Espejo Sideral

In this short post I offer a general overview of Antonio de Nicolás’ approach to understanding the five Hymns to Indra, found in the Ṛg Veda (pronounced “Rig”)  I will also draw some comparisons to versions provided by Griffith and Jamison/Brereton.

Antonio T. de Nicolás

According to de Nicolás, the Ṛg Veda has been frequently interpreted by relying on external sources and methods and is usually characterized as: (i) a book of rituals; (ii) a religio-cultural mythology which refers to gods; or (iii) an esoteric spiritual treatise (de Nicolás, 9). 

Rather than proposing another of these interpretations, de Nicolás suggests that we consider the Ṛg Veda as a “complete linguistic whole” and avoid ascribing meaning to it based on external elements (de Nicolás, 9). Especially since it is a text from a different cultural context, he suggests that the first tasks should be to uncover its cultural and contextual radical (fundamental) presuppositions (de Nicolás, 7).

The basic premise is that the hymns were meant to be chanted (de Nicolás, 12). Therefore, it would not be appropriate to interpret them using the same criteria we use to give meaning to poetry or prose (de Nicolás, 11). Reading the hymns as we would a story does not seem to make much sense either, since “there is no beginning, no end, and hardly any kind of coherent story by the standards by which we measure biography and story-telling” (de Nicolás, 121). 

From de Nicolás’ perspective, the only elements we can work with are the chanted hymns themselves, so we must try to move from our accustomed conceptual perspective to the musical one that underlies the Ṛg Veda (de Nicolás, 11). In his opinion, the criteria needed to understand the Ṛg Veda are fundamentally implied in the context and structure of the hymns and require us to understand the theory of harmonics and mathematics associated to the intentionality of the Vedic poets (de Nicolás, 11). With these tools, de Nicolás identifies four “Spaces of discourse” or ways of viewing the world, from which the Rig Veda gains meaning: (i) non-existence (Asat), (ii) Existence (Sat); (iii) Images and Sacrifice (Yajña); and (iv) Embodied (Ṛta) vision (Dhīh) (de Nicolás, 9). I would now like to show a few examples of how some of these “spaces of discourse” allow de Nicolás to give meaning to the Hymns to Indra.  

Indra separated the Sat from the Asat, which is the very act of Creation (de Nicolás, 117-121). Indra slew Vṛtra, the Dragon, released the Waters that were being restrained and thus became “lord of the Cosmos” (de Nicolás, 119-120). According to de Nicolás, Asat (or the Dragon Vṛtra) is the ground of all possibility (including the existence of Indra), and it is at the same time the attitude of “covering up” human possibilities by means of theoretical dogmatism (de Nicolás, 106-107). On the other hand, Sat means “the actual existent in its existential dynamic form” (de Nicolás, 128). Third, sacrifice (Yajña) consists of a renunciation of the limits of specific perspectives, and embodies the eternal return to the originating power, which no single perspective can stop (de Nicolás, 137, 143). Lastly, the Sacrifice gives birth to the embodied Ṛta which is the accumulation of “practices, customs, goals, and rules of survival for a community within which individuals are born and foreigners accepted” (de Nicolás, 162-163).

The previous ideas certainly require a much longer explanation that I plan to offer in a future post. Nevertheless, what I am most interested in now is showing the differences that exist between de Nicolás’ understanding of the hymns and two alternative interpretations.

 

Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton

Jamison and Brereton characterize their own translation of the Ṛg Veda as a modern English translation that makes the text available to a wider audience. They expressly compare this rendering to Griffith’s, which they consider discourages readers since it “conceals rather than reveals the wonders of the Ṛg Veda” (Jamison/Brereton, 3-9). Jamison and Brereton argue that the Ṛg Veda has a dual character: (i) liturgical (hymns designed to be recited during the rituals of the upper strata or Ārya society); and (ii) self-conscious literary productions. In the opinion of these two authors, the vast majority of hymns simply praise specific gods, seeking to induce them to repay this praise with certain favors (“do ut des”, to use the classic Latin expression) (Jamison/Brereton, 7-9).

Jamison and Brereton appear to oppose de Nicolás’s perspective when they deny the hymns being “primarily abstract philosophic reflections on the nature of things”. They only concede that at most some of them may be interpretations of rituals (Jamison/Brereton, 9). However, I suspect that Jamison/Brereton do agree with de Nicolás when they clarify that the hymns do not reflect a unitary cosmogony or cosmology, but rather express many “imaginable worlds that explain why things are” (Jamison/Brereton, 9).

I would say that Jamison and Brereton emphasize two qualities of the hymns: (i) their performative use of speech (although they consider a minority to be “narrative”); and (ii) their do ut des character. The first idea has to do with the understanding that “words make things happen” (performative dimension of language) and the second one with the idea of expectation of reciprocity (Jamison/Brereton, 8-9).

While de Nicolás says a lot more about the figure of Vṛtra, Jamison and Brereton simply say that it represents all obstacles (Jamison/Brereton, 38-39, 68). In their opinion, the story of Indra and the cave is a story of the power of truth, and Indra’s role is simply the protection and prosperity of his worshippers (Jamison/Brereton, 38). In their own words: “Indra and the Angirases opened the Vala cave and released the cattle and the dawns by the songs they recited. These songs were powerful because they contained the truth that the cattle were the dawns, and therefore by singing this truth Indra and the Angirases obtained both cattle and the dawns” (Jamison/Brereton, 22). However, this explanation does not help much when trying to make sense of the text.

Another important characteristic of the Jamison and Brereton understanding of the Ṛg Veda is its connection to later ideas found in the Brāhmaṇam and the Upaniṣad. The authors seem to believe that, at least to some extent, the equivalences among ritual, cosmic and everyday life elements mentioned in these later texts might have been what the Vedic seers had in mind when they composed the hymns: (Jamison/Brereton, 23-24). Although bringing all of these concepts to the task of interpretation might seem like a tempting idea, this could be “reading into the text” using some potentially later concepts alien to the hymns.

 

Ralph Griffith

Although Jamison and Brereton consider Griffith’s translation “cloying and almost unreadable”, even by the time of its writing (Jamison/Brereton, 20), Griffith presents his translation as an effort to bring the Ṛg Veda “within easy reach of all readers” (Griffith, v). He strongly opposes what he terms the Indian method of interpretation, accusing it of being a retrospective inclusion of elements only found in later tradition (Griffith, viii). 

However, Griffith does propose a symbolic interpretation in which agriculture and the availability of food seem to be a major concern. Griffith sees in Indra’s slaying of Vṛtra an allegory of the production of rain: “Vṛtra, sometimes also named Ahi, is nothing more than the accumulation of vapour condensed or figuratively shut up in, or obstructed by, a cloud. Indra, with his thunderbolt, or atmospheric or electrical influence, divides the aggregated mass, and vent is given to the rain which then descends upon the earth” (Griffith, 20).

Another example is the hiding of the cows in the Cave of Vala, which according to Griffith means the keeping of the light and waters imprisoned in dark clouds (Griffith, 6). Similarly, etymological analysis of the name of the demon Śuṣṇa (meaning “drier up”) would show that this character symbolizes “the excessive heat and drought before the Rains, which Indra puts an end to” (Griffith, 7). Lastly, an interesting comparison between Griffith and de Nicolás can be found in the interpretation of the epithet given to Indra in 1.11 as “crusher of forts”. While Griffith interprets it as the “breaker down of clouds that withhold the rain”, de Nicolás believes that it refers to the spaces of discourse that shut themselves out of the plurality of human experience.

 

Conclusion

Between the three perspectives on the Hymns that I was able to study, I found the one offered by de Nicolás’ to be the most interesting and most profound from a philosophical existential standpoint. However, it would take a more serious study of the musical and mathematical premises of his argument to undertake an informed critique . Jamison and Brereton’s interpretation was not very helpful in trying to make sense of the text, but one might wonder if there is no deeper meaning hidden beneath the symbols. Finally, Griffith’s interpretation is certainly dated regarding the choice of words, but he does venture an interesting interpretation of the Hymns to Indra, which seems at least plausible.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

De Nicolás, Antonio T. Meditations through the Rg Veda. Authors Choice Press, 2003. 

Jamison, Stephanie W; and Brereton, Joel P. The Rigveda. Oxford University Press, 2014. 

Griffith, Ralph T.H. The Hymns of The Rgveda. Motilal Banarsidass, 1976.