*Western Vedic Research * In the present sorry state in which the nation finds itself it has to learn about its own heritage like the Vedas from the findings of Western scholars called "orientalists" and from Indians conducting research on the same lines as they. I concede that European scholars have made a very valuable study of the Vedas. We must be thankful to them for their work. Some of them like Max Muller <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#MAX%20MULLER> conducted research out of their esteem for our scriptures. They took great pains to gather the old texts and published volume after volume incorporating their findings.
Two hundred years ago Sir William Jones <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#SIR%20WILLAIM%20JONES>, who was a judge of the Calcutta high court, started the Asiatic Society. The number of books this institution has published on Vedic subjects should arose our wonder. With the help of the East India Company, Sir William published the Rgveda with the commentary of Sayana and also a number of other Hindu works. Apart from Englishmen, Indologists from France, Germany and Russia have also done outstanding work here. "The discovery of the Vedas of the Hindus is more significant than Columbus's discovery of America, " thus exclaimed some Indologists exulting in their findings. These foreigners discovered Vedic and Vedantic texts from various parts of the country. They translated the dharma-, grhya- and srauta - sutras <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#SRAUTA%20SUTRAS>. The Kundalini Tantra gained importance only after Arthur Avalon <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#ARTHUR%20AVALON> had written extensively on it. A number of Westerns have contributed studies of other aspects of our culture also. It was because of the Protection of Ancient Monuments Act that came into force during the viceroyalty of Lord Curzon <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#LORD%20CURZON> that our temples and other monuments were saved from vandals. Fergusson <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#FERGUSSON> took photographs of our artistic treasures (sculptures) and made them known to the world. Men like Cunningham <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm>, Sir John Marshall and Mortimer <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#SIR%20JOHN%20MARSHALL%20&%20MORTIMER-WHEELER> -Wheeler did notable work in Indian archaeology. It was because of the labours of *Mackenzie* who gathered manuscripts from various parts of India that we come to know about many of our sastras. The department of epigraphy was started during British rule. We suffered in many ways at the hands of the British but it was during their time that some good was also done. But this good was not unmixed and had undesirable elements in it. The intention of many of those who called themselves orientalists or Indologists was not above reproach. They wanted to reconstruct the history of India on the basis of their study of the Vedas and, in the course of this, they concocted the Aryan- Dravidian theory of races and sowed the seeds of hatred among the people. Purporting to be rationalists they wrongly interpreted, in an allegorical manner, what cannot be comprehended by our senses. In commenting on the Vedas, they took the view that the sages were primitive men. Though some of them pretended to be impartial, their hidden intention in conducting research into our religious texts was to propagate Christianity and show Hinduism in a poor light. A number of Westerners saw the similarity between Sanskrit and their own languages and devoted themselves to comparative philology <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#COMPARITIVE%20PHILOSOPHY> . We may applaud European Indologists for their research work, for making our sastras known to a wider world and for the hard work they put in. But they were hardly in sympathy with our view of the Vedas. What is the purpose of these scriptures? By chanting them, by filling the world with their sound and by the performance of rites like sacrifices, the good of mankind is ensured. This view the Western Indologists rejected. They tried to understand on a purely intellectual plane what is beyond the comprehension of the human mind. And with this limited understanding of theirs they printed big tomes on the Vedas to be preserved in the libraries. Our scriptures are meant to be a living reality of our speech and action. Instead of putting them to such noble use, to consign them to the libraries, in the form of books, is like keeping living animals in the museum instead of in the zoo. *Methods of Chanting * Our forefathers devised a number of methods to preserve the unwritten Vedas in their original form, to safeguard their tonal and verbal purity. They laid down rules to make sure that not a syllable was changed in chanting, not a svara was altered. In this way they ensured that the full benefits were derived from intoning the mantras. They fixed the time taken to enunciate each syllable of a word and called this unit of time or time interval "matra*"uot; . how we must regulate our breathing to produce the desired vibration in a particular part of our body so that the sound of the syllable enunciated is produced in its pure form: even this is determined in the Vedanga called Siksa. The similarities and differences between the svaras of music and of the Vedas are dealt with. So those differences between the sounds voiced by birds and animals on the one hand and the Vedic svaras on the other. With all this the right way is shown for the intonation of Vedic mantras. A remarkable method was devised to make sure that words and syllables are not altered. According to this the words of a mantra are strung together in different patterns like "vakya", "pada", "krama", "jata", "mala", "sikha", "rekha", "dhvaja", "danda", "ratha", "ghana". We call some Vedic scholars "ghanapathins", don't we? It means they have learnt the chanting of the scripture up to the advanced stage called "ghana". "Pathin" means one who has learnt the "patha". When we listen to ghanapathins chant the ghana, we notice that he intones a few words of a mantra in different ways, back and forth. It is most delightful to the ear, like nectar poured into it. The sonority natural to Vedic chanting is enhanced in ghana. Similarly, in the other methods of chanting like krama, jata, sikha, mala, and so on the intonation is nothing less than stately, indeed divine. The chief purpose of such methods, as already mentioned, is to ensure that even not even a syllable of a mantra is altered to the slightest extent. The words are braided together, so to speak, and recited back and forth. In "vakyapatha" and "samhitapatha" the mantras are chanted in the original (natural) order, with no special pattern adopted. In the vakyapatha some words of the mantras are joined together in what is called "sandhi <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#SANDHI>". There is sandhi in Tamil also; but in English the words are not joined together. You have many examples of sandhi in the Tevaram, Tiruvachakam, Tirukkural, Divyaprabandham and other Tamil works. Because of the sandhi the individual words are less recognisable in Sanskrit than even in Tamil. In padapatha each word in a mantra is clearly separated from the next. It comes next to samhitapatha and after it is kramapatha. In this the first word of a mantra is joined to the second, the second to the third, the third to the fourth, and so on, until we come to the final word. In old inscriptions in the South we find the names of some important people of the place concerned mentioned with the appellation "kramavittan" added to the names. "Kramavittan" is the Tamil form of "kramavid" in the same way as "Vedavittan" is of "Vedavid". We learn from the inscriptions that such Vedic scholars were to be met throughout the Tamil country. In jata patha, the first word of the mantra is chanted with the second, then the order is reversed-the second is chanted with the first. Then, again, the first word is chanted with the second, then the second with the third, and so on. In this way the entire mantra is chanted, going back and forth. In sikhapatha the pattern consists of three words of a mantra, instead of the two of jata. Ghanapatha is more difficult than these. There are four types in this method. Here also the words of a mantra are chanted back and forth and there is a system of permutation and combination in the chanting. To explain all of it would be like conducting a class of arithmetic. We take all kinds of precautions in the laboratory, don't we, to protect a life-saving drug? The sound of the Vedas guards the world against all ills. Our forefathers devised these methods of chanting to protect the sound of our scripture against change and distortion. Samhitapatha and padapatha are called "prakrtipatha" (natural way of chanting) since the words are recited only once and in their natural order. The other methods belong to the "vikrtipatha" (artificial way of chanting) category. (In krama, though the words do not go in the strict natural order of one-two-three, there is no reversal of the words-the first after the second, the second after the third, and so on. So we cannot describe it fully as vikrtipatha). Leaving out krama, there are eight vikrti patterns and they are recounted in verse to be easily remembered. *Jata mala sikha rekha dhvaja dando ratho ghanah* *Ityastau-vikrtayah proktah kramapurva maharsibhih* All these different methods of chanting are meant to ensure the tonal and verbal purity of the Vedas for all time. In pada the words in their natural order, in krama two words together, in jata the words going back and forth. The words tally in all these methods of chanting and there is the assurance that the original form will not be altered. The benefits to be derived from the different ways of chanting are given in this verse <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#IN%20THIS%20VERSE>. *Samhitapathamatrena yatphalam procyate budhaih* *Padu tu dvigunam vidyat krame tu ca caturgunam* *Varnakrame satagunam jatayantu sahasrakam* Considering that our ancestors took so much care to make sure that the sound of the Vedas did not undergo the slightest change, it is futile for modern researchers to try to establish the date of our scriptures by finding out how the sounds of its words have changed. *Mantrayoga* The fourteen worlds <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#THE%20FOURTEEN%20WORLDS> constitute an immensely vast kingdom. It has an emperor and all living beings are his subjects. This kingdom as well as its ruler is eternal and it has its own laws. If the kingdom and the king-emperor are eternal, the law also must be so. This law is constituted by the Vedas. Though the kingdom, the cosmos, is called "anadi", it is dissolved and created again and again. The only eternal entities are the Paramatman and his law, the Vedas. The world comes into being, grows and is dissolved in the deluge. Thus it alternates between being and non-being. The emperor and the law remain eternal. At the time of every creation the emperor, the Paramatman, also creates authorities or "officials" and invests them with the yogic power necessary for them to function. In the yoga sastra is taught the truth that one's ears are not to be differentiated from outward space. When we meditate on this truth we acquire a celestial ear. It is with this ear and with the grace of the Paramatman that the authorities appointed by him obtain the sound waves that are always present in outward space. They were the first to know the Vedas and they are the maharishis (the great seers or sages) of the mantras. Vedic chanting is a mantrayoga. The vibration in each nadi creates certain feelings or urges in the consciousness. Sensual desire is aroused by some, sloth by some and sorrow by some others. To reverse this, when there is sensual desire there is a vibration in some nadis, and when there is anger there is vibration in some other nadis, and so on for each type of feeling or emotion or urge. We know this from actual experience. When we are at ease there is a special glow on our face and this glow is caused by some nadis being cool and unagitated. There is a saying "One's inner beauty is reflected outwardly on one's face". Our emotions cause their own reactions in our nadis. If we succeed in bringing the nadis under control we shall be masters of our urges and feelings. There will then be no need to depend on any external agency for the purpose. One way of acquiring control over the nadis is the practice of Rajayoga <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#RAJAYOGA> of which pranayama is the most important feature. Mantrayoga is another. When we vocalize a syllable, the vital breath is discharged through the space intervening our throat, tongue, lips, the upper and lower parts of the mouth, etc. It is then that the syllable is voiced or the "aksara dhvani" produced. Vibrations are created in the nadis located in those parts of the body where the vital breath courses through as a consequence of the aksara-dhvani. What are the Vedic mantras like in this context? Chanting them means only voicing such syllables as would cause beneficent vibrations of the nadis, beneficent vibrations that would produce such mental states as would lead to well being in this world and the hereafter and ultimately to liberation. No other type of vibration is caused by the chanting of the mantras. What is a mantra? "Mananat trayate": that which protects you by being turned over again and again and again in the mind. By birth the Brahmin is invested with the duty of chanting mantras again and again and producing such vibrations in the nadis as would bring Atmic well being. Through the power of the mantras he must create this well-being not only for himself but also for all creatures. How are the mantras to be chanted so that we may master them and derive the full benefit from them? But first let us consider the faulty ways of chanting. *Giti sighri sirahkampi tatha likhitapathakah* *Anarthajno lpakanthasca sadete pathakadhamah* "Giti" means one who chants a mantra as he likes setting it to tune, as it were, like a raga. The Vedas must be recited only in accordance with the tones appropriate to them. " Sighri" is one who hurries through a hymn. To derive the full benefit from the mantra the right matras must be maintained in the chanting. "Sirahkampi" denotes one who keeps shaking his head as the chants. There must be a certain poise about the man who chants the Vedas. The nadi vibrations must be such as are naturally produced in the course of the intonation. There must be no other vibrations. If the head is shaken as in a music recital the nadi vibrations will be affected. The "likhitapathaka" is one who chants, reading from the written text. As I have said so often the Vedas must be taught and learned without the help of any written text. The "anarthanjna" is one who does not know the meaning (here one who does not know the meaning of what he chants). All those belonging to these six categories <https://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/referp5b.htm#SIX%20CATEGORIES> are described as "pathakadhamah" belonging to the lowest types among those who chant the Vedas. K RAJARAM IRS 6524 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CAL5XZopMbAbgJKc1oghLARMXPd9HH2F4pQS7%2BNOnabL6WsCqeQ%40mail.gmail.com.
