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The word Aaranyaka can roughly be introduced as the third section of the vast body of religious literature called the Vedas. Etymologically, it traces its origin to the Sanskrit word Aaranya meaning forest. The Aaranyaka texts, in the literal sense, hold a special position in Vedic literature. They form the end portions of their respective Braahmanas and they also have concluding parts known as the Upanishads. It forms a continuation of its Braahmana and is a precursor of the Upanishadic thought. The purpose of the Aaranyaka is to understand the reason as to why yajnas have to be done. It explains the ritualistic portion of the Vedas in all its connotations that includes both the esoteric and the modalities of the actual performance of the ritual. There is a school of thought that these texts were meant to be studied by those entering the third stage of life according to the Varnashrama Dharma of the Hindu religion. The number of Aaranyaka texts are few. The Rig Veda has the Aitareya and Sankhayana Aaranyakas. The Aitareya Aaranyaka belongs to the Aitareya recension of the Krishna Yajur Veda. The Brihadaaranyaka is attached to the Satapatha Braahmana of Sukla Yajur Veda. The Katha Aaranyaka has been discovered in recent times by the scholar M. Witzel. The Aitareya Aaranyaka that belongs to the Rig Veda has five books. The second and the third books are specifically attributed to one Mahidasa Aitareya and its contents are broadly theosophic in nature. We do not have any authentic information on who this Mahidasa Aitareya is, but there is however, a story in circulation that attempts to reveal the family lineage of Mahidasa Aitareya. Yajnavalkya had two wives. The elder was called by him as Priya and the other was
The Aaranyaka
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LAKSHMI DEVNATH
(Continued from previous issue...)
called Itara. Itara means the other. Since this Aaranyaka has been revealed and taught by this sage, it is called Aitareya Aaranyaka. Ananda Theertha in his commentary describes him as the son of Vishala and an incarnation of Narayana. In the Chandogya Upanishad there is a reference that he lived for 116 years. At any rate he must have been a philosopher of some distinction. Otherwise his name would hardly have come down to us. Aaranyaka seems originally to have existed to give secret explanations of the ritual and to have presupposed that the ritual was still in use and was known. Originally an Aaranyaka must have merely meant a book of instruction to be given in the forest.
The subject matter of this Aaranyaka covers topics ranging from Prana-Upasana (meditation on the vital air) to such sacrificial ceremonies as the Mahavrata. The last three sections of the second book constitute the Aitareya Upanishad. The second Aaranyaka of the Rigveda called the Kaushitaki or Sankhayana Aaranyaka consists of three books. The first two are ritualistic in character while the third forms the Kaushitaki Upanishad. The Taittiriya Aaranyaka is a direct continuation of the Samhita and the Braahmana of the Taittiriya school. In its first six books, it deals with sacrifices like the Sarvamedha, the Pitrmedha and so on. Its next three books constitute the Taittiriya Upanishad while its tenthand the last book is known as the Mahanarayana Upanishad. This brings us to the final and the most popular portion of the Vedas – the Upanishads. (To be continued. . .)
What is Religion?
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motive, all the time. Our own selfishness makes us the most arrant cowards; our own selfishness is the great cause of fear and cowardice. And there he stood: “Do good because it is good; ask no more questions; that is enough. A man made to do good by a fable, a story, a superstition – he will be doing evil as soon as the opportunity comes. That man alone is good who does good for good’s sake, and that is the character of the man.” 4 This complete absence of selfishness is the ‘natural strength’ in man. Every man can manifest such complete absence of selfishness. This is the great fact: strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death. 5 Strength, strength is what the Upanishads speak to me from every page. This is the one great thing to remember, it has been the one great lesson I have been taught in my life; strength, it says, strength, O man, be not weak. Are there no human weaknesses? – says man. There are, say the Upanishads, but will more weakness heal them, would you try to wash dirt with dirt? Will sin cure sin, weakness cure weakness? Strength, O man, strength, say the Upanishads, stand up and be strong. Ay, it is the only literature in the world where you find the word ‘Abhih’, ‘fearless’, used again and again; in no other scripture in the world is this adjective applied either to God or to man. Abhih, fearless! And in my mind rises from the past the vision of the great Emperor of the West, Alexander the Great, and I see, as it were in a picture, the great monarch standing on the bank of the Indus, talking to one of our Sannyasins in the forest; the old man he was talking to, perhaps naked, stark naked, sitting upon a block of stone, and the Emperor, astonished at his wisdom, tempting him with gold and honor to come over to Greece. And this man smiles at his gold, and smiles at his temptations, and refuses; and then the Emperor standing on his authority as an Emperor, says, ‘I will kill you if you do not come’, and the man bursts into a laugh and says, ‘You never told such a falsehood in your life, as you tell just now. Who can kill me? Me you kill, Emperor of the material world! Never! For I am Spirit unborn and undecaying: never was I born and never do I die; I am the Infinite, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient; and you kill me, child that you are!’ That is strength, that is strength! 6
References 1) The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda {hereafter CW}: Vol-8: Notes of Class Talks and Lectures: Man The Maker Of His Destiny 2) Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda: Sister Christine: Swami Vivekananda As I Saw Him 3) CW: Vol-2: Hints On Practical Spirituality 4) CW: Vol-3: Buddhistic India 5) CW: Vol-2: Work And Its Secret 6) CW: Vol-3: Lectures from Colombo to Almora: Vedanta In Its Application To Indian Life
