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CHAPTER XXIII

Summary of Conclusions

WE HAVE now closely scrutinised the Angirasa legend in the Rig-veda from all possible sides and in allits main symbols and are in a position to summarise firmly theconclusions we have drawn from it. As I have already said, theAngirasa legend and the Vritra mythus are the two principalparables of the Veda; they occur and recur everywhere; theyrun through the hymns as two closely connected threads of symbolic imagery, and around them all the rest of the Vedic symbolism is woven. Not that they are its central ideas, but they aretwo main pillars of this ancient structure. When we determinetheir sense, we have determined the sense of the whole Rik Sanhita. If Vritra and the waters symbolise the cloud and the rainand the gushing forth of the seven rivers of the Punjab and if theAngirasas are the bringers of the physical dawn, then the Vedais a symbolism of natural phenomena personified in the figure ofgods and Rishis and maleficent demons. If Vritra and Vala areDravidian gods and the Panis and Vritras human enemies, thenthe Veda is a poetical and legendary account of the invasion ofDravidian India by Nature-worshipping barbarians. If on theother hand this is a symbolism of the struggle between spiritualpowers of Light and Darkness, Truth and Falsehood, Knowledgeand Ignorance, Death and Immortality, then that is the real senseof the whole Veda.

We have concluded that the Angirasa Rishis are bringersof the Dawn, rescuers of the Sun out of the darkness, but thatthis Dawn, Sun, Darkness are figures used with a spiritual significance. The central conception of the Veda is the conquest of theTruth out of the darkness of Ignorance and by the conquest ofthe Truth the conquest also of Immortality. For the Vedicṛtam is a spiritual as well as a psychological conception. It isthe true being, the true consciousness, the true delight of existence

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beyond this earth of body, this mid-region of vital force,this ordinary sky or heaven of mind. We have to cross beyondall these planes in order to arrive at the higher plane of that superconscient Truth which is the own home of the gods and the foundation of Immortality. This is the world of Swar, to which theAngirasas have found the path for their posterity.

The Angirasas are at once the divine seers who assist in thecosmic and human workings of the gods and their earthly representatives, the ancient fathers who first found the wisdom ofwhich the Vedic hymns are a chant and memory and renewal inexperience. The seven divine Angirasas are sons or powers ofAgni, powers of the Seer-Will, the name of divine Force instinctwith divine knowledge which is kindled for the victory. TheBhrigus have found this Flame secret in the growths of the earthlyexistence, but the Angirasas kindle it on the altar of sacrificeand maintain the sacrifice through the periods of the sacrificialyear symbolising the periods of the divine labour by which theSun of Truth is recovered out of the darkness. Those whosacrifice for nine months of this year are Navagwas, seers of thenine cows or nine rays, who institute the search for the herds ofthe Sun and the march of Indra to battle with the Panis. Thosewho sacrifice for ten months are the Dashagwas, seers of the tenrays who enter with Indra into the cave of the Panis and recoverthe lost herds.

The sacrifice is the giving by man of what he possesses inhis being to the higher or divine nature and its fruit is the fartherenrichment of his manhood by the lavish bounty of the gods.The wealth thus gained constitutes a state of spiritual riches,prosperity, felicity which is itself a power for the journey and aforce of battle. For the sacrifice is a journey, a progression; thesacrifice itself travels led by Agni up the divine path to the godsand of this journey the ascent of the Angirasa fathers to thedivine world of Swar is the type. Their journey of the sacrificeis also a battle, for it is opposed by Panis, Vritras and otherpowers of evil and falsehood, and of this warfare the conflict ofIndra and the Angirasas with the Panis is a principal episode.

The principal features of sacrifice are the kindling of thedivine flame, the offering of the ghṛta and the Soma-wine and the

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chanting of the sacred word. By the hymn and the offering thegods are increased; they are said to be born, created or manifested in man and by their increase and greatness here theyincrease the earth and heaven, that is to say, the physical andmental existence to their utmost capacity and, exceeding these,create in their turn the higher worlds or planes. The higher existence is the divine, the infinite of which the shining Cow, the infinite Mother, Aditi, is the symbol; the lower is subject to her darkform Diti. The object of the sacrifice is to win the higher or divinebeing and possess with it and make subject to its law and truththe lower or human existence. The ghṛta of the sacrifice is theyield of the shining Cow; it is the clarity or brightness of thesolar light in the human mentality. The Soma is the immortaldelight of existence secret in the waters and the plant and pressedout for drinking by gods and men. The word is the inspiredspeech expressing the thought-illumination of the Truth whichrises out of the soul, formed in the heart, shaped by the mind.Agni growing by the ghṛta, Indra forceful with the luminousstrength and joy of the Soma and increased by the Word, aid theAngirasas to recover the herds of the Sun.

Brihaspati is the Master of the creative Word. If Agniis the supreme Angirasa, the flame from whom the Angirasasare born, Brihaspati is the one Angirasa with the seven mouths,the seven rays of the illuminative thought and the seven wordswhich express it, of whom these seers are the powers of utterance. It is the complete thought of the Truth, the seven-headed,which wins the fourth or divine world for man by winningfor him the complete spiritual wealth, object of the sacrifice.Therefore Agni, Indra, Brihaspati, Soma are all described aswinners of the herds of the Sun and destroyers of the Dasyus whoconceal and withhold them from man. Saraswati, who is thestream of the Word or inspiration of the Truth, is also a Dasyuslayer and winner of the shining herds; and they are discoveredby Sarama, forerunner of Indra, who is a solar or dawn goddessand seems to symbolise the intuitive power of the Truth. Usha,the Dawn, is at once herself a worker in the great victory and inher full advent its luminous result.

Usha is the divine Dawn, for the Sun that arises by her

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coming is the Sun of the superconscient Truth; the day he brings. is the day of the true life in the true knowledge, the night he dispels is the night of the ignorance which yet conceals the dawn inits bosom. Usha herself is the Truth, sūṇrtā, and the mother ofTruths. These truths of the divine Dawn are called her cows, hershining herds; while the forces of the Truth that accompanythem and occupy the Life are called her horses. Around thissymbol of the cows and horses much of the Vedic symbolismturns; for these are the chief elements of the riches sought byman from the gods. The cows of the Dawn have been stolen andconcealed by the demons, the lords of darkness in their nethercave of the secret subconscient. They are the illuminations ofknowledge, the thoughts of the Truth, gāvo matayaḥ, which haveto be delivered out of their imprisonment. Their release is theupsurging of the powers of the divine Dawn.

It is also the recovery of the Sun that was lying in the darkness; for it is said that the Sun, "that Truth", was the thing foundby Indra and the Angirasas in the cave of the Panis. By the rending of that cave the herds of the divine dawn which are the raysof the Sun of Truth ascend the hill of being and the Sun itselfascends to the luminous upper ocean of the divine existence, ledover it by the thinkers like a ship over the waters, till it reachesits farther shore.

The Panis who conceal the herds, the masters of the nethercavern, are a class of Dasyus who are in the Vedic symbolismset in opposition to the Aryan gods and Aryan seers and workers.The Aryan is he who does the work of sacrifice, finds the sacredword of illumination, desires the gods and increases them and isincreased by them into the largeness of the true existence; he isthe warrior of the light and the traveller to the Truth. The Dasyuis the undivine being who does no sacrifice, amasses a wealthhe cannot rightly use because he cannot speak the word or mentalise the superconscient Truth, hates the Word, the gods and thesacrifice and gives nothing of himself to the higher existences butrobs and withholds his wealth from the Aryan. He is the thief,the enemy, the wolf, the devourer, the divider, the obstructor, theconfiner. The Dasyus are powers of darkness and ignorance whooppose the seeker of truth and immortality. The gods are the

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powers of Light, the children of Infinity, forms and personalities of the one Godhead who by their help and by their growthand human workings in man raise him to the truth and theimmortality.

Thus the interpretation of the Angirasa myth gives us thekey to the whole secret of the Veda. For if the cows and horseslost by the Aryans and recovered for them by the gods, the cowsand horses of which Indra is the lord and giver and indeed himself the Cow and Horse, are not physical cattle, if these elementsof the wealth sought by the sacrifice are symbols of spiritualriches, so also must be its other elements which are always associated with them, sons, men, gold, treasure, etc. If the Cow ofwhich the ghṛta is the yield is not a physical cow but the shiningMother, then the ghṛta itself which is found in the waters and issaid to be triply secreted by the Panis in the Cow, is no physicaloffering, nor the honey-wine of Soma either which is also saidto exist in the rivers and to rise in a honeyed wave from theocean and to flow streaming up to the gods. And if these, thenalso the other offerings of the sacrifice must be symbolic; theouter sacrifice itself can be nothing but the symbol of an innergiving. And if the Angirasa Rishis are also in part symbolic orare, like the gods, semi-divine workers and helpers in the sacrifice, so also must be the Bhrigus, Atharvans, Ushana and Kutsaand others who are associated with them in their work. If theAngirasa legend and the story of the struggle with the Dasyusis a parable, so also should be the other legendary stories wefind in the Rig-veda of the help given by the gods to the Rishisagainst the demons; for these also are related in similar termsand constantly classed by the Vedic poets along with the Angirasa story as on the same footing.

Similarly if these Dasyus who refuse the gift and the sacrifice, and hate the Word and the gods and with whom the Aryansare constantly at war, these Vritras, Panis and others, are nothuman enemies but powers of darkness, falsehood and evil, thenthe whole idea of the Aryan wars and kings and nations beginsto take upon itself the aspect of spiritual symbol and apologue.Whether they are entirely so or only partly, cannot be decidedexcept by a more detailed examination which is not our present

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object. Our object is only to see whether there is a prima faciecase for the idea with which we started that the Vedic hymns arethe symbolic gospel of the ancient Indian mystics and their sensespiritual and psychological. Such a prima facie case we haveestablished; for there is already sufficient ground for seriouslyapproaching the Veda from this standpoint and interpreting itin detail as such a lyric symbolism.

Still, to make our case entirely firm it will be well to examinethe other companion legend of Vritra and the waters which wehave seen to be closely connected with that of the Angirasasand the Light. In the first place Indra the Vritra-slayer is alongwith Agni one of the two chief gods of the Vedic Pantheon andif his character and functions can be properly established, weshall have the general type of the Aryan gods fixed firmly. Secondly, the Maruts, his companions, singers of the sacred chant,are the strongest point of the naturalistic theory of Vedicworship; they are undoubtedly storm-gods and no other of thegreater Vedic deities, Agni or the Ashwins or Varuna and Mitraor Twashtri and the goddesses or even Surya the Sun or Ushathe Dawn have such a pronounced physical character. If thenthese storm-gods can be shown to have a psychological characterand symbolism, then there can be no farther doubt about the profounder sense of the Vedic religion and ritual. Finally, if Vritraand his associated demons, Shushna, Namuchi and the rest appearwhen closely scrutinised to be Dasyus in the spiritual sense andif the meaning of the heavenly waters he obstructs be more thoroughly investigated, then the consideration of the stories of theRishis and the gods and demons as parables can be proceededwith from a sure starting-point and the symbolism of the Vedicworlds brought nearer to a satisfactory interpretation.

More we cannot at present attempt; for the Vedic symbolism as worked out in the hymns is too complex in its details,too numerous in its standpoints, presents too many obscuritiesand difficulties to the interpreter in its shades and side allusionsand above all has been too much obscured by ages of oblivionand misunderstanding to be adequately dealt with in a singlework. We can only at present seek out the leading clues and layas securely as may be the right foundations.