In this episode, we will take up one of the well-known ‘creation hymns’ of the ancient Indian Vedas. But we will be looking at this hymn from a slightly different point of view.
We will view this as a novel way of relating to God, which is quite different from the conventional approach adopted by majority world religions. While doing that, we will also clear off many misconceptions about this approach and show how this is one step forward in the journey of ultimate realization, through the path of devotion.
In the previous episode, we discussed one of the ‘creation hymns’ of ancient Indian Vedas, namely the ‘Nasadiya Sukta’. It was almost a description of the emergence of our universe, and has several parallels in the modern scientific theory of origin of the world namely, the ‘Big bang theory’.Nasadiya Sukta is just one of the many creation-hymns that one finds in the Vedas. The descriptions in these hymns are given from varieties of perspectives – as seen by an intellectually motivated person, as viewed by a devotionally oriented person, as picturized by a poetically endowed person, and so on.
In this episode, I will briefly look at another so called ‘creation hymn’. It is the Purusha Sukta, which literally means ‘The hymn of the Man’. This is the 90th Sukta, from the 10th Mandala of Rigveda, comprising of 16 Mantras. This is a highly revered Sukta, considered by the devout as the ‘real creation hymn’ and given lot of religious importance.
But it is a highly poetical hymn loaded with lot of subtle imageries, which are often taken literally, ending up in lot of controversies and debates. Even the erstwhile ‘Aryan invasion theory’ proponents take this as a proof of domination of the ‘conquering Aryans’ over the ‘conquered native Indians’!
Though the Aryan invasion theory is now defunct, one can still see its influence on some of the Indian scholars, who wrote commentaries on this Sukta, less than a century ago.
Rather than viewing this Sukta from a ‘creation theory’ perspective, the way it is traditionally done, I would like to present a slightly different way of looking at it. It is one of the ways a devout person may like to relate to God – the God as defined in the Vedas.
Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have just one way of relating to God. They envision a personified God, who is the creator of everything, nourisher of all, and the lord of the entire world. These religions insist that the only relation that the created beings can have with this creator God is by serving Him with total unquestioning surrender. This kind of relation with God is not alien to devout Indians. They call it ‘Daasya bhava’– the way an obedient servant relates to his/her master.
But this Daasya bhava is not the only way a faithful Indian looks at God. In the journey of devotion, Dasya Bhava is only a beginning. When one progresses on this path, one goes through the next stage where the devotee starts seeing God in everything.
But this ‘seeing God in everything’ is often mistaken as ‘pantheism’ or polytheism by many people who cannot come to terms with any relation other than the typical ‘master-servant relation’ of the Abrahamic religions. But these are totally different concepts. There is a difference between ‘viewing everything individually as a God’, and ‘perceiving the same God in everything’. Though Abrahamic religions forbid such a relation, I have read about even devout Christian missionaries and Islamic Sufi saints, inadvertently getting into this kind of relation with God.
In this talk, I will try to view this Purusha Sukta from this point of view – as a way of seeing God in everything. May be, we can call it Visvaroopa Bhaava. That makes lot of sense, not just because that is the way God is ‘defined’ in the Upanishads, but also it allows one to see unity in diversity, enabling him or her to embrace the entire world – not just the humans, not just the living beings, but the entire gamut of living and nonliving entities as a collective whole.
With this view, let us start this highly poetic Hymn. It goes like this
“That Purusha has uncountable heads, uncountable eyes and limbs.
He pervades the entire universe and stretches even beyond.
sahasra seerShaa puruShah, sahasraakShah sahasra paat
sah bhoomim visvatah vrtvaa, dasaamgulam atyatiShThat”
Who is this Purusha? Here, the word ‘Purusha’ does not mean man, as it literally means. In this context, Purusha means – ‘the one who resides in Pura or the body’, not just one body but every body. That means Purusha is someone who resides in all the physical bodies. Remember the episode where we talked about the Atma entering the bodies as individual souls or Jeevatma? I am referring to episode 18, titled - “Does God have a form?”. That Atma is the Purusha talked about here.
If this Purusha resides in all the bodies, then the heads, eyes, and the limbs of all those bodies are nothing but the heads, eyes and limbs of this Purusha. That is what this mantra says.
Where does such a Purusha reside? Does he reside in some heaven? No. He is all over, all over the universe and even beyond; because, he is omnipresent. He is not confined to some limited space.
Is He just someone who resides in various bodies? No. He is not just that. He is also the bodies as well, and all that we see around. The Sukta confirms this by saying
“All this, i.e. whatever that exists now, whatever that existed in the past, as well as whatever that would come into existence in the future, is nothing but this Purusha. He is immortal, he never dies. He appears to grow when the beings grow by consuming food.
idam sarvam – yad bhootam, yad bhavyam – Purusha Eva. Amrtatvasya eesaanah. yat annEna atirOhati.”
That is how this God is seen -as an embodiment of everything around.
But does it not make the God just limited to whatever that we can perceive – these worlds, these beings, inanimate things etc.?
The Sukta clarifies that by saying
“whatever we perceive is just a small portion of this enormous God, or Purusha. Though what we perceive does go through changes, and has a beginning and an end, the portion that we cannot perceive is really unlimited, unchanging, and ever present in some dimension beyond our perception.
Etaavaan asya mahimaa. Purushah atah jyaayaan. visvaa bhootaani asya paadah. asya tripaat divi amrtaat.”
This description of God as an all-encompassing being, has influenced even later Indian scriptures such as Bhagavad Geetha. For example, the Bhagavad Geetha describes God as
“The God has hands everywhere. He has legs, eyes, mouths, ears everywhere. In fact, He is all pervading.
sarvathah paaNi paadam tat sarvatOkshi shirOmukham
sarvatah shrutimat lOkE sarvamaavrtta tishTati
-- Bhagavad Geetha 13.13
That is how God is viewed as a being that pervades everything – living as well as nonliving; Formless as well as with form; And obviously, much more 😉
But how did the multifaceted world that we normally perceive, emerge from this abstract Purusha? That is the usual theme of ‘creation hymns’. But this is a dumb question in this context, since it presupposes the unity of all living and non-living beings as one entity namely Purusha. As if, all these ‘things’ pre-existed in that one and only Purusha.
But the sages and the divine beings were curious to know about the creation of this world. They had their own way of explaining this abstract Purusha emerging as multifaceted perceptible world.
These sages are very much used to fire rituals involving animal sacrifice. So, they imagine a fire ritual, which they call as Purusha MEdha – literally a fire ritual in which the Purusha himself is the sacrificial offering! In a highly poetic way, the sages explain various things that emerged from this Purusha, as the ritual goes on, to become the dualistic world that we are in. I will skip those details here.
And finally, this is how the Purusha Sukta appears in the Rigveda along with its traditional recitation. I have retained only the first few mantras that I have covered in this discussion.
sa̠hasra̍śīrṣā̠ puru̍ṣaḥ । sa̠ha̠srā̠kṣa-ssa̠hasra̍pāt ।
sa bhūmi̍ṃ vi̠śvatō̍ vṛ̠tvā । atya̍tiṣṭhaddaśāṅgu̠lam ॥-1
puru̍ṣa ē̠vēdagṃ sarvam̎ । yadbhū̠taṃ yachcha̠bhavyam̎ ।
u̠tāmṛ̍ta̠tva syēśā̍naḥ । ya̠dannē̍nāti̠rōha̍ti ॥-2
ē̠tāvā̍nasya mahi̠mā । atō̠ jyāyāg̍ścha̠ pūru̍ṣaḥ ।
pādō̎-'sya̠ viśvā̍ bhū̠tāni̍ । tri̠pāda̍syā̠mṛta̍-ndi̠vi ॥-3
tri̠pādū̠rdhva udai̠tpuru̍ṣaḥ । pādō̎-'syē̠hā-''bha̍vā̠tpuna̍ḥ ।
tatō̠ viṣva̠ṅvya̍krāmat । sā̠śa̠nā̠na̠śa̠nē a̠bhi ॥-4
tasmā̎dvi̠rāḍa̍jāyata । vi̠rājō̠ adhi̠ pūru̍ṣaḥ ।
sa jā̠tō atya̍richyata । pa̠śchādbhūmi̠mathō̍ pu̠raḥ॥-5….
Credits:
1. “Saayana Bhashya of Rigveda”, By Sayanacarya, 16th century.
2. “Purusa Sukta STANDARD”,
SantoPatil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uLEktiVo5g
© Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2023
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