The 16 Sanskaars

Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

We do not command, we call (by name), and only the echo responds. We may note in passing that later philosophical speculation had much to say regarding the function of name giving, which obviously cannot be equated with the mere act of labeling.

Continuing the vivid personification of verse 3, speaks of disloyalty to the Word when Men fail to hear and understand her. Yet the Word reveals herself only to certain ones. The others have eyes indeed but they have not beheld the Word; they have ears but they have not heard her. The communication of the word is like the union of man and woman, for the Word comes and offers herself as a bride to her husband, to the one who is worthy to receive her. The Word is vitally connected with community and communication, and therefore those who are not faithful in friendship are excluded from participation in the Word, even if they are Brahmins and hence have a traditional right to “share in the holy Word”. The Word is not a possession to be manipulated at will; on the contrary one can be worthy of it only by constant attention and by quickness of mind, degrees of which are here compared to ponds of different depths. Only those who posses a certain depth can really hear the word. For others it resembles a tree without flower or fruit.

This attention moreover demands an active collaboration and proper participation in the sacrifice, by means of which strong threads will be woven that holds together all the threads of the universe. Sacred competition forms part of the sacrifice and different roles reflecting the different aspects of the Word are assigned to those who concelebrate in it. The creation of poetry (corresponding to the Rig Veda with the hotr or offerer as priest), as the melodious recitation of it bringing out all its inherent sound vibrations (the Sama Veda with the udgatr as the singer or celebrant), the exposition of its meaning and the wisdom contained in it (the Atharva Veda with the Brahman-priest), and its participation in the sacrificial action (the Yajur Veda with the adhvaryu as the minister).

Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

One should always be ready to accept TRUTH and renounce UNTRUTH
Part 1 –The Word (Vac) – continued from last issue

VAC was before all creation, preexisting before any being came to be. It was she who initiated the creative process. The first two stanzas require a total immersion into the Vedic world in order for their full meaning to be grasped. With a beauty of their own, they say in solemn cadences that the Word is not only the First of the whole Vedic pantheon, but she has a unique place, for her nature is not to be compared with that of any other being, whether created or uncreated.

The word is not only an integral part of the sacrifice; she is also the Queen who commands homage in every sphere and who , expressing herself under different forms, remains essentially the unique Word that preserves the unity of all worship. Vac is the lifegiving principle within all beings, even if they do not recognize this fact; she is the wind, the breath of life. She is the mother, attentive to the needs of both Gods and Men. She bestows her gifts and favors graciously and freely. She, existing from all eternity, reveals the Father and for the sake of creatures “begets” him who otherwise would remain utterly disconnected and nonexistent.

The word is the central mystery that is situated in the very core of reality; the word is soul, the vital principle of every being, although not every creature can listen and, much less, understand the total sum of words. It is only the Maker of the universe who knows all words: the Word herself.

Our field of experience is reduced to one fourth and we realize, as we become more and more aware of this limitation, that even the fourth part is not completely intelligible to us. The Word is not only speech, though constitutively connected with it; it is also intelligibly, the principle of reason, the power of the intellect, the rational structure of reality.
Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

One should always be ready to accept TRUTH and renounce UNTRUTH
Part 1 –The Word (Vac) – continued from last issue

The four questions found in practically all traditions of the world and in the language of VEDAS these four riddles of the universe are :
What is the furthest limit of the earth,
The center of the world,
The seed of the horse, and
The highest heaven of the world?
The boundaries of our existence, its extreme limits; the core of the whole creation, its energy and dynamism: the mystery of life, especially of human life; and the all-encompassing spiritual reality that embraces not only the created world but also transcendent reality, that is, the mystery of the Spirit.
The answers are extremely concise:
The altar of sacrifice is the “limit “ of the human condition. Man cannot go further than the altar where all his humanness is concentrated. Any theory about the nature of the altar has to start from this anthropological insight.The “furthest limit “is thus the altar, where the Spirit, Man, and Matter meet, that is, the divine, the human, and the material or adhidaivika, adhyatmika and adhibhautika.

Sacrifice is the center of the world, its force, that which gives it the strength to be, to be what it is and what it shall be, that which supports the cosmos and maintains it in existence. Sacrifice is not primarily a human affair but a cosmic venture, and God and Gods are the prime actors in it. Sacrifice is not only the creative act; it is the both the conservational and the actively transforming act of the whole universe. The second question is the cosmological question.
The origin of life resides in Soma, the life-principle. It is the principle of fecundation, of love, and of every form of vital activity. The third question is the psychological or biological question.
Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

One should always be ready to accept TRUTH and renounce UNTRUTH
Part 1 –The Word (Vac) – continued from last issue The origin and place, the locus, of the World is prayer, the scared formula, the Brahmana priest or Brahman, the spirit. The Word is not the only sound, not only idea and intelligibility; it is also action, the unique Word permeating everything. This is the right and the deepest theological or philosophical question. Metaphysics and linguistic analysis meet in Vac.

We would diminish, however, the power of this enigma if we were to understand it in an abstract and generalized manner. It states that this altar is the furthest limit of the earth; this sacrifice of ours is the world’s center; this Soma we offer here and now is the vital seed, the semen of life; this word we utter as we make this offering is the highest heaven, the metaphysical location of the Spirit. In each sacrificial act, in each liturgical performance, we are at the very center of space and time, at the navel of universe, in the very heart of Being. To the centrifugal dispersion of a schizophrenic existence real wisdom, that is to say, the knowledge of the Word, opposes a centripetal dynamism toward the center of all things.

The motto of our anthology, a most astonishing quatrain which has been considered as describing the poetic and divine inspiration of the Rishi and which can be said to articulate indeed in a profound way the specific human condition with its grandeur and its misery at the same time, is: “ What is this that I am, I do not know.” Man is a riddle to himself; he is a mystery he cannot decipher. Man is an “ I am,” he is a spark of being, he is real, but he does not know who he is because the very faculty he is endowed with, the very power he has, his mind, is what reveals to him that he is and conceals from him who he is. I t is by his mind that Man wanders about; it is by his mind that Man recognizes his human condition and that he is free because he knows that he is; but that very mind is for him a burden, almost a prison in which he is secluded. He cannot fly beyond, because it is his own mind that makes the space available and sets the limit to his own incursion into reality; the mind is the organ he has in order to discover reality and even to be real. This is the first distich. Man is because he thinks, and he is because he thinks to be.

Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

‘One should always be ready to accept the TRUTH and renounce UNTRUTH’ Part 1 – THE WORD ( Vac ) – continued from last issue
No pretension is possible here. Thinking and being are not identical, but they are so intrinsically correlated that in Man there is not the one without the other. Man cannot escape the “space” of his own consciousness or transcend the “time” of his own being. This is perhaps hinted in the particular Vedic symbolism of this hymn :
Below the realm above,
Above the realm below
The cow has risen,
Leading her calf.
Where has she turned?
To which side has she departed?
Where does she give birth?
is not in the herd. 40
Here the Cow is the Dawn carrying her rays, all symbolizing the power of human consciousness. And yet the second distich discloses to us that there is something that does not come from Man as involution, evolution, or development, but falls upon him and hits as a revolution, revelation, and surprise. It is the mystery of the Word which makes Man aware that he is primarily a spoken rather than a speaking reality, a spoken rather than a speaking Word, a receiver rather than a giver, created rather than creator. Man goes around heaven and earther; he wanders in search of what he does not know, of himself, of his Self. At a certain moment he meets what was most close to him: the Word; he discovers his world, he realizes that he is in the world, he approaches the First born of Truth. He shares then in immoratality, in wisdom, in knowledge; he simply picks up the fruit of the tree of life as a bird eats the ripe fruits from the top of an earthly tree.
The Truth whose Firstborn is the Word, is not a mere static truth or a sheer moral truthfulness; it is the dynamic order of the entire reality, the primordial activity out of which everything comes to be; it is Rita. The first offspring of it is the Word. When the Word overshadows Man, when it dawns upon him, then Man shares in the Word, participates in the speaking structure of the universe, and enters into the dialogical reality; then he can listen, speak, command, he becomes Man when the sounds he emits become word. Man is Word shared, according to this Vedic stanza. Man is by participation in the Word.

Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
The fallowing stanza here omitted, spesks of the sun and/or the spirit marching backward and forward and introduces the thought tlut the mortal and the immortal, though of the same origin, move in opposite directions, so that he who sees the one does not perceive the other. An Upanisadic idea is here insinuated. He who sees the perishable element in the total dynamism of the world is blind to the immortal one and vice versa.
The next text, which is also the Antiphon of the General Introduction, says, first of all, that without the knowledge of the aksara Brahman, the Imperishable, the Spirit, the entire literal cognizance of all the samhitas is of no avail whatsoever. It formulates the basic hermeneutical principle , that without possessing the key to understanding a text the text remains a dead letter, and it affirms that this key is the eternal, the indestructible Spirit that gives us real understanding of the scriptures.
In our context, however, this stanza conveys still another, though related, message. It says that the entire gist of the VEDAS lies in one syllable, in the unalterable and thus eternal sound. The insight that language is given with consciousness accounts for the conviction that the elements of language, that is, the syllables, are considered the indestructible bricks out of which the intelligible world is made. Aksara, in fact , means both “imperishable” and “syllable. ” Now , the immutable rc is here the simplest and the fontal rc par excellence. It is the syllable contained in all the words; it is the soul of word, as it were.It is the primal sound which , sounded at the beginning, resounds in every portion of the VEDAS, which are nothing but echoes of this syllable. The pranava , or sacred syllable OM , is not explicitly mentioned, but it is abumbrated.

For your information, please note that Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Incorporated is the first religious organization to be registered in Queensland and it conducts Havans, Prayers and Vedic teachings every month somewhere near you. For further information regarding membership or where the next havan is, please contact any of the following Executive members:

Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Our text tells us that only he who has reached this transcending wisdom, which is as simple as a syllable, sits in peace and communion with God, Men, and all beings.The knowledge of the true word makes us reach understanding and harmony; it creates the authentic communion with all beings. The last stanza given here introduces an intuition concering Vac which has far-reaching repercussions in later philosophical and religious schools, especially in Saivism. It asserts that there is a fourfold division of the Word parallel to th: division of Purusa, the primordial Man. In both instances the symbolism of the number four expresses cosmic completeness, though at the same time it is stressed that such fullness is not accessible to Man in his earthbound state. As the verse quoted just before says, even the seer, who has a more than normal insight into reality, obtains only “a share of the Word.”Man has a certain consciousness of the Word’s totality, but he cannot grasp the whole; he can only grasp a portion of it.This revealed and spoken portion is only one quarter, one foot out of four ( the four feet expressing stability and wholeness). Later speculations on the subject say that the first and highest ( para) dimension of Vac is transcendent and thus inaccessible; the second is illuminated ( PASHYANTI , the seeing one ) but is still on a transcendental plane;the third, the middle one ( MADHYAMA ) , consists of purely mental articulation; the fourth is the intoned word ( VAIKHARI ), the external expression of Vac, that is human language in the usual sense.The Shatapatha Brahmana says “Only on fourth of the Word shall I speak intelligibly, if they have given me only a fourth each time for my portion . Hence only one fourth of speech , which is that of Men, is intelligibly. The fourth that beasts speak is not intelligible. The fourth that birds speak is not intelligible.

Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
The knowledge of the sacred word Brahmavidya. Brahman, as both word and concept, contains a profound ambiguity which tends to irritate those who approach the Vedas with an exclusively rational curiosity. Brahman is not only everything and nothing; it is also the highest and the lowest and that which lies in between, prayer, the effusion of the Spirit and the Spirit itself, the sacred formula, its meaning, and its ultimate intention. This hymn tries to portray the unity that nevertheless underlies Brahman. This unity constitutes the mystery of vac, the sacred Word.

The origins of the word Brahman, is firmly and indissolubly linked with sacrifice and was born in the East where sacrificial rite is performed. The seer, or sage, who discovered the Word penetrated to such an ineffable depth of contemplation that he saw in the Word the matrix of both Being and Nonbeing. The same Word, is now called vac, is seen in its feminine and thus cosmic aspect, the Word that was already in existence at the primordial creation, the all-powerful queen who truly reigns because she dwells within all beings.

The Word is boldly identified with the connecting link that imparts life to all beings and unites them with one another, the metaontic undercurrent that imparts harmony to the entire universe and is considered to have its ground in Nonbeing rather than in Being. By a sort of two-way relationship the Supreme Principle is said to have drawn forth the Word from the bosom of the Word; the Word is not other than her Source: the Father and the Daughter are one and yet He has begotten Her. To our minds the support of the universe, the skambha who, while dwelling simultaneously in heaven and on earth, upholds them both and keeps them separate. Cosmic Order is neither created nor uncreated. It is not created, for if it were it could not reside in God; nor is it uncreated, for in that even the Supreme and rita would be identical and there would be no freedom or room for decision in the Ultimate.

Vedic Teachings

Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.

“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
The knowledge of the sacred word Brahmavidya. It contains a profound and enigmatic note: the poet invokes Brhaspati, the Lord of the Sacred Word, “born from nothingness but ascended on high,” as the supreme and ultimate divinity. This extols the power and wisdom of the poet-sage as being so great that he even enhances the luster of the “ancient God” (the Sun?). He alone among those born on earth is wakeful before the Sun rises. It shows the similarity between the power of the priest, “friend of the Gods,” of whom Atharvan and Brhaspari are, respectively, the human and divine prototypes. Through the mediatorship of the priest Man can rise up from his earthly condition and attain divine freedom.

This can be summed up in the following way: May the Sages, who, first discovered the Word, who, after meditating upon it long and silently in their hearts and spirits, were illumined in their own inner beings and succeeded in communicating and pronouncing that same Word to their fellowmen—may they themselves shine with lustrous splendor!

Vagvisarga

Vac is truly “the womb of the universe.” For “by that Word of his, by that Self, he created all this, whatever there is.” The Brahmanas are fascinated, one might almost say obsessed, by the position and function of the Word. They are never far from ascribing to its magic power and on occasion they virtually do so, but their underlying intuition is of something greater than magic, for they are testifying to the unique character of the Word and its equally unique mediatorial function. The Word belongs to both worlds, the created and the uncreated; the Word is needed for sacrifice, because sacrifice is the Word.

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Vagvisarga
Vac and manas, Word and mind, go together, though at times not without a certain strain. A significant tale is told concerning the relative merits of mind and speech. As each claimed superiority they had recourse to Prajapati, who declared that mind is better than speech because the word or speech can only imitate and follow that which the mind has already conceived. The main themes of Upanisadic culture as well as certain characteristics of the Vedantic world view could be said to stem from this emphasis on the primacy of the spirit over language. Throughout the Brahmanas we find a certain ambivalence as the texts oscillate between two extremes, sometimes identifying vac with Prajapati and sometimes considering the Word as a mere instrument, subordinate not only to mana s but also to certain other fundamental concepts that constantly reappear in the Brahmanas. The ambiguity is not resolved. There are, however, various texts that introduce us in striking fashion to the power of the Word and its unique character. The fact that vac is feminine is especially significant in the Brahmanas. She is supreme, but in a very feminine way; she is queen, but she has a king as partner, for she is the consort of Prajapati, the Creator. She has a feminine characteristic of complementarity, a mediatorial role, and a certain feminine docility and obedience. She needs always to be uttered, by men, by Gods, or by the Creator himself. This element of submission is responsible, however, for her decline. She gradually loses her primordial supremacy until she is defeated by manas in the Brahmanas and plays a secondary role in the Upanisads.
Manovac
The Word, the primordial principle at the origin of every thing, has many dimensions, as we have already indicated. Almost all of them are summed up in the liturgical Word as it is understood in the Vedas and Brahmanas. The Upanisads add depth to the same vision, but their different language represents also a deep ontological change: the liturgical Word can be called, according to tradition and to etymology, Brahman. The Upanisads put emphasis on Brahman and relegate vac to the performance of the other functions of the Word, though without making a clear-cut distinction. The first cleavage of which is seen in the Rig Veda, where vac is both the subject of speech (“the Word speaks,” i.e., “revelation”) and the object of speech (“the word is spoken by all kinds of beings,” i.e., language). In the first instance she is also the Queen of the Gods; in the second she is produced by the Gods.

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Manovac

The attention of the Upanisads is directed more toward the realization of the individual and the interiorization of external actions. In consequence the revelational, liturgical, and cosmological aspect of vac loses momentum. Generally vac is counted among the human organs (indriya), and her status varies, although at times her importance is rediscovered, as, for instance, when she is ranked next to atman, which on an interiorized level corresponds to the purusa or Prajapati of the Samhitas and Brahmanas. As the general tendency of the Upanisads, however, is toward the unconditioned knowledge of atman as the knower and not the known, the seer and not the seen, any type of mediation is to be refused—the mediation of the sacrifice and also therefore of the liturgical Word of Revelation. While the Vedic rishis were overwhelmed by the power of the Word, the Upanisadic sages enquired whose is this Word; and so they were directed not only to the speaker, but even beyond him to the Self, which inspires all speech from within, the antaryamin the Immortal, as one of the texts affirms. Speech cannot know its own source of inspiration, just as the body cannot know its life-giving principle, the soul. And yet speech is one of the nearest “bodies,” that is, embodiments or manifestations, of the inmost Self, as the same text suggests. Since the final word of the Upanisads is neti, neti, “not this, not this,”the Absolute can only be designated as tad avacyam, “the unspeakable,”that to which vac cannot be applied and from which any word recoils. Even this world was, at the beginning, unspoken, unuttered, as one Upanisad says. The fact should be kept in mind, nevertheless, that the concept of Brahman arose out of that very horizon of sacred speech and liturgy which we have been describing. Without it the whole religious and mystical fervor of the Upanisads could not have come into being; even that which must be transcended, has first to be.

Mahabhutani

The Word has been spoken and has broken the original silence. The cosmic principles are there as fragments of this broken silence. All this is only the beginning. Before the human gaze is directed inward and toward the splendor of the Lord, Man meets the elements of this universe, encounters them, and is gripped at the same time by awe and by admiration. The world is the first manifestation, the primordial revelation to Man. It is not individual things that stir his imagination but the primordial elements of the world. All these elements are at one and the same time both material and spiritual. Indeed, a division between matter and spirit seems to be drawn only at a later date in an artificial way, and only for practical purposes. Nothing solely spiritual or solely material exists in the range of our common experience. There is one Upanisad reflecting the evolution of human consciousness, while it continues at the same time the most authentic Vedic line:

He who is abiding in the earth, yet different from the earth, . . .
He who is abiding in the water, yet different from the water, . . .
He who is abiding in the wind, yet different from the wind, . . .

The very word antara used here means both “different from” and “interior to.” This total vision of the elements is not concerned with the physical or the scientific alone, or, for that matter, with the merely allegorical or spiritual, but with the integral experience of an undivided though differentiated whole, which has its own role to play and its own constitution to maintain. He who sees “the waters” only as a colorless material liquid with certain physical properties will surely fail to know what that word has really meant to mankind, nor will he know what
water really is. He who, on the other hand, neglects or even despises the internal physical structure of water and does not bother to study its properties will equally miss the point.

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Mahabhutani
Is it possible for the men and women of our times to enjoy so innocent and holistic a view of the elements of the world? The qualified answer, impossible for us to develop here, would be yes, provided we do not look at ourselves at the same time. That is to say, we can still have an ecstatic and integral view of the universe if we cease to claim a privileged and exceptional position for Man, as if he were the goal and the final product of creation. How this second condition can be fulfilled is another problem altogether. It is neither desirable nor possible to go back to a precritical stage, but perhaps there is another step open to our generation, a step that goes beyond the merely outward self-forgetting look and abandons as equally unsatisfactory the claim of Man to be a neutral spectator of this world and king of the whole earth. However that may be, this anthology may help the reader to follow the course of the human pilgrimage by reenacting the past with a present awareness. Doing so does not make us people of the past; on the contrary, it prevents us from being excommunicated from the common human– and cosmic–adventure. Nothing is more barren than to be obsessed with modernity and pretend to forget the past. Roots do not produce flowers, but neither can there be flowers without roots.

Yet another word may be required regarding the place and the function of the elements. The Vedic cosmology is not our special concern in this anthology, but we need to be acquainted with some of its features in order to understand how the Vedic Revelation viewed the world. Many centuries ago, before the scientific world view, culminating in the splitting of the atom, led to the predominance of the quantitative, man had a more qualitative conception of the irreducible factors that underlie all manifest realities. For modern Man Matter and Energy (in spite of their different forms and interchangeability) can be said to form the fundamental elements of the universe. Against this dualistic outlook, Vedic Man was more pluralistic and believed, as was also true of many other ancient cultures, in the existence of certain basic elements of a qualitatively different nature which underlay the constitution of the universe. These elements should not be understood against the background of a rigid atomic theory; they were to a great extent interrelated and were sometimes even interchangeable, so that the Vedic intuition refers, for example, to fire being born out of the waters. The elements are not individual and separated constituents of a whole but, rather, vectors or forces pervading the entire reality. Out of the five classical elements and others that could perhaps have been chosen, we give here texts concerning only three, which we may epitomize thus: water as the reality before creation, earth as the creation par excellence, and wind as the dynamic of the cosmos after creation.

Water – In almost all traditions of mankind the waters occupy a special place, being either uncreated or produced in a very peculiar. way. In the Shatapatha Brahmana it is said that they were produced out of vac, the word, the first element out of the first “principle.” The waters are the primeval element; everything else rests on them. They belong to the three worlds. The ritual of the Shatapatha Brahmana states several times that vessels and other utensils must be thrown into the waters after being used in the sacrifice, precisely because these waters are the basis and foundation of the universe. It is still a common practice in everyday life to immerse idols (murtis), utensils, used things, in the sacred rivers. Moreover, deceased children and holy men are not cremated but are returned either to the earth or to the waters. All this symbolizes the same thing: the return to the origins. The waters possess an integral reality, and thus they have healing power. Purification is their first anthropocosmic function. The waters possess also a certain intermediate character. They are neither air nor earth; they are on earth but come from heaven; they bring life but they can also be lethal; they purify but they can also be muddy; they flow on the surface but there are also internal rivers of water in the earth, as well as in the individual; they take all forms and have unlimited freedom, but yet they are not supreme. Waters convey divine energy, just as in more modern parlance blood is the conveyor of human life, but they are not the divine principle. What is more ambivalent than the waters, which on the one hand you cannot live without, while on the other they may unexpectedly flood the land and drown you? No wonder that the Spirit of the waters, the apam napat of the Rig Veda, not only has a direct counterpart in certain other traditions but represents what amounts to an invariant in all ancient cultures of mankind. He, the Son of the Waters, of color unfading, performs his work within the body of another. Agni is the “Son of the Waters”; he dwells in the water. Fire and water belong together. It is difficult to conceive of the spirit being unleashed from the earth, while air and ether possess no “earthly” properties at all; the waters, however, occupy an intermediate position and contain both the movement and life of the airy elements and the gravity and consistency of the solid: they are alive. Finally, it is interesting to note the fact that many cosmologies award primordial status to the waters rather than to any of the other elements.

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Mahabhutani – Earth

The Vedic attitude toward the earth springs from mankind’s primordial experience of being on the one hand a guest, and on the other an offspring, of Earth. The earth is undoubtedly mother, is close to Man, but at the same time she is also alien, other and aloof. The earth is the foundation, the basis out of which emerges all that exists and on which everything rests. The earth is the basis of life and, when considered as a divine being, she always occupies a special place among the Gods. Man is of the earth and earthly, but the earth is not simply nature, is not merely geographical or material; it is part of Man himself, so that Man can no more live without the earth than he can live without a body. At the same time, though he stands on the earth, he also stands above her. Man is more than earth. The earth is the mother of Man, but Man is also lord over the earth. Man could be said to be like the eldest son of a widowed mother, in the traditional Indian setting. The tension between Man and earth is conspicuously present, but there is no separation. Vedic Man would find any attempt at dominating or subjugating the earth incomprehensible. The earth is an object of worship and not of exploitation, an object of awe and not of curiosity (or research, as would be said in academic circles). Investigation of the earth is of the same nature as personal introspection. To harm the earth is a masochistic vice.

Man is from the earth and part of the earth, yet he surmises more and more that he is not only of the earth, not just an earthly thing. Worship addressed to the earth is not adoration of a creature as an absolute; that is, it is not idolatory. It is rather the veneration of the highest value in the hierarchy of existence, for “undoubtedly this earth is the firstborn of being. The earth as such is rich and the owner of treasures. Man’s work is not to make a shift in ownership, despoiling, as it were, the earth of her possessions and transferring them to the toiler. Man’s work is to enjoy the blessings of the earth, because the earth is his home, his own family, his body. There is only one hymn in the Rig Veda addressed to prthivi the earth (literally, the broad one), though she is praised in several hymns conjointly with the sky, dyu. These two are called father and mother, not only of terrestrial creatures but of the Gods also. In a funeral hymn the earth is described as a gentle mother receiving her dead son into her bosom, preserving him from dissolution. Another hymn sings: Who gives us back to Aditi, the great Boundless? I wish to see my father and my mother! The second hymn of this section is the famous Prayer to the Earth, one of the most beautiful hymns of the Veda. The earth is here called not prthivi but bhumi. This hymn depicts the universal mother, dispenser of every sort of good. It presents a striking cosmogonic and the anthropological sequence.

The origins of the earth come first. When she was as yet hidden in a fluid state in the bosom of the primeval waters, the seers were already seeking to discern her by means of sacrifice. A geographical description, or, as we could equally aptly call it, a highly poetical vision of nature, follows. The earth is composed of hills and plains, of snow-clad peaks, of deserts, oceans, and rivers, of lakes and streams, trees and plants, rocks and stones. The seasons appear with unfailing regularity and bring to her their own gradations of climate. Even included is an account of her fragrance which is described distinctively according to whether it emanates from plants or from water, from the lotus, from animals, from human beings, or even from the Gods. We are also told of her underground treasures of jewels and gold. Third, earth is the dwelling place of people. It is upon her that in the beginning the first humans were scattered abroad. It is upon her that they sing and dance and find their happiness. It is she who diversifies Men’s speech into different languages. It is upon her many paths that men and women pass to and fro and it is her highways that men use for their wagons and chariots. Further, the earth is protected by the Gods; she is the conveyer of Agni, Universal Fire, and the place where men offer ritual sacrifice. It is upon her breast that men build their altars and construct their tabernacles and shelters and ritual posts. It is she in whose praise priests chant their hymns. The earth points beyond herself by means of the cultic acts of Gods and Men. She is, furthermore, the dwelling place of all living creatures, mention of whom is not omitted. She is the home of cattle and horses, of the beasts of the forest, of deer and birds, reptiles and two-legged creatures. She is, finally, a cosmic giant, a cosmic power, the receiver of prayers and the bestower of blessings, the protector and the inscrutable judge. Ecology was a sacred science for Vedic Man.

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Mahabhutani – Wind
In the Rig Veda the wind is named vata or vayu, the former being used chiefly for the element and the latter chiefly for the God. There is no need to elaborate any particular theory regarding the meaning of the Vedic divinities, for the hymns speak for themselves. They make clear reference to the benefits bestowed by the wind and they pray that such blessings be continued. An ambivalent meaning is suggested by some of the sentences in these two hymns. What is said of the Wind could equally be said of the Spirit. The Wind collects, enraptures, and takes away in his chariot toward the celestial heights those who are caught in his blowing, bringing them together with the same devotion and enthusiasm as that of women congregating for a holy feast or gathering for a marriage. This same Wind is connected with the primordial waters, is called the first-bom, and yet is said to be of unknown origin; for nobody knows where it goes and where it comes from: it wanders free, is heard but not seen, is invisible, can only be felt, experienced, sensed, without being comprehended or understood. The second hymn, voices a deep prayer to the Spirit that he may breathe or impart life. The Wind holds the gift of eternal life; it is the bestower of the life principle, the seed of life.

Mahabhutani – The Lord
The Lord is undoubtedly not a proper name of God; it is not a distinctive name. It is a comprehensive term used not only for the different names of the divinities and of God in different religious traditions, but also for many other forms of preeminence in the human world: the pontiff, the king, the ruler, the judge, the husband, and so on, are called “lords” in many a culture, while in a personified way even the powerful natural phenomena are considered to lord it over human beings. Probably no other name is more universal and more appropriate to denote that mystery greater than ourselves which some traditions have called God. Not every tradition agrees in calling the Supreme either Being or Person or Creator or even God. Further, if we use a proper name, if we say Varuna or Siva or Yahweh, we are not only personifying but also limiting our reference to that one culture where the word is at home. The name of Lord, on the contrary, seems to be universal and capable, at the same time, of taking on a concrete meaning. It betrays, indeed, a certain personalistic bias, but this bias is not essential to it, as we may see not only if we consult the etymology of the many words standing for it, like bhagavat, ishvara, prabhu, or, in other traditions, ba’al, adon, kyrios, allah (al-ilah), ahura mazda, but also and mainly if we consider that the main import of the name Lord (and all its equivalents) is not that of being an individual or even a particular being, but of being the superior term of a relation. The Lord is probably the most universal symbol for that “other term” of the human-cosmic relation which has received so many different names. On various occasions in the past and also recently it has been affirmed that the Vedas are both magical and pantheistic. One must add that almost any description or manifestation of something for which one does not possess the clue is bound from an external viewpoint to look like magic; most of the achievements of science and technology would appear so to a Man from another culture, and this applies also to the utterances and descriptions of the Vedas when they are seen with eyes and felt with feelings alien to those of Vedic Man.

Concerning alleged pantheism, one should bear in mind that a process of identification (between worshiper and object of worship), which is bewildering to a rational mind detached from the object of its thought, is an almost obligatory feature of any committed existential attitude. If, when thinking about or desiring one thing or loving one person, we are at the same time thinking about another thing, desiring a different object, and loving a second person, we are bound to say that our acts are far from being perfect, satisfying, and perhaps even authentic. If, when considering one thing, we are being worried by another and are already considering how we are going to integrate this second into a wider picture, our thinking is not only not fully engaged in its primary concern but is already distorting the picture by adopting a double perspective which can only blur the image. Therefore, there is no need to refer to a particular trend of thinking or an epistemological difference in order to explain the Vedic hymns, though this trend or difference may well be pertinent. We need only recall that each text is a prayer, a hymn, a song, or a commitment and that it does not vault outside itself, so to speak, in order to see its own impact on the reader or its compatibility with what has been said before or will be said afterward. Each ultimate attitude is unique and cannot be compared with another. Any comparison presupposes a neutral or a more general “platform” which makes the comparison possible at the price of robbing the particular attitude of its character of ultimacy.

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Mahabhutani – The Lord

It is easy to recognize that Light is not the same as Life, or Time Eternity, or Indra Agni, or Savitri Vayu. Yet when we receive properly a divine gift (that is, when we accept the visitation of the Lord), in whatever wrappings that gift may be, there is no room left for anything else. The lordship of the Lord, whatever concrete form it may take, is not only overwhelming; it is also in a way absolute and thus unique. Because of our temporal fragmentation, however, owing to the fact that we cannot live a whole life at one time, a second moment may displace the first one and we may be filled with another equally overpowering experience which will find another unique, and thus incomparable, form of expression. It is only from the outer platform of our memory or from the eyes of an outsider that we can relate the two experiences. Memory is a double-edged sword: it allows for continuity once the real continuity is broken, but because it is a temporal human faculty, memory cannot bear witness to the non-temporal. There is no memory in ecstatic moments or in actual consciousness.

It is tempting, and perhaps it would be rewarding, to take a certain evolutionary perspective and speak of the progressive evolution of the concept of Lord in the Indian scene, but we cannot do so here. The nouns Ishvara and Isha are not found in the RigVeda, although the verb form is frequently used to express the power of the Gods. Where the terms occur in the Atharva Veda and Brahmanas, they certainly do not have the connotations of later times. Certain Upanisads begin to put the concept of the Lord in the foreground and the Shvetashvatara Upanisad gives it still greater prominence. The personal Lord is finally fully disclosed in the Bhagavad Gita. On the other hand, if we take into consideration other generic terms such as pati, prabhu, adhipati, and so on, we may certainly say that the concept of the Lord does in fact permeate the whole of the Vedas. In addition to the words denoting Lord we can also say that the concept is present in all the hymns, where it is represented each time by one of the Vedic Gods. Thus, if we are considering the omnipotence and majesty of the Godhead, his sovereignty, it is Indra who springs spontaneously to mind. If we reflect upon the great importance of sacrifice or on the incarnate friendly aspect of God–though without in any way diminishing his divinity–it is to Agni that we turn. Indra, Agni, Varuna, the Master who surveys Men’s deeds, punishes Men, and pities them, Soma, the radiant Lord of Light–each of these will make an appearance according to the place that he has made for himself in the minds and hearts of the Men of the Vedic period.

The different Gods described and worshiped in the Vedas testify to a strong urge in Man toward unity, a longing to arrive at a conception that is both totally divine and totally human. This dynamic process in Man has not yet ceased, and the fascinating evolution discernible in the Indian context from the Vedas through the Bhagavad Gita to modern times can be paralleled elsewhere. Furthermore, the situation presents in our days a new challenge. Is not the serious thrust of modern atheism a new step toward a deeper the andric unity by which God as Other is dethroned and yet Man as individual does not replace him? Not only does the concept of the Lord undergo an enriching process of inner unification, so that the different Gods and attributes or persons are no longer considered in a polytheistic way, but it also acquires a stronger bond of unity with the world, so that the Lord’s relation with the world is no longer considered in either a dualistic or a monistic way: his transcendence does not exclude his immanence or his immanence his transcendence, and thus neither monotheism nor atheism appears satisfactory any longer. Its main message is not to give us a historical picture of the development of human consciousness regarding the divine or to explain to us the evolution of Man’s religiousness, but to lead us toward an ever deeper realization of this continuing universal and ever new mystery. The hymns, chants, injunctions, and prayers are not there mainly to foster an intellectual curiosity but to nourish a personal life. The Lord is not only from yesterday or only for tomorrow; he is also and primarily in today’s life, as the Scriptures remind us. The hymns that follow are dedicated to Savitri, Agni, Indra, Soma, Varuna, and Visnu. Each of them has a proper face and possesses his own symbolic power. But to those who are outside the atmosphere of the traditional religiousness of India, modern Hindus or others, these names may not convey all the riches crystallized in long centuries of fervent prayer and thoughtful meditation; such people may even feel disturbed by these names, interpreting them as mere mythological figures instead of as living symbols. We suggest, therefore, replacing the proper names on occasion with the widely used name of “Lord” and giving to it the broadest possible interpretation: any power superior to the individual. In later sections, where the role of each God is illustrated, there will be a descriptive introduction of each, but we purposely introduce the Gods singly in order to allow each unique personality

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Mahabhutani – The Lord

The different texts may give some idea of the wide range of experience under-girding Vedic “theology.” No merely naturalistic explanation of the worship of the Gods as natural powers will do justice to the texts or to the sophistication of Vedic culture. No supernaturalistic hypothesis should undermine, on the other hand, the realistic and humanistic approach of the texts. The Gods are intrinsically connected with sacrifice and with the idea of cosmic order; they constitute different expressions of the sacrificial act that maintains universal order. Within the cosmic realm the split that is productive of many Gods is not an ultimate one, just as the parallel split in our consciousness among ourselves, the world, and God is not ultimate either; these three are certainly not one, but neither are they many. The mystery of God is the mystery of Man and the mystery of Reality. The Vedic Revelation does not reveal one God; it just unveils a little the mystery of life by assuring us that Reality is neither dead nor blind, that there is a Lord of beings residing in the heart of every being as well as in the core of Being itself, and this affirmation is loudly proclaimed in a festive symphony. The unique lordship of Savitri the resplendent Sun, the vivifier, is so much a part of everyday life that no one will contest his supremacy. We have already seen that the Sun inspired the most sacred Gayatri mantra, and later on we encounter him as the dispenser of blessings and, under the name of Surya, as the supreme light and dispeller of darkness.

The ocean of golden light in which Savitri dwells is much more conducive to an ecstatic than to an analytic approach, but we can descry some of his main features. The Lord Savitri is the giver of life and the origin and end of time. From his rising until his setting everything follows the course of the sun: the life of Men, the functioning of the cosmos, and even the rites of sacrifice. Everything on earth depends on his radiant light and warmth. The actions of Men are regulated according to the hours of the day, each moment of which depends on the sun. The life cycle of both animals and plants is under his surveillance, while the hours of the agnihotra sacrifice have been strictly fixed in relation to his appearance; it is in communion with him that, evening and morning, Men pray, meditate, and worship. All beings, men and creatures, abide forever in the bosom of Savitri divine. It is he, Man’s constant companion during the day, who brings him to his rest at night. Savitri, as we have said, is the “golden” Lord. His golden appearance is frequently mentioned in both descriptive and eulogistic hymns. There is no better adjective to convey simultaneously his shining splendor, his bounty, and his inestimable value for Man. He is “golden-eyed” and “gold-handed”; he appears majestically in a “golden chariot” with “poles of gold” and a “golden shaft”. The Lord Savitri is gracious toward Men. He distributes his favors with magnanimity, repulsing sorrows and dangers, conquering sickness, and chasing away demons and sorcerers. His realm is the realm of light, of beauty and well-being, and it is to him that Men turn when they are afraid of darkness, whether it be the darkness of night or the darkness of suffering, and when they are longing for light, health, and joy. Their trust in Lord Savitri is so strong that they are confident in his power to free them from sin.

The Friend of Man
Agni
The most appropriate Vedic symbol for the lordship of the Lord is perhaps the figure of Agni, the friend of Man, the mediator, the sacred and sacrificial fire, and at the same time the fire that is in the sun, in burning things, and in the heart of Man, everywhere the same and yet everywhere different, having varied and even almost contrary effects. The devotion to Agni does not represent nature worship, much less pantheism; it is the recognition of an underlying polymorphic reality that softens wax and honey but hardens mud, dries up plants, may bring life or death, and always transcends all our powers, mental as well as physical. Agni is acclaimed with praise and veneration both evening and morning at the domestic hearth, when the home is not closed in upon itself but is open to the horizons of the earth and of men. Agni is near to Man, kindly disposed, intimately bound up with his life, the guest of his dwelling, the wise Lord who knows all things, the eternally young, the strong and powerful to whom one offers sacrifice and who is able to shower one with blessings. If modern Man does not follow what has been said, let him wait until winter and evening, kindle the hearth, and simply gaze at the live coals, and he will surely understand that the lord is he who breaks his isolation without disturbing his solitude.

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Mahabhutani – The Lord

The Friend of Man
Agni
This hymn, like many of those addressed to Agni, expresses his lordship in terms of wisdom and foreknowledge. He is powerful and yet accessible to Men, full of goodness and mercy, inspiring devotion in such a way that Man approaches him fearlessly as a friend, not as an abstraction or a distant and formidable deity. The lordship of Agni is not seen as the imposition of a divine will, but as an expression of the normal and beautiful order of reality. If nobody knew “the first word and the last,” all the other human words in between would be utterly meaningless and could only convey despair. If there were no fire to burn what has already dried up, or what has been done wrongly, no renewal and no hope would subsist on earth for a long time.

The Master of the Universe
Indra
The facet of Indra most celebrated and extolled in the Rig Veda is his Lordship, his supreme mastery of men and situations. He is Master of the whole world “He who is Lord of every world that moves and breathes;” “Yourself alone the universal Sovereign.” All the hymns dedicated to him contain an element of near ecstasy as they extol his grandeur and his universal dominion. In each hymn he is Master of the universe. He has conquered it, overcoming all foes. The hymn that follows refers, in the compass of a few concise and beautiful verses, to several of the features of his Lordship: he is Lord of sacrifice and he is renowned as the drinker of Soma, that energy-giving drink in which he delights. Those who perform the sacrificial rites are at a loss to find words capable of extolling Indra in accordance with his merits. He is always the God-hero, the God of mighty deeds arousing awe and praise. Men are enraptured by the divine display of the Master of the universe. The second stanza mentions the “two bay steeds” that pull his chariot. The chariot here refers to the Word, that Word whose power is manifested in the performance of the sacrifice. Elsewhere the poet speaks of “his steeds yoked by prayers.” Such metaphors refer no doubt to the invocations that summon Indra to the sacrifice. Lord of the universe, Lord of hosts, all-powerful in battle, Lord and Friend, the one who chases away every evil, Indra is full of compassion for his worshipers. His friends are never done to death or overcome by violence.

The Heroes of Sundry Exploits
Indra-Soma
Indra and Soma are so closely associated that on most occasions the one is not mentioned without explicit or implicit reference to the other. It is indeed after drinking deeply of Soma that Indra is rendered capable of his heroic tasks. Soma is a God, a myth, a plant, and the special juice extracted from it, which is utilized in many sacrificial and other rites. In this hymn it is the celestial drink that is invoked. One of the most important tasks of Indra was the liberation of the world from the dominion of the fearful dragon Vrtra, who was maintaining the universe in drought and gloom; the dragon was slain, the waters flowed, the shadows were dispelled, the sun rose, and the light shone. Thus Indra is hailed as conquering Lord and as Savior and, because of the work of liberation, achieved in partnership, Indra and Soma are said to give life to the world, for water, light, and sunshine are the necessary conditions for life. Indra and Soma are thus intimately connected with light because they drive away all shadows, all evil. They cooperate in the task of bringing light to the world, and Soma, the sacrificial drink, the all-purifying (pavamana), is often praised as “Lord of Light.” The identification of Soma with light–he is called indu, bright drop–derives no doubt from the appearance of the sacred liquid which is of a yellow-golden hue (hari). The poets highly praise Soma’s luminosity, which may also be connected with his inebriating effect. Soma, the sacred drink drunk by Indra, not only inspires Indra to perform mighty deeds but is himself a God who performs great cosmic actions: he makes the sun and the dawn shine; he is the Father of Heaven and Earth; it is to please him that the winds blow and the rivers flow. He is even praised as possessing the whole universe, including its five regions. He is also, and independently of Indra, a great and heroic warrior who wins all his battles. No evildoer, no wicked person, can withstand his mighty and luminous power, “for you, Soma purifier, repel all enemies.

Vedic Teachings
Vedic Teachings is a regular article compiled by Hari Chand, Secretary of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Brisbane Inc.
“All acts should be performed in accordance with Dharma, that is, after deliberating what is right and wrong.”
Part 1 – THE WORD [ Vac ] – continued from last issue
Mahabhutani – The Lord
The King of Heaven and Earth
Varuna
Varuna, one of the greatest among the Rig-Vedic Gods, represents the Lord in his aspect of kingship; he is the supreme Ruler who controls all things, the cosmos as well as the deeds of Men. The sun is the all-seeing eye of Varuna; nothing escapes his glance, which sees all, penetrates, surveys, examines, and assesses.l02 In order to symbolize this extraordinary power he is said to have “a thousand eyes.”l03 The hymn here given describes the activity of this monarch, thus enhancing our awareness and making us conscious of his presence at all times and in all places. At the beginning of the hymn an invocation implores his mercy after the fashion of nearly all liturgical prayers. He is then depicted as the supreme overseer who has knowledge of all that happens both in heaven and in the ocean.

Varuna follows attentively the working of the cosmos which has been set in motion by him in accordance with well-defined laws, producing a procession of months. By his wisdom he rules also the “beyond” of time, taking into his purview both past and future. He is close to Men in friendship and consorts with them, watching over their activities. His theophany, that is, the manifestation of his presence, is sometimes so palpable that the worshiper can see him vividly in his mind’s eye (v. 18). Men implore this wise Lord, whose gaze they fear, to be well disposed toward them, and they do not ask from him, as they do from other Gods, victory in battle or prosperity, wealth, the gift of children or long life, but to be freed from the fetters of sin and to obtain “true life,” exempt from evil. Varuna is also, after Indra, the most anthropomorphic of the Rig-Vedic Gods and the most humane of all. It has been said that he acted as a bridge that enabled Men to pass from a so-called polytheistic to a more monotheistic world view.

Visnu, who is so dearly beloved and who has inspired, and indeed still inspires, in his devotees such fervent worship either of his own person or of his earthly manifestations Rama and Krishna, is not a major divinity in the Rig Veda. 105 It is the Sama Veda and Shatapatha Brahmana, where Visnu is constantly identified with sacrifice, which accord him an important place, while at a later date the prolific literature of the Puranas, of which the myths concerning Visnu form the basis, made him immensely popular.106 This prominence has been maintained and indeed enhanced right up to modern times. Our hymn mentions the famous strides (pada) of Visnu so frequently featured in later iconography and legend. Two of his strides are visible to Men (those encompassing the earth and the air) and the third is in the heights of heaven (the sky). This third step is like a veil affixed to the sky, the proper abode of Visnu.

The sky is his favorite haunt, a place of happiness, where Men go after death and rejoice together with the Gods and where there is to be found a fountain of honey, that is, nectar (hence the allusion to his third step being filled with honey). His trivikrama, or three strides, have also been interpreted in a temporal way, connected with the sun’s orbit: the rising, the zenith, and the setting of the sun. In any event Visnu, as the sacrificial rituals remind us, is the deity who encompasses both time and space, that is to say, past, present, and future as well as earth, air, and heaven. The power of Vishnu is a disguised one. Time and again he appears as a dwarf, thus hiding his true nature. It is in his dwarf’s form that he deceives the asuras and makes them accept the challenge described in so many texts.