Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 138

128
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1929
VEDANTA AND CHRISTIAN PARALLELS.
By A. COVINDACHARYA SVAMIN. (Continued from col. LVII, p. 180.)
The Word is God. To Vedanta, the word (which is philologically the English for the ancient Aryan Vedic word, Veda), is the Veda, and Veda is Sanatana or Ancient or without beginning. Hence the authority :
Anddi-nidhand hy eshd vdk utsrishtå Svayambhuvd,' i.e., this word or vák (the Veda) has neither beginning nor ending; and it is an emanation from the Self-Existing.' Thus the word was with God and it came from God. God is svayam-bha, or the Existent by virtue of itself; being the causa causorum (or causa sui, exactly (esse sui). In another place it is written
Etasya mahato bhdtasya nisvasitam elad yad Rig Vedah, i.e., 'this Veda (word) is the breathing or the breath of the Great Being'. Breath is metaphori. cal. It means life. It means mind, ultimately having the connotation Spirit. Bhúta means the being or existence which is (more abstractly, quiddity) and which is always; and mahat means the great. Hence mahato bhuta is equivalent to Brahman. Philosophically, that which is beyond time, beyond space, and beyond thing (vastu). Beyond thing 'connotes causation, that is to say that God is not an object caused by any other object or thing, but the Causer of all things, the causa causorum (spinoze). Scholiasts may pursue the subject further as investigated in the Parva and the Uttara Mimańsds. The latter is the Brahma Sutras of Bådarayana Vyasa, and its commentaries by accredited traditional apostles of Vedio lore. In this treatise is the Satra for example:
Ata eva cha nityatram, i.e., hence (or for reasons assigned), the Veda (Word) is eternal (nitya).' Hence we have God, who is Self-existent, and with Him, the Word (Veda) eternally abides. We have here & living God, a dynamic God, or a God in incessant play or display, (kaleidoscopic so to say). The kaleidoscope has certain materials which are stable and constant, quantitatively. But as we turn the toy about, different groupings take place, exhibiting different patterns, symmetries and beauties. Taking God to be the prima substans, simple or complex, we may conceive of His play, display, exhibition or manifestation as the Universe, which unceasingly is kaleidoscopic in character, or the qualitative panorama of the quantitative Brahman. The quali tative is the condition, mood, mode, aspect or phase or function of the quantitative substans or the substrate, the adhisthåna. The truism embodied in the following Sruti will now be clear.
Sdryd-Chandramarau dh dia yatha parvam akalpayat,' i.e., 'the Maker (Creator or Evolvent) made the sun and the moon (which two luminaries do duty for all creation of the Universe synecdochically), as they were before. Hence we have here a recast, re-shuffling, or re-distribution or re-adjustment of materials or elements which ever exist. Also it is clear that the re-adjustments connote periode. Hence between one re-adjustment and tho successive one, there is a rhythmic cycle or evolution or revolutions, which are spatio-temporal systems, moving in curves and having their individual loci and foci, and incessantly dissolving and composing, in the limitless expanse (metaphysically) of the bosom of Brahman.
Mythologically, vák, Word (Veda) is made a male under the persona of the four-faced Brahma (the Demiurge)—the four-faces implying all-knowledge and female under the persona of Sarasvati, whose pictures are familiar to scholars of mythology. Sarasvati, who has the Bible (scriptures) in one hand and the vind (the typical Indian stringed musical instrument) in the other. She is the wife of Brahmi-the Demiurge. The primal Urge is Brahman or Narayana, from whose lotus-like navel (lotus is figurative for kosmos), the Demi-Urge the auxiliary worker (creator), emerges. Vak is identified in other Vedic contexte with Srî or Lakshmi. The musical instrument represents the music or the symphony of the spheres, rising and falling in rhythmic cadences. We have thus the word as the breath or vibration