Vedas and Upanishads - A Brief Histrory

 

"Truth is One" one hymn proclaims," though the wise call it by many names"

 

The Indus Valley Civilization was an ancient civilization located in what is Pakistan and northwest India today, on the fertile flood plain of the Indus River and its vicinity. Evidence of religious practices in this area date back approximately to 5500 BCE.

Their religion is based on ritual sacrifice, with lyrical, life-affirming hymns meant for incarnation in an ancient form of Sanskrit.

"These hymns, reveal an intimate, almost mystical bond between worshipper and environment, a simultaneous sense of awe and kinship with the spirit that dwells in all things".

They worship natural forces and elemental powers of life: Sun and Wind, Storm and Rain, Dawn and Night, Earth and Heaven, Fire and Offering. 

These powers are the Devas, Gods and Goddesses sometimes recognizable in other religions. In the hymns seem very near, present before us in the forms and forces of the natural world. 

Fire is Agni, worshipped as the actual fire on the hearth or altar as the divine priest who carries offerings to the gods. 

Lord Indra

The Storm is Indra, Leader of the Gods and Lord of War and Thunder, who rides into battle on his swift chariot to fight the enemies.

The Wind is Vayu. Night is Ratri and the Dawn is Usha, loveliest and most luminous of the goddesses.

The Sun is Surya, who rides his chariot across the sky, or Savitri, the giver of life. And death is Yama the first being to die and thereby first in the underworld.

As time passed, Brahmins produced commentaries to explain the meaning of these ancient rituals, rites and hymns. Hymns and commentaries together became a sacred heritage passed from generation to generation. These are Vedas, India's scriptures. Veda comes from the root vid, "to know": the Vedas are revealed knowledge, given to humanity, according to the orthodox view, at the dawn of time.

They exist in four collections: Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva, with the Rig Veda easliy the oldest.

The first and largest part of each collection, called Karma Kanda, preserves the hymns and philosophical interpretations of rituals used in Hindu worship to this day. The second part of each Veda, called Jnana Kanda, concerns not ritual but wisdom: what life is about; what death means; what the human being is, and the nature of the Godhead that sustains us; in a word, the burning questions that men and women have asked in every age.

"The Upanishads chiefly represent the Jnana Kanda".

 

"The Upanishads are the supreme work of the Indian mind. The  Upanishads are profound religious scriptures, - for they are record of the deepest spiritual experiences, - documents of revelatory and intuitive philosophy of an inexhaustible light, power and largeness".

What is an Upanishad ? 

The word ‘Upanishad’ has been derived from the root Sad (to sit), to which are added two prefixes: Upa and Ni. The prefix Upa denotes nearness and Ni totality. Thus, this word means "sitting near by devotedly": that is, sitting down near an illuminated teacher in an intimate session of spiritual instruction, as aspirants still do in India today.