--- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > <snip> Sacrifice gains spiritual favor and ascendancy in divinity. > > The Ribhus gained immortality through their zealous > > sacrificing (Rig 1.110.4). Sacrifice was to enbue the > > sacrificer with power and wealth from the gods (Rig 1.111.2). > > > When reading the [translated] Veda, it is like the Bible, not to be > read literally, but rather as descriptions of inner states. Just as > Christian fundamentalists misinterpret the knowledge of the Bible when > reading it literally, so do Vedic fundamentalists misintepret the > Veda, as you have done, when reading it literally.
There have always been, since very long time, at least since the times of the Brahmanas and Upanishads a controversy about the correct interpretation of the Vedas. While the Brahmanas interpreted the Vedas ritualistic, the Upanishads and also the Aranyakas to some degree thought to revise this interpretation, and brought out a more esoteric interpretation. The Puranas state that the Vedas where cognized in the Sat Yuga, while rituals where performed only in the Treta Yuga. In the Sat Yuga no rituals needed to be performed, people where naturally in tune with God /the gods, they become enlightened due to the good atmosphere naturally. Things began to decline later on, (according to the Puranas) and then rituals became en vogue, which got ever more complicated - and expansive. Then, as a reaction to this decline, an esoteric interpretation became more prominent, with the Upanishads, and along with it the systems of Yoga and Vedanta. If you read certain parts of the Veda, like RV.I.164, its clear that a ritualistic or in any way literal interpretation is impossible. These verses are highly enigmatic and esoteric, and they point to the fact, that indeed there was always a different layer of meaning, then the purely external. In fact both layers, at least from some time on, must have existed side by side.
