HVK Archives: Call to understand relevance of Vedas
Call to understand relevance of Vedas - The Hindu
Posted By Ashok V Chowgule (ashokvc@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in)
28 April 1997
Title : Call to understand relevance of Vedas
Author :
Publication : The Hindu
Date : April 28, 1997
Dr. B. V. Raman, editor Astrological Magazine, today underscored the
need to understand the relevance of the Vedas which were the earliest
and the most venerated record of culture enshrining the highest
aspirations, ideas and values of life in India.
This has to be viewed in the context of scientific discoveries being
elevated to a creed and religion and spiritually being dubbed as
ignorance and superstition, he said.
Inaugurating a workshop on "Rig Veda" organised by the Veda Adhayana
Kendra at J. P. Nagar here, Dr. Raman said the Vedas constituted the
primary source of all branches of knowledge contained in the sacred
books of the Hindus. Today, people were unsure about the value of or
even the need for an overall philosophy of life. The message of Indian
culture that society would have no peace until rulers and subjects
observed dharma in thought, speech and action was being ignored, he
said.
He said the Western scientists' over-reliance on materialistic premises
as the sole fount of valid knowledge was so pervasive that it had
blinded us" to possible alternative employed in ancient India and had
brought us to the present perilous impasse. An essential difference
between the approach of the rishis and the modern or western scientists
and their Indian counterparts was that the former was comprehensive,
integral and spiritual while the latter were mostly ad hoc, fragmentary,
reductionist and mechanistic, he said.
It was, however, gratifying that in recent times some of our scholars
had begun to extricate themselves from the web of modern prejudice
against ancient Indian culture.
One of the greatest gifts of Vedic seers to mankind was the point of
view that spiritual or religious knowledge and scientific knowledge were
one organic whole with no conflict between them.
Hence "we find the law giver, the great Manu" saying that in the
beginning, people of all quarters of the earth came here for instruction
in the arts of life. India became the world teacher in the beginning of
history on account of the inheritance of the Vedas which were themselves
the crystallisation of an earlier epoch. This feature of tolerance and
understanding towards al the ultimate points of view embodied in
different religious became an underpinning of Indian culture and this
was an inheritance from the Vedas.
Referring to the questions posed by the critics as to when were the
Vedas composed and who composed them, Dr. Raman said that they were not
composed or written. They were revealed. According to Hindu tradition,
they Vedas were apaurusheya, not the handiwork of men and their
authorship could not be ascribed to any human being.
The authority of the Vedas being inviolable, a Vedic passage must be
taken exactly in the sense it was tested to bear and not according to
the ingenuity of the human mind.
Every Vedic hymn had no doubt a reference to a deity - Indra, Agni,
Varuna etc., and to a rishi who gave it forth. But the rishi was not
regarded as the author of the hymn associated with his name in the
compilation by Veda Vyasa. On the contrary, the rishi was regarded as
having seen the words of the hymn exactly as it was recorded. He did not
construct the hymn like a poet composing lyrics.
Back
Top
|
