THE VEDIC VISION OF YOU AS A PERSON (PURUSHA)

 

THE VEDIC VISION OF YOU AS A PERSON (PURUSHA)

(Compiled by NRS for a discourse at Sri Ganesha Temple, Nashville, USA)

The Vedic vision of the essence of our Self, Inner Being, and nature as a Person (Purusha) is not merely as a physical being, social being, gender, age, ethnicity, occupation, nationality, political or religious persuasion, or even one species or another. Every face you see is ultimately your own. As Upanishads state: "You are the woman and you are the man. You are the boy and you are the girl. You are the elder who totters on a staff. You are born with your face to every side (Viśvatomukha)." Shvetashvatara Upanishad IV.3.

 

When Upanishads laud the Purusha or Person, it is the Cosmic Being of Light. You are the Purusha, the Person in the Sun, the Moon, the Fire, Lightning and the Waters. The entire universe is your body. Your mind pervades all space.

Sri Veda Purushaya Namah!

 “I have gone through the monograph on “puruSHa sUktam” prepared by Sri K. Sreekrishna and am glad to state that the translation and the notes therein are quite enlightening and appropriate. The language is direct, simple and eminently readable. One can get a grand idea of this creation hymn. The creation hymn occupies a most celebrated position in the vEdic lore. It is found in all the 4 vEdas. The unqualified term "puruSHa" signifies “shreemannArAyaNa,” the Source of this Universe. There is a hint in this hymn that the puruSHa, being ever unborn, incarnates Himself in this universe in many ways for our uplift. The terms, "hreeh" and "shreeh" mentioned as consorts of the puruSHa, identifies the cosmic creator as “nArAyaNa,” having “Goddess laxmi” and “Goddess Earth” as His consorts. I congratulate Sri Koti Sreekrishna on his abiding interest in scriptural studies”--Dr. N.S. Anantharangachar

Please go through my discourse:

http://nrsrini.blogspot.com/2011/10/yajna-in-purusha-sookta.html

CREATION ACCORDING TO HINDUISM

The creation as revealed in the Bible is one of the hotly debated topics in the US. Some groups are in favor of including the Biblical Creation in the Science curriculum. Occasionally, instructors have taken the risk of teaching the Biblical Creation in their Science classes and have faced all sorts of disciplinary action from the management. More recently, many are advocating that “intelligent design” be taught in US schools, side by side with “Darwin’s theory of evolution.” It is noteworthy that the Hindus, have never treated 'Creation' with the same fervor, although the topic does intrigue us at times, especially when so much noise is made in the media about “Intelligent design (read Biblical creation).” The Sanskrit word for creation is "sR~SHTi," which means, "pouring forth."

The Hindu scriptures contain many creation texts with "oneness" as the common underlying theme. The variety of creation texts caters to human minds at different stages of spiritual development. The multiplicity of creation texts is also well in accordance with the plurality and plasticity of the Hinduism.

One other very important function the multiple texts serve is that they are informing us to pay attention to the underlying message. If we had just one version, we tend to take it word for word, which would frustrate us and worse yet we will miss the real message. Summary of select creation texts from the foremost Hindu scriptures (vEdas) and the later (post-vEdic) scriptures: nAsadeeya Hymn (R~g vEda, 10.129): This Hymn is conceptually extremely provocative and is popular among scientists and thinkers such as Carl Sagan. “There was darkness everywhere. There was neither existence nor non-existence. There was neither death nor immortality. All this was water. There was That One that breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Desire came upon That one. That was the first seed of the mind. There was bond between existence and non-existence. That bond extended across. There were seed placers. There were powers. There was impulse beneath. There was giving-forth above.   

When and how this creation has arisen? Perhaps it formed itself or perhaps it did not. The gods came afterwards. Who really knows? The One who looks down on it from the highest heaven knows or perhaps He does not know.” 4 hiraNyagarbha (the Golden Embryo) Hymn (R~g vEda 10.121) This Hymn is semi-speculative and introduces two terms for the creator, hiraNyagarbha and praJApati (the progenitor). In the beginning the Golden Embryo arose. When the high waters came pregnant with the embryo that is everything, bringing forth fire. He arose from that as the one life's breath of the gods. Once He was born, He was the lord of creation. Who is the God to whom we should pay oblations to? This hymn also describes some of the attributes of God as follows: He who gives life and strength, His command all gods obey, He is lord of both immortality, and death, He is one king of the world by His greatness and power, the quarters of the sky are His two arms, He made this awesome sky and earth firm, He propped up the dome of the sky, He created the water and Sun, His laws are true, and He fathered the earth and the sky.

 PuruSHa sUktam or The Hymn of Cosmic Man (R~g vEda 10.90): In this Hymn, the world arises from dismembering the Purusha, the primeval person through a vEdic yagn^ya (a sacred fire ceremony). The creation process here uses the  yagn^ya metaphor. This is one of the magnificent and famous of the vEdic Hymns. It is recited partly or wholly during worship as well as in various rites from cradle to grave and beyond. This hymn appears in all the four vEdas. A detailed study of this hymn as found in kR~SHNa yaJurvEda is the subject matter of this book. Creation in the Upanishads (concluding part of the vEdas): The puruSHa becomes the Self in a creation text that appears in the bR~hadAraNyaka Upanishad. In the beginning, this universe was nothing but the Self in the form of a man. It looked around and saw that there was nothing but itself, and it said "I." Then he was afraid, but he considered "since there is no one here but myself, what is there to fear?" Then the fear departed. However, he lacked delight and desired a second. He was exactly as large as a man and woman embracing.

This Self then divided itself in two parts and with that, there was a man and a woman. Thus, the sage yagn^yavalkya declares, this body is like half of a split pea. And that is why, indeed, a woman fills this place. The male embraced the female, and from that the human race arose. She, however reflected: "How can he unite with me, I was produced from himself? Well then, let me hide!" She became a cow, he a bull and united with her; and from that cattle arose. She became a mare, he a stallion 5 from that horse arose; she became a goat, he a buck; she a sheep, he a ram and united with her and from that goat and sheep arose. Thus he poured forth all pairing things, down to the ants.

Then he realized, "I, actually, am creator; for I have poured forth all this." Anyone understanding this becomes, truly, himself a creator in this creation. Elsewhere in the Upanishads and other contemporary philosophical texts, the vEdic puruSHa is construed as brahman, nArayaNa, supreme Self, primeval sound Om, That, It, One, and so on. We see here the mantrAs like "everything is brahman," "In the beginning it was all Om," "I am brahma," “One nArayaNa, with none like Him,” “you are That and so on.

The inner meanings of creation, evolution, and dissolution also appear. One of the profound statements in the KEna Upanishad is foretelling our “limitation” in understanding the “limitless,” thus often we are satisfied with imitation! vign^yAtam aviJAnatAm | “He who thinks he knows does not know avign^yAtam viJAnatAm | “He who thinks he does not know, knows!” This is something we should keep in our mind, especially in debating issues like which came first, seed or the tree? Creation in the purANas, Epics and other texts: Here we see an extension of the one became everything theme of the vEdas and the Upanishads.

The terms hiraNyagarbha, puruSHa, praJApati, vishvakarma to represent the Supreme are retained as well as replaced by "brahma” (distinct from the Upanishadic brahman) of the Upanishads)," "vishNu," "shiva," "dEvi" or “shakti.” The purANas discuss creation, evolution and dissolution as a cyclic process in great details. They also introduce the terms "brahmANDa" (brahma's egg) for the universe and "yuga" to describe the time scale of the events. The beginning is set at trillions of years in the great past, eventually concluding that it is “without beginning (actually expansion, evolution and transformation).”

At places the Puranic creation reads like the scientific theory of evolution of life forms.   Summary of these creation texts here is an oversimplification and perhaps we should study them in their own right. So what does this mean to us? How does the Hindu view of creation differ from the Biblical creation? Why should we bother? The common theme of the Hindu view of creation is "one became everything." It is not so much that God created everything, but it is more as God is everything. This universe is a part of the Divine. There is no clear separation between the Creator and the Creations.

We do entertain "dualism" (separation- the Creator and creations are separate) and everything in-between dualism and non-dualism, but that is not the distinguishing feature of Hinduism. Even the strongest of dualists consider it more as a "transient dualism." Likewise, the avid proponents of "advaita" or "non-dualism" (oneness- no separation between the Creator and the Creations) 6 behave like dualists, perhaps more as a means to end in “It Self”. Hinduism also clearly states that this universe has been around for trillions of years and will go on for many more. In the Biblical creation, there is a clear separation between the Creator and man and man and nature. The Bible does not specify when exactly the creation happened. The five thousand and odd years that some Christians assign for the age of our earth is a calculated figure from the Biblical genealogy up to the point of Jesus Christ [interestingly, this figure is close to the age of the present “Kaliyuga” which is believed to have started in 3102 BCE (5108 years ago) as per the Hindu tradition]. I think the way in which a religion deals with the subject of creation greatly affects the psyche (principle of life) of the followers of that faith. Respect for life forms, nature worship, blending with nature, respect and tolerance for views and faith of others, a gentle and universal out look of the world, a sense of the vastness of time and the universe, spiritualism, systematic indifference (reasoned disregard) towards transient things, inner strength, peaceful retreat from restlessness, a great vocabulary on the inner life - all these come naturally to any true Hindu.

Perhaps the following narration sums it up better: Stanley Jones, an American Christian missionary who spent decades in the early part of this century in India comments thus: It is easy to talk with a Hindu about spiritual things. It makes you feel that he is a spiritualized being. He is. Spiritual ideas are on tap at once, and he talks about them fluently, easily, naturally. They are the breath of his life. And not only the breath of his life, but also the strength of his life.