The Vedas and Upanishads for Children Read online

  The Vedas and Upanishads

  FOR CHILDREN

  ROOPA PAI

  Illustrations by Sayan Mukherjee

  First published in 2019 by Hachette India

  (Registered name: Hachette Book Publishing India Pvt. Ltd)

  An Hachette UK company

  www.hachetteindia.com

  This ebook published in 2019

  Text copyright © 2019 Roopa Pai

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 Sayan Mukherjee

  Illustration on page 55 (top) by Mistunee Chowdhury © 2019 Hachette India

  Roopa Pai asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  Photographs sourced from Wikimedia Commons and attributed on page 412, which is to be considered an extension of the copyright page.

  Wikimedia Commons photographs have been accessed on 26 November 2018 and any changes in the status of copyright after this date are not legally binding for any and all versions of this book. Any omissions are unintentional and regretted, and, following written communication, will be rectified in the next edition.

  All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system (including but not limited to computers, disks, external drives, electronic or digital devices, e-readers, websites), or transmitted in any form or by any means (including but not limited to cyclostyling, photocopying, docutech or other reprographic reproductions, mechanical, recording, electronic, digital versions) without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by her. The publishers are not in any way liable for the same.

  All efforts have been made to verify the copyright ownership of photographs as well as the correctness of the information included in this edition.

  Print edition ISBN 978-93-5195-296-1

  Ebook edition ISBN 978-93-5195-297-8

  Hachette Book Publishing India Pvt. Ltd

  4th & 5th Floors, Corporate Centre

  Plot No. 94, Sector 44, Gurugram - 122003, India

  Originally typeset by

  by Manmohan Kumar, Delhi

  Printed and bound in India

  by Manipal Technologies Limited, Manipal

  To all the readers of this book...

  Don’t settle for being human – discover the God

  that you really are.

  CONTENTS

  Before We Begin

  THE KNOWLEDGE

  First off, the Vedas

  1.So What’s the Big Deal about the Vedas?

  2.Nature Songs of the Cattle-Herders

  3.The Gods of Big Things

  4.A-One, A-Two, A-One, Two, Three, Four

  5.A Feast of Hymns

  THE SECRET

  Next up, the Upanishads

  6.So What’s the Big Deal about the Upanishads?

  7.Mastermind!

  8.Shankara’s Faves – The Top Ten Upanishads

  9.Isha: The Upanishad of the Sameness of All Things

  10.Kena: The Upanishad of ‘Whence-Came-It-All’?

  11.Katha: The Upanishad of the Secret of Eternal Life

  12.Prashna: The Upanishad of the Peepul Tree Sage

  13.Mundaka: The Upanishad of the Big Shave

  14.Mandukya: The Upanishad of the Frog

  15.Taittiriya: The Upanishad of the Partridges

  16.Aitareya: The Upanishad of the Glory of Being Human

  17.Chandogya: The Upanishad of the Sacred Metre

  18.Brihadaranyaka: The Great Forest Upanishad

  And, in Conclusion

  Acknowledgements

  Select Bibliography

  Image Copyright Information

  BEFORE WE BEGIN

  Hello, hello! It’s lovely to meet you!

  You are standing there (or sitting here) reading this for one of two reasons. You have either:

  (a)bought this book (or your parents have thrust it on you, believing this is an ‘improving’ book), OR

  (b)you are browsing through it at a bookstore or library, wondering if it’s worth taking home.

  Whatever your reason, chances are that, like many people, you only have a vague understanding of what the Vedas and Upanishads are. So let’s very briefly ‘define’ the two first.

  The Vedas are some of the oldest texts known to humankind. They are considered sacred texts and mainly comprise hymns of praise to the elements that sustain us – the sun, the rain, the fire, the wind, the water. Oh, and they came out of the land that we today call India. (To get the Veda 101, flip to The Knowledge, on page 1.)

  The Upanishads are part of the Vedas, and therefore, also thought to be sacred. They are the last and newest ‘layer’ of the Vedas (this is India we are talking about, so even this ‘new’ layer was added about 2,700 years ago), but they are not hymns at all – in fact, many are stories, and / or conversations between teacher and student. And what are these stories and conversations mainly about? Unravelling the answers to very fundamental questions, the kind that human beings of all regions and races have struggled with forever. Questions that, astoundingly enough, we still have no clear answers to, despite all the progress we’ve made in the last 3000 years! (To get up close and personal with the Upanishads, go to The Secret, on page 123.)

  What are some of these fundamental questions? Let’s see now.

  •Where did the universe come from?

  •Who am I?

  •What is the purpose of my life?

  •Is there a God, and if so, who/where/in what form is He/She/It?

  •What is death?

  •How can I be hundred per cent happy all the time?

  •How do I decide what the right thing to do is in a particular situation?

  (Are these questions that bother you? If yes, keep reading!)

  Of all the different answers people across the world have come up with to these questions, it seems that the old, old answers of the Upanishads are among the most convincing, for a significant number of Indians – and non-Indians – swear by them to this day. If you’d like to find out what some of those answers are, this book is a good place to start. You can decide what YOU feel about them once you have finished reading. You may end up agreeing with the ancients, you may disagree vehemently, or you may be on the fence, BUT – get this – the sages would be happy with you whichever you are – an agree-er, a disagree-er, or a doubter!

  To the agree-ers, the sages would say, ‘Glad you agree! But agreeing is not enough. You have to try out our recommendations – on the secret of happiness, say – and find out if it actually works for you. Oh, and don’t forget to come back and tell us – and everyone else – what you discover, for the point of knowledge is to share it.’

  To the disagree-ers, they would say, ‘Wonderful! Why don’t you spend some time thinking about the same questions? Read other texts that have different answers, talk to tonnes of wise people who have other ideas, process all of it through your own head and heart – and when you think you have some answers, come back to us? We love a good debate!’

  To the fence-sitters, they would say, ‘Ah, sceptics! Those who question everything, who will not believe what someone else says is the truth, who are not content until they find the answers for themselves. We totally respect your kind – as long as you just don’t sit there on that fence, but actively seek the truth yourself. We’d love to know what you find out, when you do!’

  Because, you see, the sages of the Upanishads were never in the business of making other
people believe what they themselves knew for a fact. Instead, they were ardent seekers of the secrets of the universe, and they were on this great quest simply to satisfy their own curiosities. Once the secrets had been revealed to their trained, disciplined minds in a sudden, unexpected flash of inspiration, however, they couldn’t wait to share them with everyone.

  Here’s the remarkable part, though – these sages did not want wealth, or power, or even fame in return. In fact, so unconcerned were they about such things that they did not even attach their names to their magnum opuses, the hard-won results of their years and years of intense thought experiments!

  What the sages did hope to achieve by sharing the secrets they had discovered was to inspire people to seek the truth for themselves. What they dearly wanted was to help their fellow humans realize that life could be a joy if it was lived the right way, and that the human spirit was limitless, chock-full of untapped power and potential.

  My friends, they wanted to tell us, you are all prisoners in a ‘misery yard’, which has such high walls that you believe, mistakenly, that the yard is the world. But we – we have been beyond the walls, and we have found there a world of utter bliss. You can get there too, and guess what – you don’t even have to be dead for that to happen! All you need is the courage to commit to the journey and to all the hardships you will encounter along the way. Here, we’ve drawn you a rough roadmap to that world beyond the walls – use it!

  That’s what the Upanishads are about – a rough roadmap to living in such happiness in this world that it begins to feel like Heaven itself. And this little book is a first, very basic key to the map.

  So, what do you think? Feel like taking a stroll down ye olde Indian route to joy and freedom? What are you waiting for, then – turn the page!

  THE KNOWLEDGE

  First off, the Vedas

  १

  SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT THE VEDAS?

  Right. Let’s kick this section off with a fun quiz, designed to test how much – if anything – you know about the Vedas. It’s multiple-choice, and there’s no negative marking, so just go ahead and fearlessly tick the option you think is closest to the truth. Easy-peasy!

  PS: The answers come right after the questions. No peeking!

  1. So what are the Vedas, anyway?

  a. The. Most. Ancient. Sanskrit. Texts. Ever. (Also, the most ancient Indian texts ever)

  b. Among the oldest existing texts in ANY Indo-European language*

  c. The most fundamental sacred texts of many Hindus

  d. A vast, and somewhat random, collection of Sanskrit poetry, philosophical stories, spells, incantations, mantras, musical notations, how-to guides for all kinds of rituals, and more

  e. All of the above

  *Indo–European languages include, in order of the number of native speakers, Spanish, English, Hindustani (Hindi–Urdu), Portuguese, Bengali, Punjabi, Russian, German, French, Italian, Persian and over 400 more, including – duh! – Sanskrit. PS: South Indian languages are among those classified as Dravidian languages.

  Did you guess (e) – all of the above? That’s the right answer! Bet you got that right because you’re the sort of person who picks ‘all of the above’ when that option exists. But that’s perfectly fine – now you know what the Vedas are, somewhat.

  Now, did you notice that the word ‘texts’ was used a lot in the answer options? You will be hearing that word a lot in this book – get used to it. Why do we have to call the Vedas texts, though? Can’t we simply call them ‘books’ instead? Nope. Because they weren’t really ‘books’ – no one wrote them out or printed them on paper/birch bark/palm leaves and then bound the pages together. Not for a long, long time, anyway. Plus, the dictionary definition of ‘text’ is ‘written or printed work, regarded in terms of its content rather than its physical form’. That makes ‘texts’ the most appropriate word to describe the Vedas – and the Upanishads too – because, in the beginning – wait for it – neither had a physical form at all!

  No, seriously. For almost 2,000 years, the 20,000-plus verses of the Vedas were passed from generation to generation purely via oral transmission – they were never written down! Do you realize what that means? Both teachers and students had to know them by heart! (Want to attempt that as a project for your next summer vacay?) The oldest Veda, the Rig, was probably written down for the first time as recently as 500 CE. What is even more fascinating is the accuracy with which the texts, and the ‘tunes’ they were set to, were conveyed from teacher to student. (How did the ancients ensure that the oral transmission of their most sacred texts didn’t turn into a game of Chinese whispers? Find out in ‘Learning the Vedas by Heart (and Ear and Tongue and Mind)’ on page 14.) It is those verses, intoned exactly as they were 3,500 years ago, that you hear at Hindu pujas, weddings and funerals, in Hindu temples, schools and homes, and in the ‘Vedic chanting’ classes now trending across the globe. Gives you the goosebumps, wot?

  2. What does the word ‘Veda’ literally mean?

  a. Holy

  b. Word of God

  c. Knowledge

  d. Duty

  If you ticked anything other than (c), sorry! The word ‘Veda’ does not mean Holy, or Word of God, or Duty. The root word of Veda is ‘vid’, which is also the root word of vidya, which, as you probably know, means knowledge. (That’s why this whole section is called – ta-daa! – ‘The Knowledge’.)

  3. In all, how many Vedas are there? (If you are the sort who pays attention in social sciences class, you’ve got this one nailed.)

  a. 16

  b. 4

  c. 9

  d. 3

  Yup, (b) is the right answer. There are officially four Vedas. In chronological order, they are the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda (sometimes called the Atharvana Veda). Apparently, this last, the Atharva, is a bit of an interloper that sneaked in later – in the old, old texts, the Vedas are referred to as the Trayi Vidya – the three-fold knowledge, not four-fold.

  4. Who ‘composed’ the Vedas? (Why is the word composed enclosed in quotation marks? You’ll find out below.)

  a. A bunch of nameless rishis

  b. Veda Vyasa

  c. Valmiki

  d. Agastya

  And the answer is... (a)! Unlike the Mahabharata, which is believed to have been composed by Vyasa, and the Ramayana, said to have been composed by Valmiki, the Vedas were put together, over centuries, by several anonymous rishis or sages. However, Vyasa (whose name literally means ‘compiler’) is believed to be the one who collected the vast and sprawling body of literature we know today as the Vedas. He then classified all the different, random bits of it, decided which portions went together and compiled those into chunks, and then divided those chunks into four separate Vedas. For accomplishing this mammoth task in such an efficient, organized manner, he was given the title ‘Veda Vyasa’ – the compiler of the Vedas.

  Oh, and about the quotation marks around ‘composed’. They are there because the Vedas are actually considered to be ‘authorless’ – i.e., texts that were not ‘composed’ by anyone, not even by that bunch of nameless rishis. Instead, it is believed, the Vedas were revealed to these rishis when they were in the kind of deep trance that is achievable only through years and years of disciplined meditation. This makes the Vedas part of what is called Shruti, or ‘heard’ literature. In contrast, other ancient Hindu texts, like the Puranas, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, are part of Smriti, or ‘remembered’ literature.

  Hindus believe that Smriti texts were composed by humans, and came out of everything their authors had seen, experienced, understood and remembered. Such texts are allowed to be tweaked, edited, added to and/or rewritten all the time, since everyone’s experience is different, no one’s memory is hundred per cent accurate, and no human work is without flaws. Shruti texts, on the other hand, are believed to contain eternal, universal truths that could possibly have had divine origins. (Divine origins? Does that mean t
he ancient rishis heard the Vedas being recited by a disembodied voice in the sky? Find out in ‘How to “Hear” the Song of the Universe’ on the facing page.)

  That’s why it was so important that Shruti texts be preserved exactly as they were ‘received’. Got that? Good.

  5. Around how many years ago were the Vedas composed?

  a. 10,000 years ago

  b. 2,000 years ago

  c. 5,000 years ago

  d. 3,500 years ago

  If your train of thought while answering this question went something like – We’ve already had a, b, c and e as the correct options in previous questions, so (d) is a dead ringer for the right answer this time, you would be on the right, um, track. The Rig Veda, the oldest of the four Vedas, has been indeed dated to circa 1500 BCE, which makes the Vedas about 3,500 years old.

  LESSONS FROM THE VEDAS

  HOW TO ‘HEAR’ THE SONG OF THE UNIVERSE

  Fun fact: It involves sacrifices, and ancient rituals like discipline, focus and a heck of a lot of hard work

  We just talked about how the Vedas are part of what many Hindus consider sacred literature called ‘Shruti’ or ‘heard’ wisdom, and how it is believed that these texts were not composed by humans at all but were revealed (via confidential sources, suspected to be divine) to certain rishis who were considered worthy of it.

  How do you imagine these revelations happened? Did the rishis hear a voice from the sky speaking the Vedas, while bathing them in golden ‘God-light’? Or was it an inner voice (located approximately in the region of each rishi’s gut) that revealed the universe’s greatest secrets to him? Metaphorically speaking, neither answer is too far off the mark! It was most likely a combination of the two, happening at the same time, give or take the God-light.

  What does that mean? To understand that, you must first understand who these rishis were. Very often, rishis are depicted as people who grew weary of the world and its trials and tribulations, and ‘retired’ (notice how the word ‘tired’ is already in it?) to the forests to pursue a life of meditation and quiet contemplation. But here’s the thing – true rishis were not escaping the world at all! In fact, it was the world, with its infinite wonders and apparent randomness, which fascinated and engaged them more than anything else. These men and women were intellectuals whose thoughts went well beyond the perimeter of their careers and home-fires and their own small lives. These seekers of truth had a burning desire to unlock the mysteries of the world – What is the purpose of life? What happens to us after death? Is there a God? For them, going to the forest was a huge sacrifice, but one they were very willing to make – it was a way to get away from distractions, so that they could focus all their energies on this one great quest.