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Chapter XV
The Lost Sun and the Lost Cows
THE CONQUEST or recovery of the Sun and the Dawn is a frequent subject of allusion in the hymns of the Rig Veda. Sometimes it is the finding of Surya, sometimes the finding or conquest of Swar, the world of Surya. Sayana, indeed, takes the word Swar as a synonym of Surya; but it is perfectly clear from several passages that Swar is the name of a world or supreme Heaven above the ordinary heaven and earth. Sometimes indeed it is used for the solar light proper both to Surya and to the world which is formed by his illumination. We have seen that the waters which descend from Heaven or which are conquered and enjoyed by Indra and the mortals who are befriended by him, are described as svarvatīr apah. Sayana, taking these apah for physical waters, was bound to find another meaning for svarvatīḥ and he declares that it means saraṇavatīḥ, moving; but this is obviously a forced sense which the word itself does not suggest and can hardly bear. The thunderbolt of Indra is called the heavenly stone, svaryam aśmānam; its light, that is to say, is the light from this world of the solar splendours. Indra himself is svarpati, the master of Swar, of the luminous world. Moreover, as we see that the finding and recovery of the Cows is usually described as the work of Indra, often with the aid of the Angiras Rishis and by the instrumentality of the mantra and the sacrifice, of Agni and Soma, so also the finding and recovery of the sun is attributed to the same agencies. Moreover the two actions are continually associated together. We have, it seems to me, overwhelming evidence in the Veda itself that all these things constitute really one great action of which they are parts. The Cows are the hidden rays of the Dawn or of Surya; their rescue out of the darkness leads to or is the sign of the uprising of the sun that was hidden in the darkness; this again is the condition, always with the instrumentality of the sacrifice,
Page – 149 its circumstances and its helping gods, of the conquest of Swar, the supreme world of Light. So much results beyond doubt, it seems to me, from the language of the Veda itself; but also that language points to this Sun being a symbol of the divine illumining Power, Swar the world of the divine Truth and the conquest of divine Truth the real aim of the Vedic Rishis and the subject of their hymns. I will now examine as rapidly as possible the evidence which points towards this conclusion. First of all, we see that Swar and Surya are different conceptions in the minds of the Vedic Rishis, but always closely connected. We have for instance the verse in Bharadwaja’s hymn to Soma and Indra, VI.72.1, “Ye found the Sun, ye found Swar, ye slew all darkness and limitations” and in a hymn of Vamadeva to Indra, IV.16, which celebrates this achievement of Indra and the Angirases, “When by the hymns of illumination (arkaiḥ̣̣) Swar was found, entirely visible, when they (the Angirases) made to shine the great light out of the night, he (Indra) made the darknesses ill-assured (i.e. loosened their firm hold) so that men might have vision.” In the first passage we see that Swar and Surya are different from each other and that Swar is not merely another name for Surya; but at the same time the finding of Swar and the finding of Surya are represented as closely connected and indeed one movement and the result is the slaying of all darkness and limitations. So in the second passage the finding and making visible of Swar is associated with the shining of a great light out of the darkness, which we find from parallel passages to be the recovery, by the Angirases, of the Sun that was lying concealed in the darkness. Surya is found by the Angirases through the power of their hymns or true mantras; Swar also is found and made visible by the hymns of the Angirases, arkaiḥ̣. It is clear therefore that the substance of Swar is a great light and that that light is the light of Surya the Sun. We might even suppose that Swar is a word for the sun, light or the sky if it were not clear from other passages that it is the name of a world. It is frequently alluded to as a world beyond the Rodasi, beyond heaven and earth, and is otherwise called the wide world, uru loka, or the wide other world, uru u loka, or
Page – 150 simply that (other) world, u loka. This world is described as one of vast light and of a wide freedom from fear where the cows, the rays of Surya, disport themselves freely. So in VI.47.8, we have “Thou in thy knowledge leadest us on to the wide world, even Swar, the Light which is freedom from fear, with happy being,” svar jyotir abhayam svasti. In III.2.7, Agni Vaishwanara is described as filling the earth and heaven and the vast Swar, ā rodasī apṛṇad ā svar mahat; and so also Vasishtha says in his hymn to Vishnu, VII.99, “Thou didst support firmly, O Vishnu, this earth and heaven and uphold the earth all around by the rays (of Surya). Ye two created for the sacrifice (i.e. as its result) the wide other world (urum u lokam), bringing into being the Sun, the Dawn and Agni,” where we again see the close connection of Swar, the wide world, with the birth or appearance of the Sun and the Dawn. It is described as the result of the sacrifice, the end of our pilgrimage, the vast home to which we arrive, the other world to which those who do well the works of sacrifice attain, sukṛtām u lokam. Agni goes as an envoy between earth and heaven and then encompasses with his being this vast home, kṣayam bṛhantam pari bhūṣati, (III.3.2). It is a world of bliss and the fullness of all the riches to which the Vedic Rishi aspires: “He for whom, because he does well his works, O Agni Jatavedas, thou willest to make that other world of bliss, attains to a felicity full of the Horses, the Sons, the Heroes, the Cows, all happy being” (V.4.11). And it is by the Light that this Bliss is attained; it is by bringing to Birth the Sun and the Dawn and the Days that the Angirases attain to it for the desiring human race; “Indra who winneth Swar, bringing to birth the days, has conquered by those who desire (uśigbhiḥ, a word applied like nr to express men and gods, but, like nr also, sometimes especially indicating the Angirases) the armies he attacks, and he has made to shine out for man the vision of the days (ketum ahnām) and found the Light for the great bliss,” avindaj jyotir bṛhate raṇāya (III.34.4). All this may very well be interpreted, so far as these and other isolated passages go, as a sort of Red Indian conception of a physical world beyond the sky and the earth, a world made out
Page – 151 of the rays of the sun, in which the human being, freed from fear and limitation, —it is a wide world, —has his desires satisfied and possesses quite an unlimited number of horses, cows, sons and retainers. But what we have set out to prove is that it is not so, that on the contrary, this wide world, bṛhad dyau or Swar, which we have to attain by passing beyond heaven and earth, —for so it is more than once stated, e.g. I.36.8, “Human beings (manuṣaḥ) slaying the Coverer have crossed beyond both earth and heaven and made the wide world for their dwelling place,” ghnanto vṛtram ataran rodasi apa uru kṣayāya cakrire, —that this supra-celestial wideness, this illimitable light is a supramental heaven, the heaven of the supramental Truth, of the immortal Beatitude, and that the light which is its substance and constituent reality, is the light of Truth. But at present it is enough to emphasise this point that it is a heaven concealed from our vision by a certain darkness, that it has to be found and made visible, and that this seeing and finding depends on the birth of the Dawn, the rising of the Sun, the upsurging of the Solar Herds out of their secret cave. The souls successful in sacrifice become svardṛś and svarvid, seers of Swar and finders of Swar or its knowers; for vid is a root which means both to find or get and to know and in one or two passages the less ambiguous root jñā is substituted for it and the Veda even speaks of making the light known out of the darkness. For the rest, this question of the nature of Swar or the wide world is of supreme importance for the interpretation of the Veda, since on it turns the whole difference between the theory of a hymnal of barbarians and the theory of a book of ancient knowledge, a real Veda. It can only be entirely dealt with in a discussion of the hundred and more passages speaking of this wide world which would be quite beyond the scope of these chapters. We shall, however, have to return to this question while dealing with the Angiras hymns and afterwards. The birth of the Sun and the Dawn must therefore be regarded as the condition of seeing or attaining to Swar, and it is this which explains the immense importance attached to this legend or image in the Veda and to the conception of the
Page – 152 illumining, finding, bringing to birth of the light out of the darkness by the true hymn, the satya mantra. This is done by Indra and the Angirases, and numerous are the passages that allude to it. Indra and the Angirases are described as finding Swar or the Sun, avindat, illumining or making it to shine, arocayat, bringing it to birth, ajanayat, (we must remember that in the Veda the manifestation of the gods in the sacrifice is constantly described as their birth); and winning and possessing it, sanat. Often indeed Indra alone is mentioned. It is he who makes light from the nights and brings into birth the Sun, kṣapām vastā janitā sūryasya (III.49.4), he who has brought to their birth the Sun and the Dawn (II.12.7), or, in a more ample phrase, brings to birth together the Sun and Heaven and Dawn (VI.30.5). By his shining he illumines the Dawn, by his shining he makes to blaze out the sun, uṣasam arcayaḥ sūram haryan arocayaḥ (III.44.2). These are his great achievements, jajāna sūryam uṣasam sudamsāh (III.32.8), that with his shining comrades he wins for possession the field (is this not the field in which the Atri saw the shining cows?), wins the sun, wins the waters, sanat kṣetram sakhibhiḥ śvitnyebhiḥ sanat sūryam sanad apaḥ suvajraḥ (I.100.18). He is also he who winneth Swar, svarṣāḥ, as we have seen, by bringing to birth the days. In isolated passages we might take this birth of the Sun as referring to the original creation of the sun by the gods, but not when we take these and other passages together. This birth is his birth in conjunction with the Dawn, his birth out of the Night. It is by the sacrifice that this birth takes place, —indrah suyajña uṣasaḥ svar janat(II.21.4), “Indra sacrificing well brought to birth the Dawns and Swar”; it is by human aid that it is done, —asmākebhir nṛbhiḥ sūryam sanat, by our “men” he wins the sun (I.100.6); and in many hymns it is described as the result of the work of the Angirases and is associated with the delivering of the cows or the breaking of the hill. It is this circumstance among others that prevents us from taking, as we might otherwise have taken, the birth or finding of the Sun as simply a description of the sky (Indra) daily recovering the sun at dawn. When it is said of him that he finds the light
Page – 153 even in the blind darkness, so andhe cit tamasi jyotir vidat, it is evident that the reference is to the same light which Agni and Soma found, one light for all these many creatures, avindatam jyotir ekam bahubhyaḥ̣, when they stole the cows from the Panis (I.93.4), “the wakeful light which they who increase truth brought into birth, a god for the god” (VIII.89.1), the secret light (gūḷham jyotih) which the fathers, the Angirases, found when by their true mantras they brought to birth the Dawn. It is that which is referred to in the mystic hymn to all the gods (VIII.29.10) attributed to Manu Vaivaswata or to Kashyapa, in which it is said, “Certain of them singing the Rik thought out the mighty Saman and by that they made the Sun to shine.” This is not represented as being done previous to the creation of man; for it is said in VII.91.1, “The gods who increase by our obeisance and were of old, without blame, they for man beset (by the powers of darkness) made the Dawn to shine by the Sun.” This is the finding of the Sun that was dwelling in the darkness by the Angirases through their ten months’ sacrifice. Whatever may have been the origin of the image or legend, it is an old one and widespread and it supposes a long obscuration of the Sun during which man was beset by darkness. We find it not only among the Aryans of India, but among the Mayas of America whose civilisation was a ruder and perhaps earlier type of the Egyptian culture; there too it is the same legend of the Sun concealed for many months in the darkness and recovered by the hymns and prayers of the wise men (the Angiras Rishis?). In the Veda the recovery of the Light is first effected by the Angirases, the seven sages, the ancient human fathers and is then constantly repeated in human experience by their agency. It will appear from this analysis that the legend of the lost Sun and its recovery by sacrifice and by the mantra and the legend of the lost Cows and their recovery, also by the mantra, both carried out by Indra and the Angirases, are not two different myths, they are one. We have already asserted this identity while discussing the relations of the Cows and the Dawn. The Cows are the rays of the Dawn, the herds of the Sun and not physical cattle. The lost Cows are the lost rays of the Sun; their
Page – 154 recovery is the forerunner of the recovery of the lost sun. But it is now necessary to put this identity beyond all possible doubt by the clear statement of the Veda itself. For the Veda does explicitly tell us that the cows are the Light and the pen in which they are hidden is the darkness. Not only have we the passage already quoted, I.92.4, in which the purely metaphorical character of the cows and the pen is indicated, “Dawn uncovered the darkness like the pen of the cow”; not only have we the constant connection of the image of the recovery of the cows with the finding of the light as in I.93.4, “Ye two stole the cows from the Panis. . . . Ye found the one light for many”, or in II.24.3, “That is the work to be done for the most divine of the gods; the firm places were cast down, the fortified places were made weak; up Brihaspati drove the cows (rays), by the hymn (brahmaṇā) he broke Vala, he concealed the darkness, he made Swar visible”; not only are we told in V.31.3, “He impelled forward the good milkers within the concealing pen, he opened up by the Light the all-concealing darkness”; but, in case any one should tell us that there is no connection in the Veda between one clause of a sentence and another and that the Rishis are hopping about with minds happily liberated from the bonds of sense and reason from the Cows to the Sun and from the darkness to the cave of the Dravidians, we have in answer the absolute identification in I.33.10, “Indra the Bull made the thunderbolt his ally” or perhaps “made it applied (yujam), he by the Light milked the rays (cows) out of the darkness,” we must remember that the thunderbolt is the svarya aśmā and has the light of Swar in it, —and again in IV.51.2, where there is question of the Panis, “They (the Dawns) breaking into dawn pure, purifying, opened the doors of the pen, even of the darkness,” vrajasya tamaso dvārā. If in face of all these passages we insist on making a historical myth of the Cows and the Panis, it will be because we are determined to make the Veda mean that in spite of the evidence of the Veda itself. Otherwise we must admit that this supreme hidden wealth of the Panis, nidhim paṇīnām paramam guhāhitam (II.24.6), is not wealth of earthly herds, but, as is clearly stated by Paruchchhepa
Page – 155 Daivodasi (I.130.3), “the treasure of heaven hidden in the secret cavern like the young of the Bird, within the infinite rock, like a pen of the cows”, avindad divo nihitam guhā nidhim ver na garbham parivītam aśmanī anante antar aśmani, vrajam vajrī gavām iva siṣāsan. The passages in which the connection of the two legends or their identity appear, are numerous; I will only cite a few that are typical. We have in one of the hymns that speak at length of this legend, I.62, “O Indra, O Puissant, thou with the Dashagwas (the Angirases) didst tear Vala with the cry; hymned by the Angirases, thou didst open the Dawns with the Sun and with the Cows the Soma.” We have VI.17.3, “Hear the hymn and increase by the words; make manifest the Sun, slay the foe, cleave out the Cows, O Indra.” We read in VII.98.6, “All this wealth of cows that thou seest around thee by the eye of the Sun is thine, thou art the sole lord of the cows, O Indra,” gavām asi gopatir eka indra, and to show of what kind of cows Indra is the lord, we have in III.31, a hymn of Sarama and the Cows, “The victorious (Dawns) clove to him and they knew a great light out of the darkness; knowing the Dawns went upward to him, Indra became the sole lord of the Cows,” patir gavām abhavad eka indrah, and the hymn goes on to tell how it was by the mind and by the discovery of the whole path of the Truth that the seven sages, the Angirases drove up the Cows out of their strong prison and how Sarama, knowing, came to the cavern in the hill and to the voice of the imperishable herds. We have the same connection with the Dawns and the finding of the wide solar light of Swar in VII.90.4, “The Dawns broke forth perfect in light and unhurt, they (the Angirases) meditating found the wide Light (uru jyotih); they who desire opened the wideness of the Cows, the waters flowed on them from heaven.” So too in II.19.3 we have the Days and the Sun and the Cows, —”He brought to its birth the Sun, found the Cows, effecting out of the Night the manifestations of the days.” In IV.1, the Dawns and the Cows are identified, “The good milkers whose pen was the rock, the shining ones in their concealing prison they drove upward, the Dawns answering their call,”
Page – 156 unless this means, as is possible, that the Dawns called by the Angirases, “our human fathers”, who are mentioned in the pre ceding verse, drove up for them the Cows. Then in VI.17.5 we have the breaking of the pen as the means of the outshining of the Sun; “Thou didst make the Sun and the Dawn to shine, breaking the firm places; thou didst move from its foundation the great hill that enveloped the Cows”; and finally in III.39 the absolute identification of the two images in their legendary form, “None is there among mortals who can blame (or, as I should rather interpret, no mortal power that can confine or obstruct) these our fathers who fought for the Cows (of the Panis); Indra of the mightiness, Indra of the works released for them the strongly closed cow-pens; when a friend with his friends the Navagwas, following on his knees the cows, when with the ten, the Dashagwas, Indra found the true Sun (or, as I render it, the Truth, the Sun,) dwelling in the darkness.” The passage is conclusive; the cows are the Cows of the Panis which the Angirases pursue entering the cave on their hands and knees, the finders are Indra and the Angirases who are spoken of in other hymns as Navagwas and Dashagwas, and that which is found by entering the cow-pens of the Panis in the cave of the hill is not the stolen wealth of the Aryans, but “the sun dwelling in the darkness”. Therefore it is established beyond question that the cows of the Veda, the cows of the Panis, the cows which are stolen, fought for, pursued, recovered, the cows which are desired by the Rishis, the cows which are won by the hymn and the sacrifice, by the blazing fire and the god-increasing verse and the god intoxicating Soma, are symbolic cows, are the cows of Light, are, in the other and inner Vedic sense of the words go, usrā, usriyā, the shining ones, the radiances, the herds of the Sun, the luminous forms of the Dawn. By this inevitable conclusion the corner-stone of Vedic interpretation is securely founded far above the gross materialism of a barbarous worship and the Veda reveals itself as a symbolic scripture, a sacred allegory whether of Sun-worship and Dawn-worship or of the cult of a higher and inner Light, of the true Sun, satyam suryam, that
Page – 157 dwells concealed in the darkness of our ignorance, hidden as the child of the Bird, the divine Hansa, in the infinite rock of this ´ material existence, anante antar asmani. Although in this chapter I have confined myself with some rigidity to the evidence that the cows are the light of the sun hid in darkness, yet their connection with the light of Truth and the sun of Knowledge has already shown itself in one or two of the verses cited. We shall see that when we examine, not separate verses, but whole passages of these Angiras hymns the hint thus given develops into a clear certainty. But first we must cast a glance at these Angiras Rishis and at the creatures of the cave, the friends of darkness from whom they recover the luminous herds and the lost Sun, —the enigmatic Panis.
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