellations. Only the pure can reveal this. In the Upanishadic language, one can see True Fire in the cave of the heart.
NAMES OF GODS: VEDIC
The Vedas heavily use concrete images to present their Gods. Also, all Gods have multiple names. The knowledge of these names is important. All spiritual traditions share a similar concept. The God of the Jews has many names. Jewish mysticism claims that in addition to being known as Bore Olam (creator of the world), Kedosh Yisrael (Holy One of Israel), and others, God also possesses a secret name, “the Great Name,” which should remain unspoken. Islam, too, admits God’s names, though it denies His forms. God is Ash Shafi, the healer, but not At-Tabib, the physician, for the Quran does not use the latter epithet. Similarly, people prefer the Arabic Allah over the Persian Khuda, even though both may have the same meaning.
Socrates proclaims the awe, mystery, and unknowability of Gods and their names but also tells us how these are ultimately the names of man’s own intentions and meanings. Hindu thought also holds that the names of Gods are names of the truths of man’s own highest Self. So, knowing the epithets of God is a form of self-knowledge. Gods and their names embody truths of the deeper Spirit, and meditation on them in turn invokes those truths.
Nature’s mighty phenomena like the earth, the sky, the sun, and the stars are not only Gods, but each one of them also bears several names. The famous Amarakosa gives 36 names for fire, 27 names for the sun, 12 names for the sun’s rays, 29 names for water, 20 names for wind, and 11 names for night. The modern man is eager to express his understanding of a concept in just one or two names. However, the ancient sages perceived familiar objects as intersections of profound spiritual truths, viewing them as images, symbols, and signs of powerful forces.
These seers were required to assign multiple names to these objects, each symbolizing the inner and larger life within them. Thus, the seers referred to Earth, which a modern person might perceive as inert soil, as the unmoving one, acala; the stable one, sthira; the boundless one, ananta; the seat of all saps and flavours, rasa; the great nurse, dhatri; the mother, mata; and so forth.
Similarly, the sun is the bright one, Bhanu, the flaming one, Arci, and the brilliant one, Arka. He warms and burns, tapana; he removes all darkness, tamopaha; he is the eyes of the world, lokalocana; he brings about all seasons and creates all time, kalakrta; he rides a chariot drawn by seven horses, representing either the seven colors of the rainbow or the seven days of the week, saptasvah, and so on.
Similarly, Fire is known by many different names.
- Pavaka because it purifies
- Sucih, because it is unsullied
- The name Anala, which comes from the verbal root an, meaning to breathe, represents a living, breathing entity.
- Krpa-nila, homed in splendour.
- Krpitayoni, having the wood for its womb
- Krsnavartani, a smoky path
- Agni, because it is serpentine.
- Dahana, because it burns, scorches, and roasts
- Visva-pati, lord of all men
- Kavi, the wise
- Ghrtahavana, because he is invoked by oblations of butter.
- Amrta, or immortal.
- Rudra because he is also terrible.
- Mahan, because he is vast
To the Vedic seers, Fire was a God and worshipped as such. Hence, the Rigveda bestows praise on Fire in its very first Sukta. The Rigveda praises Devamrtvijam, the summoner; Hotaram, the one who holds all treasures; Ratnadhdtamam, the radiant one; Rajantam, the protector of sacrifices; Adhvaranam Gopam, the illuminator of truth; and Rtasya Didivim, the sovereign lord of the sacrifices. These who have Agni as their protector will never be defeated, says the Rgveda.
But there are other Gods in Vedic literature like Indra, Pusana, and Varuna, where the symbols are purely psychic. This does not imply the elimination of all physical references. This is impossible. As the physical and spiritual are one, the physical is part of the mind’s language and understanding. One could begin with a somewhat physical or concrete symbol and then imbue it with more psychic qualities, or one could begin with a more abstract symbol and then imbue it with more physical attributes. In either case, the double processes of cross-reference and cross-fertilization are necessary. We elevate the physical and bring the divine down.
Of these psychic Gods in the Vedic literature, Indra is the most celebrated one. In the Rigveda, Indra is known by a variety of names, including ruler of the world (ifana), celebrated (srutam), mighty (mahan), invincible (astrtam), accomplisher of wonderful deeds (dasma), radiant as the sun (suracaksas), having performed a hundred sacrifices (satkratu), bestower of riches, cows, and light (Goda), powerful in action (tuvi kumin), bestower of many gifts (tuvi desna), and mighty oppressor of the enemies (tuvi badha). He is everywhere, vibhu; he is the master, prabhu; He is young, yuva; he listens attentively, Srut-karna; he has one thousand eyes, sahasraksa; he has handsome cheeks or a handsome chin, susipra; and so on.
Like Agni, Indra too has three stations. The Vedic seers say: We invoke Indra whether he comes from this earthly region, parthivat, or from the heaven above, divah, or from the vast firmament, rajasah.
The Vedic Gods are known for their important features. Each God has many or even thousand names (sahasranaman), multiple functions, and multiple forms, whether Rudra, Agni, or Indra. These forms are spiritual and mutually shared. Indra, Soma, and Visnu are wide-striding or much praised, urugdya; Indra, Agni, and Soma are fond of invocation, girvanas; and so on.
Each God is supreme in turn. Indra is the eldest, Jyestha. Agni, who is man’s messenger to the Gods, is the supreme God in his turn. The Vedas refer to him as Prathama, the first one, and Avgirastamah, the chief Angiras. Therefore, the praises and hymns bestowed upon one also apply to the others. “Indra, the bearer of the thunderbolt, also receives the excellent praises given to other divinities.”
VEDIC GODS: ONE GOD: MANY GODS: ADVAITA
This way of looking at the Godhead is disconcerting to the Western schematic mind. In the Vedic approach, there is no single God, no supreme God presiding over a multiplicity of Gods. These Gods were not jealous of each other. There is no order of seniority and precedence. It appears to be all anarchy. We cannot even call this melee a pantheon—a body of Gods, however disordered (Gk. pan+theos); rather, it is a body of demons and evil spirits, a pandemonium (pan+daimon).
The Hindus worshipped their Gods in turn with the same supreme epithets. Hence, the Vedic method was different. “Reality is one, but the wise call it by different names; they call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and Yama.” Reality is akin to an ocean sweeping across various continents, akin to a nugget of gold universal at all points, akin to a lump of sugar that remains sweet regardless of location.
The Hindus do not call their Gods either “One” or “Many.” What they worship is one reality, ekam sat, which is differently named. This Reality is everywhere—in everything, in every being. It is One and Many at the same time, and it also transcends them both. Everything is an expression—a play, an image, an echo of this reality. In Vedic literature, the question of the number of Gods was no point of dispute and agitated no mind. In Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, to a repeated question regarding the number of Gods, Yajnavalkya’s answer is first 3,306 Gods, then thirty-three, then three, then two, and then one.
There are two approaches to the concept of the Godhead. In one, God is jealous, brooking no other. In the other Vedic concept, all Gods are friends, one and equal. Western scholars have called this “henotheism,” a compound of two Greek words and meaning “towards one God.” It is supposedly a stage of progress from the polytheism of primitive tribes to the perfection of Semitic monotheism. Webster’s dictionary defines it as “the worship of one God without denying the existence of other Gods.”
The Hindu approach is neither polytheistic, henotheistic, nor monotheistic. It is Advaitic. They worship one reality—neither many Gods nor one God. This approach to God has bred a spirit of religious tolerance and freedom. Despite wars of all other kinds, ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt—all polytheistic cultures—were relatively free from religious wars. In polytheistic Rome, different sects met and built their temples and worshipped in their own way. But this freedom disappeared when Christianity, the religion of One True God, took over.
Monotheism was not always a spiritual idea, but in many cases, an ideology. Wars solidified it, which in turn sparked more wars. There were wars between different tribes, each claiming its own God to be supreme. Eventually, the winning tribe’s Gods supplanted the Gods of the defeated tribe. Diplomacy, the sword, and systematic vandalism all played their part in making a particular God supreme. The imperial needs of Rome bound the One God of Christianity from very early days. In more recent times, the Biblical God has tried to consolidate what the European arms and trade have conquered.
Though incomplete, monotheism expresses human intuition for unity and the Supreme. Religious “reformers” attempt to eliminate the multitude of Gods within a culture that worships multiple Gods. When the desire for unity is spiritual, the theology of One God is acceptable, leading the seeker to a position similar to Advaita and ekam sat. In a merely intellectual motive, God remains an outward being and not the truth of the Spirit. It does not help to reduce the number of Gods; instead, it multiplies the number of devils—especially if Christianity is a guide.
Some mediaeval Christian churches, obsessed with demons, counted six and a half million demons, while others, under the control of 72 Princes of Hell, counted 79,05,922. The latter had specific tasks: Lucifer fostered pride, Asmodeus engaged in lechery, and Belphegor indulged in sloth. The church also abounded in angels, cherubims, and seraphims organised in nine orders to battle the opposing demons.
Polytheism too is subject to the despiritualising influences of the externalising mind. The Gods lose their inner unity. In India, whenever such a phenomenon occurred, the sages attempted to restore the unity, with the Upanishads serving as one such effort. Monotheism represents man’s intuition for unity; polytheism is his urge for differentiation. If the human mind were uniform, then perhaps one God would suffice. But the powers and needs of humans are different. So only some form of polytheism can do justice alone.
One name, formula, or description cannot adequately convey the vastness of reality. We must express it through glimpses from various perspectives. A purely monotheistic unity expresses merely the intellect’s love of the uniform. Similarly, purely polytheistic Gods without any principle of unity amongst them lose their inner coherence.
The Vedic approach, probably the best, gives unity without sacrificing diversity. Delving deep into the life of the soul saves both monotheism and polytheism. In the soul, there are no distinctions between the One and the Many. The existence of God or Gods in the soul differs from their existence in the intellect. Mystics in all cultures have given monotheistic as well as polytheistic renderings of their inner lives and experiences. But one God or many Gods, purely on the intellectual plane, feeds no soul.
This deeper approach places significant emphasis on a genuine form of worship. Wherever there is sincerity, truth, and self-giving in worship, that worship goes to the true altar by whatever name we may designate it. However, worship becomes ineffective if it lacks desirelessness and incorporates elements like ego, falsehood, conceit, and deceit. The soul’s devotion, faith, austerity, and striving all belong to Him; they are His nourishment, and they can never reach a false God, despite a rival theology’s declaration to the contrary.
The problem of One or Many Gods is born of a theological mind, not of a mystic consciousness. The Yajurveda says, “Where the world is rested in one truth.” In another station of man, where the mind rules, the One and the Many, God and Matter, and God and Gods oppose each other.
Gods appear when the spiritual consciousness awakens, though in another sense they also fall away. There is a spiritual consciousness that can do without God. Buddhism, Jainism, Samkhya, Taoism, and Zen confirm the truth of this observation. When spiritual consciousness has awakened, God is “not this that people worship here,” but something more transcendental. Man’s soul embodies worship, reflecting the divine glory in everything and every symbol. Therefore, the Vedic seers worshipped Him in many forms and under many names. A true heart’s homage is taken up by That which is the secret meaning and the principle of truth in everything.
Conflict, vandalism, bigotry, persecution, and crusading accompanied the replacement of many Gods by One God in the cultural history of the world. These conflicts were very much like the ‘wars of liberation’ of today. It is difficult to say whether the replacement was enriching or impoverishing in the spiritual and cultural sense. There was a time when the old Pagan Gods inspired the best of people to acts of greatness, love, nobility, sacrifice, and heroism. We can make a pilgrimage in time to Names, Forms, and Forces that once incarnated and expressed man’s higher life.
In light of this discussion, Gods could take on a deeper spiritual significance. A more understanding approach toward their Gods of old will work for a less severe judgement about their past and their ancestors. This approach will also bridge the generational divide and alleviate the nation’s sense of rootlessness. The Gods provide an invisible link between the past and present of a nation. The peoples of Egypt, Persia, Greece, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries are no less ancient than the peoples of India, but they lost their Gods, and therefore they lost their sense of historical continuity and identity. Today, there is a spirit of revolt among Western youths against their parents’ religion. Some are seeking light in new symbols.
Africa and South America have gained political freedom; however, a recovery of a spiritual sense and ancient lost Gods would help them gain back their original culture. No people can import their own Gods and ascend spiritually under imported deities, saviours, and prophets. But one cannot revive the memory of old Gods artificially. After dwelling and meditating on them, they become vivifying forces. Nothing containing any truth is susceptible to destruction. It merely goes out of manifestation, reappearing under propitious circumstances.
The birth of many Gods will not herald the death of One God; on the other hand, it will enrich and deepen our understanding of both. For One God and Many Gods are spiritually one. Only on the conceptual plane do they stand in opposition. The controversy between “One God and Many Gods” or “My True God and Your False God” led to much spilt blood, polemics, and frayed tempers. There are still organized missions to wage war on the false Gods of the Heathens. Presently, when most theologies, whether pluralistic or monotheistic, have lost their appeal, we should be able to approach the problem in a more understanding way.
In the concluding part, Sri Ram Swarup looks at the names of post-Vedic Gods as amply demonstrated in the various sahasranamas to show how they help us attain the highest ideal of Indian culture, which is moksha, in an elegant and effective manner.
PART 5
In the previous parts, Sri Ram Swarup deals with the origin of words and their evolution, finally leading to the highest spiritual truths. In this concluding part, he deals with the names of the post-Vedic Gods, as typically seen in the various sahasranamas. He shows that by meditating on these names or even by simple repetition, a human being reaches the highest purpose of birth and the driving ideal of the culture, which is moksha. This is a state beyond birth and death characterised by an eternal and pure Existence, Awareness, and Bliss.
NAMES OF GODS: POST-VEDIC
The Vedic conception of Godhead, neither primitive nor an aberration, represented a fundamental sensibility of the psyche that influenced all subsequent developments. Over time, the idioms and the mentality of the people change. Some of the old Gods become either forgotten, less important, or remembered under different names. But continuity in the spirit of the approach persists. Newer Gods push some old Gods like Surya and Agni into the background, but they still hold significant importance. Millions of people still invoke Surya daily through the Gayatri mantra. Agni, too, is worshipped daily. Millions of people, when they first light a lamp every evening or even put on the electric light, salute it.
New Gods share the characteristics of their Vedic predecessors: plurality in form and names but unitary in essence; and interchanging psychic or physical forms. Even today, when the modes of worship have considerably changed, the names of Gods remain very important. In the Yoga of Devotion, names like Aum, Rama, Krsna, and Siva are as big as the whole reality, encompassing all the worlds and all the levels of existence.
Every God has a thousand names, whether Visnu, Siva, Ganesa, Rama, Krsna, Ganga (the Ganges), Gayatri, Sita, Kali, Durga, or Sarasvati. The author chooses by way of illustration only four deities and shows how the various names interpenetrate and embody man’s psychic truths and meanings. Of these four deities, Visnu and Siva are psychic in origin, but Surya and Ganga also have physical coordinates. Surya has a peculiar universality. He is considered non-Aryan, Aryan, Vedic, and post-Vedic. The Red Indians, the Incas, and the Mexicans, who all developed their religious cultures independently, also worshipped him. He is also a visible God, pratyaksa devata.
Whatever symbol the soul chooses, it seeks to worship through it its highest image of perfection, light, and truth. These names make each God supreme and have supreme attributes. He is the creator of the world as well as its supporting principle; therefore, the names of all the elements are His names. He is beyond time, but He is also the measure of all times; therefore, the names of the yugas, the months, and the days are His names. He is the object of all knowledge; He is also the means by which we know Him. So, in a way, all names are His names. Light and illumination are necessary attributes of a deity, and all nations and races have names of God or Gods that prominently showcase this attribute. The Scandinavians referred to their Gods as ‘Tivar’, a term that translates to ‘shining ones’ and is associated with the Sanskrit devas.
The Names of the four deities have certain unique features. Only a few examples have been cited.
- Each God is also the other.
- Siva is Visnu, Krsna, Hari (names for Visnu).
- Siva is Ravi and Bhanu, (names for Surya).
- Visnu is Siva, Aditya, Surya
- Surya is Visnu, Rudra, Skanda, Siva.
- Ganga is Vaisnavi, Parvati (consort of Siva), Durga, Laksmi (consort of Visnu).
- Each has the attributes of the supreme Godhead.
- Siva is Aja (Beginningless), Ananta (without End), Amara (Immortal)
- Visnu is Aja (Beginningless), Ananta (Endless), Atula (Peerless), Acyuta (Steadfast)
- Ganga is Visoka (without Grief), Asoka (beyond Grief), Ananda (Bliss)
- Surya is Aja (Beginningless), Ananta (Endless).
3) Each one is also the first and the highest one, and also the most esteemed.
- Siva is Adi (the Prime Source), Devadeva (Lord of Gods), Pita (Father)
- Visnu is Puratana (Ancient), Sanatana (Eternal)
- Ganga is Mata (Mother), Jyestha (the Eldest).
- Surya is Adideva (the First God), Devadeva (Lord of Gods), Mata (Mother)
4) Each combines all the opposites.
- Siva is Sat-Asat (Being: Non-being), Ksara-Aksara (Perishable: Imperishable)
- Visnu is Sat-Asat (Being: Non-being), Suksma-Sthula (Intangible: Tangible)
- Surya is Jivana-Mrtyu (Life: Death), Srasta-Samvartaka (Creator: Destroyer)
5) Each is also the source, the embodiment and the secret Self or truth of everything.
- Siva is Sarva (All), Bhava (Being, Source)
- Visnu is Prabhava (Source), Bhava (Reality), Paramatma (the Highest Self)
- Surya is Bhutasraya (the Refuge of all Beings), Suksmatma (the Subtle Self)
- Ganga is Bhava (Creator), Jagadatma (Self of the World)
6) Each is also the Gods and the Elements of Nature.
- Siva is Anila (Wind), Anala (Fire), Akasa (Sky)
- Visnu is Anila (Wind), Ravi (Sun), Anala (Fire)
- Surya is Sagara (Sea), Apa (Water), Teja (Fire)
7) Each is beyond time, yet it gives names to all the planets and all the measures of time.
- Siva is Ksana (Moment), Kala (Time), Candra (Moon), Ketu (Ketu), Rtu (Season), Kali (Kaliyuga).
- Surya is Ksapa (Night), Yama (A period of 3 hours), Ksana (Moment), Krta (Satya- yuga)
8) Each one is full of valour, vigour, and beauty.
- Siva is Ajita (Unconquered), Vijaya (Victory), Mahesvasa (Great Archer), Manovega (travelling with the Speed of the Mind)
- Visnu is Ugra (Impetuous), Jeta (Victor), Jaya (Victory), Durjaya (Unconquered)
- Ganga is Jaya (Victory), Vijaya (Victory), Taporupa (the Embodiment of Austerity), Abhirama (Pleasing)
- Surya is Jaya (Victory), Visala (the Vast)
9) They have also other qualities of knowledge, light, askesis, joy, and truthful resolve.
- Siva is Sarvajna (All-Knowing), Satyavrata (of True Resolve), Kanta (Resplendent)
- Visnu is Suci (Pure), Satyadharma (of true Law), Saha (Forbearing)
- Ganga is Vratarupa (Embodiment of Resolve), Punyagarbha (Source of Righteousness), Santa (Tranquil)
- Surya is Maitreya (Friend), Karunanvita (endowed with Compassion).
10) Each is everywhere.
- Siva is Sarvatomukha (facing All), Sarvadvara (the Universal Gate)
- Visnu is also Sarvatomukha (Facing All)
- Surya is Vigvatomukha (facing All Sides), Sarvatomukha (facing All)
- Ganga too is Visvatomukhi (facing All), Visva (All-pervading).
11) Each is also the great goal, the wide gate, the way, and the knowledge that leads to the destination.
- Siva is Nirvana (the Great Ceasing-to-be), Santi (the Great Peace), Purusa (the Spirit)
- Visnu is Sunya (the Great Void), Santi (the Great Peace), Brahma (the Highest Knowledge), Nirvana (Ceasing to-be), Veda (the Vedas), Vedanga (limbs of Vedic knowledge), Vedavit (Knower of the Vedas).
- Ganga is Yogini (Perfect in Yoga), Yogayoni (Source of Yoga), Vedavati (of the Form of the Vedas)
- Surya is Moksadvara (the Gate to Liberation), Yogin (Perfect in Yoga)
- Each is a great teacher, protector, and saviour.
- Siva is Gati (Resort), Paragati (the Supreme Resort)
- Visnu is Nistha (Perfection), Parayanam (the Last Resort), Saranam (Shelter), Niyama (Vows)
- They are also the great healers and bearers of all gifts to their worshippers. Therefore, they are loved.
- Siva is Vara (Boon), Varada (Giver of Boons), Dhanvantari (the Great Physician)
- Visnu is Jivana (Life), Prana (Breath), Tarana (the safe Passage)
- Ganga is Jivana (Life), Mahausadha (the Great Medicine), Dharmakamarthamoksada (Promoter of the Four Aims of Life—Dharma, Kama, Artha, Moksa)
- Surya is Jivana (Life), Dhanvantari (the Great Physician)
- All are equally worshipful.
- Siva is Idya (Worthy of Worship), Saranya (Shelter)
- Visnu is Manya (Esteemed), Stavya (Worthy of Praise)
- Ganga is Kamya (to be Desired), Vedya (to be Known)
- All have their seats in the secret cave of the heart and are difficult to realize.
- Siva is Guhavasi (dwelling in the Secret Cave of the Heart)
- Visnu is Durlabha (difficult to Attain), Durgama (difficult to Reach)
- Ganga is Guhavidya (Secret Science), Durlabha (difficult to Attain).
16) On the other hand, all of them are said to be easily attainable.
- Ganga is Dhyanagamyasvarupa (One who is reached through Meditation), Dharmalabhya (attainable through Dharma)
- Visnu is Sulabha (easily Attained)
- Siva is Prakasa (Manifest), Prasada (easily Pleased)
- They are also the Great Questions, the Key to all Answers, the Great Exposition of everything.
- Siva and Visnu are Kim (Who? What? The Great Question to be pondered over), Yat (the Self-Proved, the Self-Evident)
NAMES OF GODS: THEIR ATTRIBUTES
One can easily see how the Names of Gods incarnate the truths of one’s own mind, heart, and soul. But in a sense, Gods are outsiders living in the region unreached by our ordinary interests, experiences, and meanings. Therefore, the truths conveyed by the names of Gods resonate only with those minds that possess an intuitive sense of the sublime.
The names given above are only samples. The Mahabharata says that Siva has ten thousand names, out of which it gives only 1,008. In fact, when the mind opens spiritually, all names become names of Gods. Even a partial list has its importance and purpose. It tells us—though only intellectually—something about the spiritual reality. It tells us about its unity, comprehensiveness, immanence, and transcendence.
One obvious thing that the list tells us is that the Deity that is worshipped under different names is the same. This Deity or Reality is both ‘One’ and ‘Many’. This Reality casts its shadow differently, and our mind also conceives it differently. The intellect, sky, sun, moon, and fire are all distinct shadows of the same Reality. Even an ordinary thing like water has multiple names in its various forms, such as ocean, river, cloud, and so on. The way the Hindus conceptualise higher life, the Gods do not stand apart. Each represents the same Reality.
In “Lights on the Vedas,” T.V. Kapali Sastry quotes Yaska to show that the Vedic Gods are characterized by mutuality of birth and nature, sharing the same names, and signifying one another. This is due to their creation from the same substance and their representation of the same principle. The post-Vedic Gods follow the Vedic pattern.
The list of God names reveals a deep inner unity, not only between one God and another but also between the names of the same God. These names signify not only a God’s amiability but also other attributes (like power, majesty, glory, authority, dexterity, skill, strength), and even his more destructive aspects. A latter-day sentimental spirituality fought shy of developing the destructive aspect of God. Hindu spirituality developed and gave names and forms to all destructive or constructive attributes. Therefore, the deity is not only Siva and Jivana, or Auspicious and Life; it is also Mrtyu, Sarva, and Rudra, or Death, Slaughter, and Terrible.
The Godhead exists fully and indivisibly in each name and symbol. God lives in each name and symbol equally, wholly, and indivisibly; yet, in a mystical manner, He also transcends all names. This stresses God’s transcendence and his essential unknowability. Not saying what God is but saying what He is not is also knowledge of God. Asamprajnana, or the negated knowledge of God, represents a fundamental insight within the mystic tradition. St. Paul saw in Athens an altar with the inscription, “To the Unknown God.” Rather than interpreting it spiritually, he assumed that the Athenians were “superstitious.”
In Hindu thinking, the unknown does not become known that easily. God does not reside in debates, nor does He reside in a preacher’s harangues. Some of the names of Gods are Durlabha (difficult to attain), Durgama (difficult to reach), Guhya (secret), and Gabhira (deep). However, we can know Him through yoga, meditation, purity, and sacrifice. He is Dhyanagamyasvarupa (who can be reached through meditation) and Dharmalabhya (attainable through Dharma).
These two paragraphs form the crux of the book:
God has two natures: transcendent and immanent. Correspondingly, there are two methods of spiritual practice. One is the well-known method of neti-neti. This method is based on the fact that God’s nature is transcendental. He goes beyond every symbol, name, form, conception, or image. It is the worship of the unknown in the known; it is the ‘unknown God’. The other is the method of etadvaitad, This also is That. Through this method, one finds God residing wholly and indivisibly in each symbol. The world is a theophany.
God’s Names bring out clearly the two natures of the Godhead. God transcends every one of His Names; He also lives fully and indivisibly in each of them. In one Name, we must be able to see all the Names; in one God, we must be able to see all the Gods; otherwise, our knowledge of a God and His Names is not sufficient. We must also be able to see that a God exceeds all his Forms and Names, individually and collectively.
NAMES OF GODS: THEIR TRANSFORMING POWER
An attribute of the Names of Gods is their shaping and transforming power, though the author says that a full discussion is beyond the scope of the book. The discussion of the names of Gods is intimately concerned with the higher meanings of life and is, therefore, deeply human. It has also an eminently practical side. Meditation on God’s Names not only reveals their deeper meanings but also shapes us in their image. We cannot know the higher meanings without, in some measure, becoming those meanings. Thus, the Name is revelatory, appropriatory, assimilatory, and transformatory.
Man does not merely seek an interpretation of the world; he seeks a change in his being to be Godlike. The Upanishads claim that humans tend to become what they worship, invoke, aspire to, dwell with, and meditate upon. In the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, Ajatashatru tells that he who worships the Person in the yonder Sun as preeminent, as the king of all beings, himself becomes preeminent and the king of all beings. Thus, by meditating on His Name, known as Vidya, we acquire knowledge. Each Name of God is a treasure that holds within it a whole universe. One can maximize its benefits through invocation, aspiration, meditation, devotion, works, sacrifice, and purity. Each Name is a veritable mantra that becomes a power when meditated upon.
If man knew how to invoke God’s Names properly, it could elevate him individually and also have important social bearing. For example, some of the Names of Ganga are Amala, Vimala, and Nirmala, meaning Spotless, Stainless, and Pure. If we had meditated on these Names, we could not have polluted this great river, nor, in fact, any other river. Similarly, if we had meditated on the different elements of nature—the sky, the air, the water, and the earth—they would have revealed many of their secret Names, revealing their beauty and purity. How could we, then, pollute our atmosphere? The world suffers from exploitation, cruelty, and pollution because the Gods and their Names have disappeared from our lives, and we forgot to invoke the power and knowledge residing in those Names. The Gods may have receded, yet the power of aspiration, askesis, and meditation has the potential to call them back.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
A word is a sound-form that points to an object and carries its meaning. However, a word also functions as an object, as it is a perceived entity. Some words point to objects, others to words themselves. The word ‘cow’ points to a cow; the word ‘word’ points to the word itself. Thus, the word ‘Veda’ points to a string of words in a definite order and not to objects in the world. The Vedas’ subject matter consists of the meanings, which form the knowledge within them.
As Chittaranjan Naik says in the Apaurusheyatva of the Vedas:
Every major religion in the world speaks of the Word as the instrument of the creation of the universe. The Vedic religion, with the Veda as its central scripture, does not rely on the revelation of a single prophet but rather on the Eternal Word as perceived by multiple sages, known as ‘rishis’. It is a religion built entirely around the Eternal Word; that has an immense body of diverse scriptures having their seat and ground in the Eternal Word; that has its grammar and etymology derived from the Eternal Word; that has different philosophies performing different roles and functions as laid out by the Eternal Word; that has human actions, stages of life, and religious laws determined by the Eternal Word; and that has a name, Eternal Religion—Santana Dharma.
The ground for the existence of words is the all-pervading and eternal Consciousness. Consciousness holds these words as objects of knowledge, even when they do not appear as articulated speech. The existence of words is possible even without humans. Even when a person is sleeping, words continue to exist as objects of knowledge, and they do not need to manifest as sound to do so. This is like musical notes residing in the ‘unstruck’ strings of the Veena. The Brahadaranyaka Upanishad says that the entire universe is nama-rupa, or name and form. Names and forms lie in Brahman Itself, as the unmanifested and undifferentiated seeds from which manifest names and forms spring onto the stage of creation. The Upanishads emphasise that the relationship between names (words) and forms (objects) abides eternally since they exist in the field of consciousnessin an undifferentiated stage even before manifestation.
It does not matter whether the words are Vedic words or are words adopted by convention. A prior relationship that abides eternally determines the relationship between the sign and the signified, even if one chooses words arbitrarily (small child language or animal language) to represent an object. The relationship between a word and its object is also independent of individuals or conventions. Understanding the eternal nature of a conventionally chosen word and its eternal relationship to its meaning is a challenging task. Only transcendental perspectives can comprehend this. As Chittaranjan Naik explains, when a specific group of people unites to form a language-speaking community, they create a convention. Creation proceeds out of the adrshta of jivas. This adrshta is the reason the unmanifest eternal word emerges into the created world as a ‘choice’ of the language-speaking community.
Western philosophy makes “consciousness” an outcome of matter. Indian darshanas view matter as a result of primary “Consciousness.” Western epistemology defines knowledge as Justified True Belief, which runs into many problems, as the Gettier problem demonstrates. Indian epistemology views the primary Consciousness (with a capital C) as the embodiment of knowledge. Western ontology (description of reality) is based on the representation and reconstruction of all objects in the brain as images, which leads to a division of the world into an “original but unknowable noumenon” and the “constructed but knowable phenomenon.” The original reality is forever beyond the realm of consciousness’s knowledge. Indian ontology starts with Consciousness (or the Self), and perception reveals the object of the world in its true form without any transformation. There is only one Consciousness everywhere. When the layer of ignorance surrounding the embodied Self clears, it directly contacts the object, also endowed with the same Consciousness.
Western philosophy looks at words as derived completely from the experiences in the material world, while Indian traditions hold words having their primary origin in the Self, or Brahman. Finally, Western theology does not question scientific materialism and maintains a dualistic conception of God as the creator who sits separate from the world. Indian traditions, especially Advaita, have a non-dualistic conception of a Reality (also known as Consciousness, Self, Purusha, and Brahman), which is both immanent and transcendental. The final ideal in western theology appears to be an eternal life or a state of eternal heaven, whereas in Indian traditions it is moksha, a state of no further births. Given these disparate frameworks, studying Indian traditions and their mantras by western cultures is bound to inflict intense epistemic violence on Indian culture.
What do mantras, words, and names of Gods mean? University courses and a vast amount of literature in Western academia debate whether mantras are prayers (appeals to God), spells (magical practices for benefits), or both (magico-religious); its frameworks completely ignores Indian traditions and its philosophies. Indian scholars and traditions remain silent in the face of such speculations, either out of ignorance, indifference, or they are unable to generate a cognitive response using the tools of western academia. Mantras and words are names of the divine, and they are a route to reach the final state of Consciousness. The sahasranamas (thousand names) of various Gods given by our ever-benevolent and kind rishis are intended for the entire humanity, with the sole purpose of achieving the individual and collective ideal of our great culture, known as moksha. All the names describe the entire universe in all its aspects of creation, sustenance and destruction, the purpose of human life, and the means to achieve that. This wonderful book by Shri Ram Swarup shows us precisely that.
RANDOM MUSINGS 