Udayor Blog

Part I

P R J Pradeep

The word ‘Vedic’ arouses mystique in the minds, of at
least the Hindus. It is a loaded word and swearing by
the ‘Vedas’ is an obsession with many. Particularly
with the priestly castes who also chant the Sanskrit
words of the Vedas in various rituals. Since the
language is not known to the majority they take it as
magical, codes to reach god by short cuts. The caste
Brahmins have a tradition of making the lines by
heart, not very keen about the meanings, and it is
often seen that they chant the words meant to
propitiate Indra, chief god of the Vedic pastoral
people, at every temple and ritual. That is,
irrespective of whatever the deity there, whatever the
purpose there. The practice of learning Vedas by heart
no doubt helped in their preservation through
centuries is true, but there are also other problems
involved. There are many who believe that everything
started from the Vedas, that the Vedas have the answer
to all the problems of the world. On closer scrutiny
it is usual to find such people as absolutely ignorant
of what is there in the Vedas. Or they turn out to be
having vested interests. Perhaps the denial of the
Vedas to a majority had this as another reason,
keeping the mystique alive.

Interestingly it is not the ‘Vedas’ per se that people
commonly refer to, it is the later interpretations.
The real text of the ‘Vedas’ narrate the hopes, fears
and apprehensions of an ancient pastoral people.
Asking Indra to give them more cattle, avenge the
enemies and protect them is what is commonly seen in
the Vedas. But the later interpretations, like the
‘Sutras’, ‘Brahmanas’, ‘Smruthis’ etc. goes far in
explaining the Vedas. Obviously these reflect on the
prevailing social needs of those who interpreted
these, their genuine and vested interests. What
through time was passed over by the new generations,
making it loaded words. Not only that, these
interpretations later came to become social customs
and values. What is today paraded as ‘Bharateeya
Sanskriti’ is immensely influenced by these value
systems rooted in the Vedas. Since the aura created
through time gives it the necessary protection not
many are willing to question these. And of late there
is a new breed of psedo-scientists who try to hood
wink the naïve by giving fancy explanations to
everything ‘Vedic’. It also has a hidden agenda as
they aim at restoring the priestly hegemony in Hindu
society, what is on the wane. The unfortunate part is
that the new Hinditwa revival in post-colonial India
has inadvertently given them the necessary space.

As the Hindu society in India is facing severe
challenges, with its inner crisis, caste divisions and
priestly hold there is a felt need to reform the Hindu
society from within. The challenges thrown by the
commercial and pan-national faiths that eat in to the
Hindu core is reason enough to look for alternatives.
Why it becomes important that the ‘Vedic’ debate is
demystified. For, there lies the root cause of many
social ills, especially in the later interpretations,
including that of Sankara himself. Whom Swami
Vivekananda himself called ‘narrow minded’ for his
justifying caste and monopoly of knowledge by specific
castes. Sankara, who is believed to be the main
architect of what is called modern Hinduism, had
talked about ‘Advaitha’, about this world as being an
illusion, ‘Maya’ but the same Sankara had also
insisted about caste divisions. It is a paradox but it
stood the ground for several centuries, thanks to the
logic and the social systems that were put in place to
safe guard these. Sankara, born in a Brahmin family in
South India, Kerala to be precise, traveled all the
way to the Himalayas and effectively challenged the
new universal religions of the day like Budhism and
Jainism.

It was a clever ploy of interpreting the ancient texts
explaining the Vedas, like the ‘Sutras’, ‘Smruthis’
etc. together with what are called the ‘Vedangas’ or
the limbs of the body of the ‘Vedas’. ‘Manu- Smruthi’,
perhaps an earlier version, was able to enforce many
of these skewed interpretations on Hindu society.
These had their positive attributes is true, like
structuring the society with codes of conduct for
people, daily regimen and seasonal discipline. But
eventually these became tools of oppression and the
caste, by birth, privileges became perilous to
society. Perhaps how the Hindu society later bowed
down before colonial forces, new alien faiths. But the
decadent faith and its hold on people continued to
hold sway. It had by now become the only means of
survival for the priestly castes. The degradation of
women, half of the Hindu population, is the most
damaging result of this. Second is the degradation of
the majority called ‘Sudras’ who according to the
‘Vedic Scholars’ are not even human, not ‘manushya’.
Only the twice born, Brahmin, Kashatriya and Vaisya,
are ‘manushya’. Calls to kill those ‘Sudras’who hear
the ‘Vedas’, by pouring molten lead in to their ears
(Gauthama dharma Sutra), and similar calls against
women became lethal. ‘Pumasavana’, one agenda of the
‘shodasa samskara’, is a ritual to beget male progeny
(after Atharava 6.11). Women became pollutants (after
Taittiriya Samhita and Gautama Dharma Sutra), it was
mothers polluting children, for women give birth to
man and women. Simple postulates in the Vedas and
their interpretations eventually started becoming
menacing, these came to be social customs. What
continues to this day.

(To be continued)