Use of Veda for attaining objects

It is to be noted that though the sacredness and power of the Vedic mantra lies in its inner and spiritual meaning of the revealed word, it lends itself – even in the outer sense – to users other than sacrificial. This is the basis of the traditional belief that common objects in life also can be achieved by uncommon means. This is also the basis of works like Rig vidhāna of Shaunaka that deal with the use of the hymns for the fulfillment of varied objects in life. Yāska refers to this truth when he says: “The mantrās of the rişhis are uneven, high and low, in their ideas”. The bŗhad devata also says as much: “Desiring the attainment of objects the rişhis of yore hurried towards the deities with the mantrās, so say the great seers themselves in the Veda” BD (8.137). If thus there are also mantrās, which aim at the achievement of worldly objects, it may be asked, how could the Veda be described as the highly sacred store of spiritual disciplines and secrets? There is no inconsistency whatever. We have made it clear that the inner meaning alone is the supreme truth of the Vedās and that the external or gross sense is of use for purposes of sacrifice or fulfillment of objects in life. Looked at on the surface there is a manifest unevenness in the ideas of the rişhis. Yet on scrutiny of the inner meaning, it will become clear that the swearing, curse, censure, praise and the rest are related to the history of spiritual discipline in the inner life. It is no wonder that to those who look only at the outer garb or who follow the western scholars the rişhis present a picture of simple idiocy. We do not say that all the seers lived at the same time, led the same identical inner life and perceived the mantrās. But this is the Truth we maintain: the same symbolic sense of the words, the sacrifice – both inner and outer – the cosmology of the worlds, the truth of the Gods, the supreme object in life – all these formed one common knowledge which the rişhis drew upon for worshipping and communing with the Gods and to achieve the end by means needed for and suited to the particular state of inner development (individually). This should be clear to all diligent students of the symbolic and esoteric meaning of the Veda.

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