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LITERARY MERIT OF THE RIGVEDA.

The diction of the hymns is on the whole natural and simple, free from the use of compounds of more than two members. Considering their great antiquity, the hymns are composed with a remarkable degree of metrical skill and command of language. But as they were produced by a sacerdotal class and were generally intended to accompany a ritual no longer primitive, their poetry is often impaired by constant sacrificial allusions. This is especially noticeable in the hymns addressed to the two ritual deities Agni and Soma, where the thought becomes affected by conceits and obscured by mysticism. Nevertheless the RV. contains much genuine poetry. As the gods are mostly connected with natural phenomena, the praises addressed to them give rise to much beautiful and even noble imagery. The degree of literary merit in different hymns naturally varies a good deal, but the average is remarkably high. The most poetical hymns are those addressed to Dawn, equal if not superior in beauty to the religious lyrics of any other literature. Some of the hymns to Indra show much graphic power in describing his conflict with the demon Vrtra. The hymns to the Maruts, or Storm gods, often depict with vigorous imagery the phenomena of thunder and lightning, and the mighty onset of the wind. One hymn to Parjanya (v. 83) paints the devastating effects of the rain-storm with great vividness. The hymns in praise of Varuna describe the various aspects of his sway as moral ruler of the world in an exalted strain of poetry. Some of the mythological dialogues set forth the situation with much beauty of language; for example, the colloquy between Indra's messenger Sarama and the demons who stole the cows (x. 108), and that between the primaeval twins Yama and Yami (x. 10). The Gambler's lament (x. 34) is a fine specimen of pathetic poetry. One of the funeral hymns (x. 18) expresses ideas connected with death in language of impressive and solemn beauty. One of the cosmogonic hymns (x. 129) illustrates how philosophical speculation can be clothed in poetry of no mean order.

INTERPRETATION.

In dealing with the hymns of the RV. the important question arises, to what extent are we able to understand their real sense, considering that they have come down to us as an isolated relic from the remotest period of Indian literature? The reply, stated generally, is that, as a result of the labours of Vedic scholars, the meaning of a considerable proportion of the RV. is clear, but of the remainder many hymns and a great many single stanzas or passages are still obscure or unintelligible. This was already the case in the time of Yaska, the author of the Nirukta, the oldest extant commentary (c. 500 B.C.) on about 600 detached stanzas of the RV.; for he quotes one of his predecessors, Kautsa, as saying that the Vedic hymns we obscure, unmeaning, and mutually contradictory.

In the earlier period of Vedic studies, commencing about the, middle of the nineteenth century, the traditional method, which follows the great commentary of Sayana (fourteenth century A.D.), and is represented by the translation of the RV., begun by H.H. Wilson in 1850, was considered adequate. It has since been proved that, though the native Indian commentators are invaluable guides. in explaining the theological and ritual texts of the Brahmanas and Satras, with the atmosphere of which they were familiar, they did not possess a continuous tradition from the time when the Vedic hymns were composed. That the gap between the poets and the interpreters even earlier than Yaska must have been considerable, is shown by the divergences of opinion among his predecessors as quoted by him. Thus one of these, Aurnavabha, interprets nasatyau, an epithet of the Asvins, as 'true, not false', another Agrayana, as 'leaders of truth' (satyasya pranetarau), while Yaska himself thinks it may mean 'nose-born' (nasika-prabhavau)! Yaska, moreover, mentions several different schools of interpretation, each of which explained difficulties in accordance with its own particular theory. Yaska's own interpretations, which in all cases of doubt are based on etymology, are evidently often merely conjectural, for he frequently gives several alternative explanations of a word. Thus he explains the epithet jata-vedas in as many as five different ways. Yet he must have had more and better means of ascertaining the sense of various obscure words than Sayana who lived nearly 2,000 years later. Sayana's interpretations, however, sometimes differ from those of Yaska. Hence either Yaska is wrong or Sayana does not follow the tradition. Again, Sayana often gives several inconsistent explanations of a word in interpreting the same passage or in commenting on the same word in different passages. Thus asura, 'divine being', is variously rendered by him as 'expeller of foes', 'giver of strength', 'giver of life', 'hurler away of what is undesired', 'giver of breath or water', 'thrower of oblations, priest', 'taker away of breath', 'expeller of water, Parjanya', 'impeller', 'strong', 'wise', and 'rain-water' or 'a water-discharging cloud'! In short it is clear from a careful examination of their comments that neither Yaska nor Sayana possessed any certain knowledge about a large number of words in the RV. Hence their interpretations can be treated as decisive only if they are borne out by probability, by the context, and by parallel passages.

For the traditional method Roth, the founder of Vedic philology, substituted the critical method of interpreting the difficult parts of the RV. from internal evidence by the minute comparison of all words parallel in form and matter, while taking into consideration context, grammar, and etymology, without ignoring either the help supplied by the historical study of the Vedic language in its connexion with Sanskrit or the outside evidence derived from the Avesta and from Comparative Philology. In the application of his method Roth attached too much weight to etymological considerations, while he undervalued the evidence of native tradition. On the other hand, a reaction arose which, in emphasizing the purely Indian character of the Vedic hymns, connects the interpretation of them too closely with the literature of the post-Vedic period and the much more advanced civilization there described. It is important to note that the critical scholar has at his disposal not only all the material that was open to the traditional interpreters, and to which he is moreover able to apply the comparative and historical methods of research, but also possesses over and above many valuable aids that were unknown to the traditional school--the Avesta, Comparative Philology, Comparative Religion and Mythology, and Ethnology. The student will find in the notes of the Reader many exemplifications of the usefulness of these aids to interpretation. There is good reason to hope from the results already achieved that steady adherence to the critical method, by admitting all available evidence and by avoiding one-sidedness in its application, will eventually clear up a large proportion of the obscurities and difficulties that still confront the interpreter of the Rigveda.

Om Shanti ! Shanti ! Shanti !

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