The Vedas and Upanishads for Children Read online

  * Yes! The term ‘Hinduism’ is fairly new – it was used (by the British) to describe the many variants of the Vedic religion of the Arya only as recently as the 19th century. In fact, the word ‘Hindu’ itself is a Persian word that the ancient Greeks and Persians used to describe the people and the land beyond the River Sindhu (which, in Persian, was pronounced Hindu) – it was never meant to denote people of a particular religion. This might come as a surprise, but in the Vedas and Upanishads, the word Hindu is never used.

  As for Hindus themselves, many often refer to their core belief system as ‘Santana Dharma’ – the eternal law – a timeless, universal code of ethics and duties that they, regardless of caste, creed and sect, are bound to follow.

  ** Unlike most other formal religions in the world today, belief in God is not central to Hinduism – one can be a good Hindu even while questioning the existence of God. Plus, it does not have a founder, or a single leader of the faith, or one particular God, or one particular holy book. There is no time of day or day of the week when Hindus are supposed to gather and pray, and no ‘house of worship’ that they are bound to visit regularly. As for scriptures and gurus, Hindus are only expected to use them as wise guides to help them discover the truth for themselves.

  ‘THEOBROMA’ SOMA – ELIXIR OF THE GODS

  Including: Why 21st century gods no longer have an all-access pass to this most divine of all drinks

  Whoever gave the cacao plant its Latin name was clearly smitten by its best-loved product, chocolate. He, or she, named the plant Theobroma (literally, ‘food of the gods’) cacao. If the modern method of botanical classification had been around during Vedic times, there was surely only one plant that would have earned that ecstatic descriptor – the mountain plant, soma, from which was produced the (possibly intoxicating and/or hallucinogenic) ritual drink, soma, which was worshipped as a god called (what else but) Soma.

  Soma (both the god and the drink) was vital to every yagna, for it was the favourite drink of Indra, Lord of the Heavens and the No. 1 god in the Arya pantheon (So Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were not the No. 1 Vedic gods? Nope. They were seriously minor gods then. For more details on gods old and new, see ‘Who or What did the Arya worship? Element-ary!’ on page 45). Copious quantities of soma were offered to Indra by pouring it into the yagna fire, while the even more copious quantities left behind, after having been ‘blessed’ by the gods, were consumed by the mantra-chanting priests, the yajamana and his guests, and anyone else who had the right connections.

  As you can imagine, both Soma and soma were exceedingly popular – after all, the brew was supposed to confer immortality (or at least the feeling of being immortal) on the drinker, as well as improving vitality and vigour in ‘body, mind and intellect’, and bestowing on him the ability to see the ‘light of the gods’. It would have been great to test its powers for ourselves; tragically, we simply have no idea how to brew a draught of soma today.

  Sarcostemma acidum, a Himalayan plant identified by some as being used in soma

  Considering that so many Vedic rituals and chants and beliefs have survived until the present day, it is a real shame that the recipe for soma hasn’t. While the Rig Veda indicates clearly that it was a plant product, made by (1) extracting the juice from the leaves and/or stalks of a certain mountain plant, (2) purifying it by straining through a cloth, and (3) mixing it with curd or milk, flour, water and perhaps honey, no one has so far been able to conclusively identify the mystery plant itself! We are also told that soma achieved its full potential when the juice was extracted from plants gathered by moonlight (sounds like something out of a witch’s recipe book, right?), which was probably why the Arya eventually promoted Soma the god of the drink to Soma the moon god.*

  How did we entirely lose the knowledge of this fabulous plant? After all, Indians – especially Indian grandmothers – have always had a deep knowledge of all kinds of healing, nourishing and revitalizing herbs and spices. That wisdom has come down to us in two ways – one, via texts related to Ayurveda, the Indian system of medicine (which is enjoying a huge resurgence today); and two, by word-of-mouth transmission across the generations. The fact that no knowledge whatsoever exists on the soma plant is puzzling, and probably indicates that the plant wasn’t local at all, but imported from somewhere far away in the Hindu Kush mountains, specifically for the purposes of the Vedic yagnas, until the whole thing became too unviable for one reason or another.

  Once the original plant became unavailable, the Arya began to use a substitute from the Himalayas – most scholars think it likely that it was a plant called somalata – for their yagnas. Somalata has similar (but not identical) effects on the body and mind as soma, which is why it continues to be used as an offering at yagnas even today.

  *Many ancient cultures had a god of intoxicants in their pantheon. The Greeks, for instance, had a god of the grape harvest, wine-making and wine, who was very popular. Do you know his name? The Romans knew the same god by a different name. Do you know what his Roman name was?

  Ans: Greek god of wine: Dionysus; Roman god of wine: Bacchus

  ३

  THE GODS OF BIG THINGS

  Roarers and healers, slayers and protectors, sustainers and devourers, the Arya revered them all

  If you were part of a nomadic cattle-herding people who conducted their entire lives in the lap of nature – waking each day to a glorious sunrise, retiring to bed as another beautiful sunset painted itself into a starry, starry night in the upturned bowl of the sky above, watching lightning split the dark sky in a spectacular storm as you hurried to shelter with your flock under a rocky overhang, dancing in abandon when rain-bearing clouds gathered and burst above your head, filling the rivers after a particularly merciless summer – where would you look for your gods? In those very elements, of course! And that’s exactly what the Arya did.

  The Arya believed that our universe was just one of the many universes that made up the multiverse. In their minds, our universe was divided into three ‘planes’ or lokas – Bhuh, Bhuvah and Svah. Bhuh was the earth, Svah the sky and Bhuvah the space in between the two. There were gods in each of these three lokas – the fire, earth and the rivers were all Bhuh deities; the wind, rain clouds, thunder and lightning were gods who inhabited Bhuvah; and the sun, moon, the dawn and the stars were the gods who looked down on them from Svah. By and by, though, the Arya ended up sending all their gods up to Svah.

  Considering that the Arya composed the Vedas and the Upanishads, which are the main scriptures of the religion we know as Hinduism, were the gods of the Arya the same as the gods the Hindus revere today? Yes and no. While a few Vedic gods, like Mitra and Ushas, are all but forgotten today, others, like Indra, who were all-powerful and top-of-the-heap then, are now treated as minor gods. On the flip side, gods like Vishnu, who languished way down the god hierarchy in Vedic times, have zoomed to its highest rungs today. As you can see, the theory of evolution applies to gods and goddesses as well –they evolved too, depending on the whims, concerns and aspirations of the humans who worshipped them.

  Words used to describe gods have evolved as well. One of the most startling evolutions has been in the meaning of the word ‘asura’. Today, we understand the word asura as demon – a stereotypically dark-skinned and malevolent being who causes chaos in the world and trouble in the heavens. We see asuras today as the negative counterparts of the fair-skinned, sweeter, nobler suras, or devas. The ancient Arya, however, saw asuras quite differently. To them, all their gods, including their chief god Indra, were asuras. There were good ones and bad ones (and fair-skinned ones and dark-skinned ones, one would imagine) among them, but asura* simply meant a powerful, superhuman being who could bring joy or destruction to humanity.

  *In fact, this is one of the linguisitic ‘clues’ that historians who believe that the Arya came into India from outside use to support their theory. Ancient Persian, the language of the Zoroastrian holy book, the Zend Avesta, has several words in common
with Vedic Sanskrit. Only, in Persian, the ‘s’ sound is replaced with the ‘h’ sound – the drink soma in the Vedas becomes ‘haoma’ in the Zend Avesta, for instance, and Sapta Sindhu, the group of seven sacred rivers in the north-west of India, becomes Hapta Hindu. This similarity of language, say experts, is one strong indication that both the Iranians (who were Zoroastrian) and the Arya originated in the same place in Central Asia. Even the two religions were similar – both involved fire worship. Now, with all this background info, can you guess where the first part of the name of the almighty Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda, came from? That’s right – Asura!

  WHO OR WHAT DID THE ARYA WORSHIP? ELEMENT-ARY!

  Now, who were the main gods and goddesses of the Arya? The best indication of ‘god popularity’ comes from the 1,028 suktas (hymns) of the Rig Veda, the oldest and bulkiest of all the four Vedas – the more hymns addressed to a particular god, the more popular, or higher up in the god hierarchy, he or she was. Based purely on that yardstick, here are the ‘main’ Arya gods and goddesses.

  • Indra – Heroic friend of mankind, Lord of Heaven, god of rain and storms, lover of soma, wielder of the thunderbolt Vajra, and slayer of demons, Indra held a very special place in the Arya heart. His chief nemesis was Vritra, the dragon of drought, who took great pleasure in blocking the flow of rivers. Vritra’s brother Vala was no less a foe – he specialized in turning himself into a stone cave around the cows that his allies, the mischievous Panis, stole from the Arya.

  Whenever Indra destroyed Vritra, the waters of the celestial river (the Milky Way, or the Akash Ganga, was believed to be the original celestial river from where waters flowed down to fill earthly rivers) were released to earth as rain. When he split Vala in two, the stolen cows were released to make their joyful way back to their rightful owners. In fact, this is why the Vedas sometimes use cows as a symbol for clouds. The ‘liberation of cows’ is a metaphor for the release of rain from the clouds. Whichever interpretation you pick, Indra was a superhero!

  Sadly, his fondness for soma and beautiful apsaras, and his insecurity about human sages whom he feared would become more powerful than him, seem to have weakened Indra’s powers and lost him the respect of the Arya. Slowly but surely, the most beloved Vedic god fell off his mighty pedestal and became one of the minor Hindu gods.

  • Agni – As the divine messenger who conveyed human offerings and prayers to the gods, Agni was believed to inhabit all three lokas – in Bhuh he was fire, in Bhuvah lightning and in Svah the sun. All offerings to the gods were made into his all-consuming ‘mouth’ here on earth. Agni continues to be present at all Hindu weddings and yagnas today as the accepter of offerings and the witness of the gods, but he doesn’t enjoy the kind of wild popularity he did in Arya times, when he was the first god to be propitiated at every yagna.

  • Soma – The favourite drink of Indra – and of the Arya – was venerated as a god by itself. No less than 123 of the Rig Vedic hymns are dedicated to this divine brew. Later, perhaps because of how difficult it was to obtain the plant from which soma was made, the name soma was given to the moon, and a new god, Soma, was created.

  • The Ashvins – Twin horsemen, who were the sons of the sun and the clouds, the Ashvins represented the similar but not identical glows of sunrise and sunset. They protected humans from misfortune and sickness, and were believed to be the doctors of the gods. Centuries later, they were ordained as the patron gods of Ayurveda, the Indian science of healing.

  The Ashvins, healers of the gods

  • Varuna – Lord of the Seas, rivers and the waters, Varuna was an asura with serious anger-management issues. (If you have ever seen a stormy sea, you know where that association came from.) Varuna was rarely mentioned alone in the Vedas, though – he was part of a twin identity called Varuna-Mitra. Mitra was the gentler side of Varuna, the Dr Jekyll to Varuna’s Mr Hyde, the friend that humans could appeal to when they wanted the temperamental god’s blessings. Even though Mitra is no longer venerated as a god, his spirit lives on in the Sanskrit word for friend – mitra. Varuna–Mitra’s other big responsibility was maintaining order, or rita, in the universe – things like making sure that the sun rose, the earth turned, the seasons changed, the tides rose and fell like clockwork, and so on.

  • The Maruts – The sons of Rudra and Diti, the Maruts (also called the Rudras) were violent storm gods who roared like lions as they wielded their weapons of lightning and thunderbolts. Another set of Diti’s sons were called Daityas (who became the ‘bad’ asuras), while her sister Aditi’s sons, the Adityas, grew up to be the ‘good’ asuras.

  • Ushas – The most exalted goddess of the Vedic Arya, second only to Indra, Soma and Agni, beautiful Ushas was the Goddess of the Dawn. Each morning, as she rode across the sky from east to west in her golden chariot drawn by cows or red horses, paving the way for Surya the sun god, she chased away the demons of darkness, roused everyone and everything from slumber, set things in motion and sent everyone off to do their duties. In other words, Ushas was Supermom. (Who was Ushas’s sister? Yup, Ratri, the night!)

  Ushas, the Goddess of the Dawn

  • Savitr – One of the ‘Adityas’ or sons of Aditi, Savitr, or Savita, is a form of Surya, the sun god. Savitr is supposed to be that part of Surya that infuses life into things, and he was a highly revered god in Vedic times. Over the millennia, however, Savitr was forgotten as a deity. But Hindus evoke his name very often, even though they may not realize it, in a very popular hymn from the Rig Veda that is chanted to this day. Can you guess which one?*

  *The Gayatri Mantra! The first line of the mantra goes ‘Tat Savitur varenyam’ – We meditate on that Savitr! Oh-kay, but why is the mantra called the Gayatri then – shouldn’t it be called the Savitri? Find the answer on page 72.

  • Vayu – He was the Lord of the Winds then, and continues to be the Lord of the Winds today. ‘Wind’ did not mean just atmospheric wind, though – Vayu was also the ‘wind’ in all living things, the very breath of life, or prana.

  Vayu, the Lord of the Winds

  • Brihaspati – To the ancient Arya, Brihaspati was a wise sage who was counsellor to the gods and the guru of the devas (or the good asuras). Today, we also know him as the planet Jupiter and the god of Brihaspati-vaar, or Thursday.

  • Dyaus Pitr and Prithvi Mata – The parents of everything contained on heaven and earth, Dyaus Pitr (say dhowsh-pitruh) can be translated as Sky Father and Prithvi Mata as Earth Mother. Given that Sanskrit is among the oldest of the Indo-European languages, and remembering that Dyaus Pitr is a heavenly father, can you guess what the Greek version of his name was? Zeus Pater – Father Zeus! And what planet’s name do you think Zeus Pater inspired? Jupiter, of course!

  • Apas – In Sanskrit, the word apas literally means ‘the waters’. Whether as rivers, rain or the sea, the waters were deities by themselves to the ancient Arya. Apas, together with Vayu (air), Agni (fire), Prithvi (earth) and Dyaus or Akash (space) were the five elements – the Panchabhuta – that the Arya believed made up everything in the world, including the human body.

  • Vishnu – With only six suktas dedicated to him in the Rig Veda, Vishnu in the Vedic Age was nowhere near being the Supreme Being that Hindus revere him as now. But he was even then hailed as the supporter of the earth and the sky, a close friend of Indra’s and a resident of the highest abode (Paramam Padam) where all souls go when they escape from the cycle of rebirth. He was often also equated with light, Surya, and referred to as Suryanarayana, a name that persists to this day.

  • Rudra – Rudra ‘the Roarer’, who shared many attributes – like wild matted hair, for instance – with the later Hindu god we know as Shiva, was the archer god of the storm and the hunt, his shining arrows streaking across the sky as lightning. Again, there are only five suktas addressed to him, which tells us he was a relatively minor Vedic god.

  In the Vedas, Rudra is referred to both as Ghora, the terrifying one, and Aghora, the peaceful one, but his genera
l demeanour seems to have been more terror-inducing than reassuring. The fact that Hindus use the names Rudra (fierce) and Shiva (kind) interchangeably for him even today tells us that he is still believed to have both those aspects to his personality. Rudra, who had a whole arsenal of pills and potions at his command, was also revered as Vaidyanatha, the physician of physicians.

  Now here’s the cool part about Rudra – he also shared some attributes with a god of the even more ancient Harappan people! Archaeologists have named his Harappan equivalent Pashupati, Lord of the Beasts, because of the way he was depicted by them. Could that indicate that the Arya were really the later Harappans, and therefore natives, not foreigners?

  (Want to know a little more about the Harappans and the mysterious Pashupati? Check out ‘Pashupati’s People’ on page 54.)

  • Saraswati – The goddess of knowledge that Hindus revere as Saraswati today was not the Saraswati of the Vedic Arya. To them, she was simply the ‘greatest of rivers’. Scholars believe that the earliest parts of the Rig Veda must have been composed when the Arya lived on her banks in the north-west of India, around 1500 BCE. They have also been puzzling over the identity of the river that the Arya referred to as Saraswati. Whichever it was, Hindus consider the Saraswati, along with the Ganga and Yamuna, as one of their three most sacred rivers, and believe that she merges with the other two at the Triveni Sangam (the holy spot where three rivers meet) at Prayag in Prayagraj (earlier Allahabad) in Uttar Pradesh.

  • Yama – Ever wondered how Yama got to be the Hindu god of death? Well, according to the Rig Veda, he won the position simply because he was the very first human to die and find his way to heavenly realms! As the ruler of the departed, it was his job to come down to earth on his buffalo, collect souls released from dying bodies and offer them safe passage to his kingdom.