The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

The Victory of the Fathers 201
all enjoy godhead attaining to the truth and the immortality by
their movements, bhajanta vi´sve devatva ˙m nāma, r.ta ˙m sapanto
amr.tam evaih. . The impulse of the Truth, the thinking of the
Truth becomes a universal life (or pervades all the life), and in
it all fulfil their workings,” r.tasya pres. ār.tasya dhītir, vi´svāyur
vi´sve apā ˙msi cakruh. .
And in order that we may not, haunted by the unfortunate
misconstruction of the Veda which European scholarship has
imposed on the modern mind, carry with us the idea of the seven
earthly rivers of the Punjab into the super-terrestrial achievement
of the human forefathers, we will note what Parashara in his
clear and illuminating fashion tells us about the seven rivers.
“The fostering cows of the Truth (dhenavah. , an image applied
to the rivers, while gāvah. or usrāh. expresses the luminous
cows of the Sun) nourished him, lowing, with happy udders,
enjoyed in heaven; obtaining right thinking as a boon from
the supreme (plane) the rivers flowed wide and evenly over
the hill,” r.tasya hi dhenavo vāva´sānāh. ,smadūdhnīh. pīpayanta
dyubhaktāh. ; parāvatah. sumati ˙m bhiks.amān. ā, vi sindhavah.
samayā sasrur adrim, (I.73.6). And in I.72.8, speaking of them
in a phrase which is applied to the rivers in other hymns, he says,
“The seven mighty ones of heaven, placing aright the thought,
knowing the Truth, discerned in knowledge the doors of felicity;
Sarama found the fastness, the wideness of the luminous cows;
thereby the human creature enjoys the bliss,” svādhyo diva ā
sapta yahvī, rāyo duro vi r.tajñā ajānan; vidad gavya ˙m saramā
dr.d. ham ūrva ˙m, yenā nuka˙m mānus. ī bhojate vit.. These are
evidently not the waters of the Punjab, but the rivers of Heaven,
the streams of the Truth, 2 goddesses like Saraswati, who possess
the Truth in knowledge and open by it the doors of the beatitude
to the human creature. We see here too what I have already
insisted on, that there is a close connection between the finding
of the Cows and the outflowing of the Rivers; they are parts
2 Note that in I.32 Hiranyastupa Angirasa describes the waters released from Vritra
as “ascending the mind”, mano ruhān. āh. , and elsewhere they are called the waters that
have the knowledge, āpo vicetasah. (I.83.1).