Book Title: Development of Hinduism
Author(s): M M Ninan
Publisher: M M Ninan

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Page 554
________________ PURUSHA SUKTHAM SAyaNA gives the following interpretation. He grows very large after being born (sa jAto atyaricyata). And then (pascat) he (sa) creates the earth (bhumim) and then (ata:), (pura:) -- cities -- bodies for creatures to live in. ''virAt vyaktRkto deva-tiryag-manushyAdi rupo 'bhut". He became large and became the bodies, or gave form to devas, animals (tiryak) and humans. Here Ends the Original Purusha Suktha ++++++++++++++++ The Yajna described The Creation of Manifest Fallen World by the gods. The rest of the verses were interpolated in time and shows the infiltration of the Gnostic theology. Since they were interpolations, the order of appearances do vary in various sources. From here onward the suktham goes on to speak about a sacrifice of the Purusha. This is typically a Vedic Sacrifice procedure associated with the creation including the yantra and mantra. It is a clear portion of extreme poetic freedom that went too far astray so that it did lost its meaning and does not make sense - if not even contradictory. Commentators had a tough time to explain it away. The way out they took was, that this is really not a physical sacrifice but imagined sacrifice - mental sacrifice. So don't give too much emphasis on the yantra and mantra. The word Yajna has two meanings essentially. The first meaning is Effort and the other meaning which is indirect is Sacrifice. The dictionary defines sacrifice as follows: The act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, especially the ritual slaughter of an animal or a person. A victim offered in this way. Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim. In the following verses of Purusha Suktha we have therefore a serious problem. Since there is no greater God than the Purusha, to whom are the sages sacrificing the Purusha to? If Purusha is giving himself as a sacrifice for the creation of the world, why is it being done by the gods? Where did these gods come from and when? From what follows the sacrifice is done by the gods and the sages where as they themselves are later said to have evolved out of this sacrifice. All together therefore there is a confusion in the thought pattern of the rest of the Upanishads. This may be most probably because 550

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