The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

128 The Secret of the Veda
Why suppose a symbol where there is only an image? Why invite
the difficulty of a double figure in which “cow” means light of
dawn and light of dawn is the symbol of an inner illumination?
Why not take it that the Rishis were praying not for spiritual
illumination, but for daylight?
The objections are manifold and some of them overwhelming.
If we assume that the Vedic hymns were composed in India
and the dawn is the Indian dawn and the night the brief Indian
night of ten or twelve hours, we have to start with the concession
that the Vedic Rishis were savages overpowered by a terror of
the darkness which they peopled with goblins, ignorant of the
natural law of the succession of night and day — which is yet
beautifully hymned in many of the Suktas, — and believed that
it was only by their prayers and sacrifices that the Sun rose in the
heavens and the Dawn emerged from the embrace of her sister
Night. Yet they speak of the undeviating rule of the action of
the Gods, and of Dawn following always the path of the eternal
Law or Truth! We have to suppose that when the Rishi gives
vent to the joyous cry “We have crossed over to the other shore
of this darkness!”, it was only the normal awakening to the
daily sunrise that he thus eagerly hymned. We have to suppose
that the Vedic peoples sat down to the sacrifice at dawn and
prayed for the light when it had already come. And if we accept
all these improbabilities, we are met by the clear statement that
it was only after they had sat for nine or for ten months that
the lost light and the lost sun were recovered by the Angiras
Rishis. And what are we to make of the constant assertion
of the discovery of the Light by the Fathers; — “Our fathers
found out the hidden light, by the truth in their thoughts they
brought to birth the Dawn,” gūd. ha ˙m jyotih. pitaro anvavindan,
satyamantrā ajanayan us. āsam (VII.76.4). If we found such a
verse in any collection of poems in any literature, we would at
once give it a psychological or a spiritual sense; there is no just
reason for a different treatment of the Veda.
If, however, we are to give a naturalistic explanation and
no other to the Vedic hymns, it is quite clear that the Vedic
Dawn and Night cannot be the Night and Dawn of India; it