Rig Veda
Presented on: Thursday, July 2, 1981
Presented by: Roger Weir
Great Spiritual Classics of the Orient 2500 B.C. to 300 A.D.
Presentation 1 of 13
Rigveda
The Written Origins of Vision and Ritual in India by the Earliest Poet-Philosophers
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, July 2, 1981
Transcript:
The date is July 2nd, 1981. This is the first lecture in a new series of lectures by Roger Weir on the great spiritual classics of the orient from 2500 B.C. to 300 A.D. the first lecture is entitled Rigveda the written origins of vision and ritual in India by the earliest poet philosophers.
Good evening. This is the, this is the beginning of the second year of my offering material here. And the first year we took a look at several classics of The Philosophic Research Society. We reviewed a wonderful book by Mr. Hall called Self-Unfoldment. And that brought us to consider his great book The Secret Teachings of all Ages. So, we had a seminar series on that. And then the notion of the basic difference between how complementarities in energy and conceptions and mythologies and so forth lead to a dynamics of development as distinct from a frozen polarity of logical form, which leads to mechanical stagnation. So, we had a series on that. and that developed then into the need for a discussion of primordial images. We found that the image base that we accept, for our meditation and our thinking and our, our development just doesn't really have a profound enough base and amplitude. So, we reviewed for about 13 weeks primordial imagery. And then of course we punctuated it with a summer solstice ceremony.
So, this begins the second year and for the duration of this year in for seminar series we will take a look at of basic spiritual classics. And this series which will run through July, August and September well take the great spiritual classics of the early orient, which goes from the Indus Valley through the East Asian matrix, a civilized matrix. And well go from about 2500 B.C. until 300 A.D.
And with The Prajnaparamita Sutras I think we can close out the early period of Asian spiritual classics for The Prajnaparamita Sutras occupy a place in spiritual development in Asia about the same as Plotinus in the classical west. They are a Everest, a pinnacle of experience. And their expressive form is as sophisticated as anything that has ever been done.
So, we will take from The Rigveda to The Prajnaparamita Sutras and then we'll leave Asia for a quarter and we'll go to classical Greece. And throughout October, November and December, beginning with the orphic and mystery religions of ancient Greece we will go through that development up to Plotinus. which will be somewhat of a mirroring of the experience, spiritual experience, in Asia.
Then we will come back to the orient at the beginning of 1982 and for the first three months, January, February and March of 1982 we'll take up where we leave off in this series from The Prajnaparamita Sutras and we will go through contemporary Asia up until our own time. And I expect that I will end that series with Gandhi. I think that Gandhi the more one looks at him the larger he looks. And I remember one time when I was doing some research on the Gandhi centenary, which is 1969, we were distributing Gandhi literature throughout the world. We found that many libraries just didn't even have basics. And I found a life magazine photograph of Gandhi. A statue of him that had been carved on a Hindu temple already. He was in among the Gods already. And that was 1949. So, I'll end that series with Gandhi.
Then to close out that, the year we'll take a look at the spiritual classics of the united states. We never get American history in its profoundest aspects. We are never told about our own heritage. We are never revealed the fact that we live in an incredibly charmed circumstance in terms of time-space, in terms of geography and people. And we have literally the treasure of the world buried under our own feet, in our own heritage. And so, we'll take three months to review the tremendous treasures, spiritual treasures, that the United States has in its background already. And that series will include the American Indian.
So, we'll start tonight and we're going to go on for an entire year and just review classics of spiritual development.
Now my style is not to be a sit, and polish lecturer who has finished his notes and is here to present you. I'm not at all like that anymore. I'm a working person for instance and this is the only lecturing that I do anymore. And I didn't lecture for about six years. And when I lectured before I was a program director and set up courses from scratch and developed them. And had other professors teaching them. And I could see that education if it is polished at the podium is not memorable at the chair. And when you leave the room, you leave behind everything that was said and there's nothing there. and I'm one of these people I, I'm like Faulkner in his writing I like to leave bones and I like to cast shadows. I like for there to be something. So, I through lots of training and through lots of habituation and, and personal need, will leave lots of holes and gaps rather like Basho and his travelogue style. That he will give you the narrative until you get to the view. And then he'll back away and he'll just give you a haiku as sort of a frame, perceptual frame and say look through there in that way and whatever you see there that's of value. Take that with you. So, I, I tend to try and do that. And I will give enough information so that you'll have something formal. And if you're taking notes, you'll have plenty for that. But really, it's better to lay back and take it in. And this form of education as opposed to instruction builds itself in amplitude through continuity. Just by participating. just by coming, continuously. Time after time after time. It builds up a sense of continuity. And as a responsible maestro for this symphony of development, because each person here has a different pacing. Has a different way of integrating. Has different needs for specifics at various times. I will keep it as open-handed as possible. And every four or five weeks we'll take ourselves down into the library for an hour or so just to be together and to talk in a different way and sort of a round table, seminar way. And I will moderate some of that for you.
So tonight, we begin with The Rigveda, which I think is the oldest of the spiritual classics. So, we'll begin with that. If we have
this is usually how it's written. or you can put an I in if you want, r, g. If we have a natural spectrum with and let this blackboard represent the spectrum of natural life. The sky, planet, stars, the trees, ourselves, our endeavors. one of the primordial things that we do as a species is, we have carved out for ourselves a cycle of ritual acts, which distribute time for us. And just as our summer solstice ceremony takes place and has its opposite in the complement in the winter solstice. We also then have something which is tangibly perpendicular to them. Not only on the circle but in terms of the time cycle that's delineated. And then of course we have various holidays like we have the Fourth of July coming up and it happens to be very close to the summer solstice. And we might have Halloween over here. And Christmas with our New Years. And it's interesting that the new year's and Fourth of July are almost in the line. So, we have a ritual cycle of ceremonies, which portion out time for us. And this cycle of ceremonies, this circling, positions itself suspended as it were in a universal eye in the midst of nature. But as soon as it's possible, as soon as we have a way of distributing time for ourselves, all nature seems to reflect our organization and to comport to our perception. And to make available for us a way of describing what lies within our kin in terms of this ritual cycle. And this, the description of that is a development paralleling the ritual cycle. And this is called a mythology. It's the expression of what we are doing here. And the interchange between nature and ritual. And this is the level at which language springs into being out of our basic need to express. And its structure mimics and expressively amplifies the ritual or ceremonial cycle. So that we as beings wear a double necklace of orientation in our human being as we carry ourselves through nature. And this double necklace of comporting to nature gives us our bearing. and as long as this is intact, and as long as this is developed enough to allow us to exist as human beings, we are comfortable.
There is another development that happens. And I think we should put this up here. Let's try mask or let's use the Greek term, which is persona, for its psychological connotations. And in here let's use person or ego. We develop a sense of identity running through this level and parallel expressively amplified on this level, of who we are. The persona that is how other people would perceive us, our place in the world. And our inner sense of who it is that we are going through these motions carrying that persona, developing it, manifesting it, changing it from time to time. This double sense of mask and person, of persona and ego in the ritual and mythic level, has a reverberation in an interior sense, which mysteriously seems to appear not as an object but as a focus of realizations. And some mysterious center, which we will call the self, using a psychological term. Or I think higher self. However, you wish to term that. But something mysterious forms. And it forms not in the center of a diagram but in our sense of being. And it underlines and undercuts and flows under this whole structure. So that it tends when it is operative to not be him dim either by the sense of our language what we could say about it or what we do. And so, the ritual cycle and mythic cycles both become permeable to a sense of presence which goes back out and finds itself in nature again but in a deeper sense. It finds itself mysteriously at home in the entire world but not as something which would be separated away.
This is something which is not discovered in recent times but has been known by human beings like ourselves for millennia. And it is operative also in The Rigveda. But it's very difficult to read the wonderful natural language poetry of The Rigveda
And come to this. So, I'm going to take my time with it and see if we can get to it. That's what we want to get to. we want to get to a perception that these people writing some four or more thousand years ago were expressing in language a sense which was transcending the capacities of their metaphors to carry. And therefore, there was an outer ritualistic understanding and an inner spiritual understanding for the few. And we'd like to be able to at least approach a little bit of this inner understanding. This is a spirit, and we should ask about these things often. If you remember it's a poem by Wallace Stevens and he says the only way to find out about the spirit is to ask about it often all the time. And eventually we piece by piece get a view.
Before we get to actually this Rigveda, I should say a few things about the context of the, the Indus civilization. I don't know how much background you have. I'll much assume not a great deal. I didn't myself at one time.
India abuts against the Asian continent and in ancient geologic times it literally swung off Africa and crashed into the Asian mainland. And that force lifted the Himalayan range of the Tibetan plateau up. And to carve out from the crush of these mountains the river, the great river systems had to go around them. And one of the river systems that comes down is the Indus river. And we'll amplify this a little bit. The Indus has several major branches. The Sutej and the **inaudible** and a few others. And it comes down and empties out around where Karachi is now. And this is Pakistan, Lahore Pakistan you have in here. Modern Karachi here. This is Pakistan. This is Baluchistan. This is Afghanistan. Further over here Iran. And further over here ancient Sumer and Mesopotamia.
The Indus river had a civilization which was given its impetus by people coming in boats from the ancient Sumerian civilization. This happened around the 4th millennium B.C. And it wasn't so much that they came and set up colonies as they came with ideas of building permanent cities with agricultural matrixes extending out into the countryside. And the capital city, the first city, of this complex was called Mohenjo-Daro. And Mohenjo-Daro a major center.
Now on the other side of the Indus not very far away is a desert, the Rajasthan desert. And back over here the mountain areas coming down from the Himalayas and so forth protect this river valley. So that there are only several hundred miles of land that is usable in here all the way up.
The second center founded several hundred years later it's called Harappa. And Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were very, very much like Los Angeles and San Francisco. They had the bulk of all the population they were enormous centers for their time. They were real metropolitan areas. And they were extremely advanced. And they had been developed very, very swiftly. Within two or three generations from scratch using the prototypes of the Sumerian civilization, the Indus civilization set up these very, very sophisticated cities. So that for instance the granaries at Harappa were enormously complex. They would run sort of like elongated ends. This would be oh probably about 200 feet or so. And they would be maybe 40 or 50 feet wide and it would be in this kind of shape with entrances down here. And they were enormous. Mohenjo-Daro also had enormously sophisticated sewage systems and water systems. And it had enormous residential areas. And on the north part of the city was an enormous citadel about the size of UCLA's campus with public buildings and baths and so forth. All this some three and a half thousand years ago.
This civilization perished because of a change in climate. The dissipation of the Rajasthan desert moved in and these cities crumbled and fell. And in their place were sort of like the medieval villages of encampment in the ruins of Rome. And at that time persons coming in from the Northwest frontier, who were The Rigveda people, found India at that time in a state of disarray. And they came in and it was as if it was the same kind of situation that the early settlers who came into the west. They felt that there was no one here. That this was virgin land for the taking and no one had ever lived here before. And so, we had this kind of a situation where the writers of The Rigveda are distinctly different people from this urban civilized, old settled population.
Now the very first hymn in The Rigveda gives this kind of effervescence of a people who had known only expansiveness and mobility. Had never known this kind of long hard urban permanence which had reached its apex and decay. The Rigveda has no trace of that kind of experience at all. The first hymn in The Rigveda reads like this. and it's to Agni. A-g-n-i. Agni who is fire, we can at least begin with that.
Agni. I love Agni, the chosen priest. God. minister of sacrifice. The hodar, that's the chief priest.
The hodar lavishes of wealth worthy is Agni to be praised by living as by ancient seers. He shall bring hitherward the Gods through Agni. Man, obtaineth wealth. Yes, plenty waxing day by day most rich in heroes glorious. Agni the perfect sacrifice which thou encompasses about verily goes to the Gods. Mayogni sapient minded priest. Truthful most gloriously great. The God come hither with the Gods. Whatever blessing Agni thou will grant unto this worshipper that Unger us is indeed the truth
So, this is how The Rigveda begins with this invocation to Agni. to the God of fire. Or the God embodied in fire, in flame. And only later on do we find Agni praised for being also capable of being cupped in the hearth of the home. So that Agni is not only great because he's out here in nature but also because we as human beings can bring this wonderful flame and position it in the center of our hearth. And that hearth be the foundation for our home. So, it begins to be a transposition of this imagery.
Now the writer of this first, of the first hymns of The Rigveda. Just to start to give you some names. You shouldn't be faceless people. Their names are all known. Wonderful name. his name is Machu Chanda **inaudible**. Machu Chanda. and he is the writer of the verse The Great Kingdom. Now another writer and one of the most famous is Durga Thomas quite different from Machu Chanda. there are incidentally 40 or 50 authors to the first book of The Rigveda. And there are ten books all together. There are several books, book four and book seven, which are written almost entirely by one poet seer. And then the tenth book is a large collection where there are about 150 authors.
But in the first book here. And the only edition, the only complete edition incidentally, of The Rigveda is a translation done by this man Ralph Griffith. It was done about 100 years ago, which accounts for the language. If your ear was picking up this archaic stylized Victorian English, that's what it was. Griffith of course was I think an army officer in the British Empire. Very interesting. Just the sort of fellow to enjoy The Rigveda efflorescence.
Now Durga Thomas, who
and in the back of this edition they have the list of all the authors of the hymn of The Rigveda. Durga Thomas has a section of about 20-21 hymns in the first book of The Rigveda. And if you can get a hold of a copy of this in some library you can see these for yourselves. This is how he would start. This is hymn number 140. And I have two different translations of this one. It's difficult to find a comparison but this would be quite interesting.
The second translation that I'll give to you is done by Sri Aurobindo. He did a selection of hymns from The Rigveda they had called Hymns to the Mystic Fire. Aurobindo was an Indian political radical who had graduated from Cambridge University about the same time as Bertrand Russell. was nabbed one night from his tent by the British and stuffed into a five by seven-foot cell. And was given no books and no paper. Nothing to do for a year. He was served a meal a day. So, he had nothing to do for an entire year. So, he meditated. And when they opened the doors on after the year Aurobindo the political radical was left behind and Aurobindo the sage walked out. And he never looked back. And he never stopped growing. And when we get to modern Asian classics, we'll do a lecture on Aurobindo. Quite an amazing individual.
So, I have his translation of this wonderful hymn by Durga Thomas. And I have Griffith's translation. This is him number 140. Quite different from Machu Chandas. Quite a different aspect. Also addressed to Agni.
To splendid Agni seated by the altar. Loving well his home. I bring the food as to his place of birth. I clothed the right one with my hymn as with a robe. Him with the car of light bright hewed dispelling gloom. Child of a double birth he grasped at triple food. In the year's course what he had swallowed grows anew. He by another's mouth and tongue a noble bull. With other as an elephant consumes the trees. The pair who dwell together moving in the dark bestir themselves. Both parents hastened to the babe. For man thou friend of men these steeds of thine are yoked. Impatient lightly running. Plowing blackened lines. Discordant-minded fleet gliding with easy speed. Urged onward by the wind and rapid in their course. Dispelling on their way the horror of black gloom. Making a glorious show these flames of his fly forth. When oer precious tracked he spreads himself abroad and pushes panting on with thunder and with roar. Amid brown plants he stoops as if adoring them and rushes bellowing like a bull upon his wives. Proving his might he decks the glory of his form. And shakes his horns like one terrific hard to stay. Now covered, now displayed he grasps as one who knows having his resting place and those who will know him well.
That's about half of it.
Now Aurobindos translation. Same hymn. Same great poet, Durga Thomas. It's very famous. And incidentally Aurobindo brings in the double line of classical Sanskrit. There's always that parallel that the lines are paired. It's a trait that is true in The Old Testament. It's true in a lot of early great visionary poetry. The reason for this is to escape the possibility of perpetrating duplicity upon one's heroes. It is set and then it is set again a little different so that there's less chance to mistake.
Aurobindo translates Durga Thomas this way. Offer like a secure seat that womb to Agni, the utterly bright who sits upon the altar and his abode is bliss. Clothed with thought as with a robe. The slayer of the darkness who is pure and charioteered in light. In pure bright of hue. See what a tremendous difference.
The twice born Agni moves intense about his triple food. It is eaten and with the year it has grown again. With the tongue and mouth of the one, he is the strong master and enjoyer. With the other he and girdles and crushes in his embrace his delightful things. He gives energy of movement to both his mothers on their dark path in their common dwelling. And both make their way through to their child. For his tongue is lifted upward. He destroys and rushes swiftly through and should be chosen, increasing his father. For the thinker becoming man, his swift hastening impulsions dark and bright desire freedom. Active, rapid, quivering. They are yoked to their works. Swift steeds driven forth by the breath of things. They for him destroy and speed lightly on creating his dark being of thickness. His mighty form of light. When reaching forward he touches the vast being. He pants toward it and thundering cries aloud.
So that Agni, the fire, the God in the fire, who can also be put into hearth. Can also be lifted out and put into that invisible presence that we can attain. And the metaphor transcends the simple imagery of something standing for something else. Transcends this referential meaning horizon. And springs and leaps into the freedom of a universal consciousness of being. And so, Agni becomes the flame who is the bringer of light and dispels the darkness. Has that capacity. And so, we are with Durga Thomas sprung into a new amplitude of capacity from Machu Chanda.
Now this this development with Agni is mirrored also with Indra. I-n-d-r-a. Indra is the somewhat the equivalent of Zeus in Greek mythology. Indra is the sky God, the thunderer. He has the lightning bolt. But he has also some of the properties of Apollo in that he has the horses, the steeds. Apollo drives the sun's chariot across the sky. Indra has these. And they come together, they interpenetrate and interface together in sort of the vision of thunder clouds. You know the beautiful thunder heads that pile up and they have the lightning. And they have the thundering. And they have this presence and amplitude.
So that we must move on to, we must move on to Indra. we've taken a look at Agni and we've come up to the point where we can understand one of the primordial, mythic figures in The Rigveda. And that is, this myth of the, the cows of the sun being stolen and hid away. And it is Indra who finds them and frees them. And in doing so becomes more than just the thunder being. He becomes the master maker of the world of light. Or at least of the possibility for us to enter into the world of light. And so, Indra becomes one of the chief Gods in The Rigveda. And he is related somewhat to Agni.
I guess you should also put this up here on the board. Agni and Indra. Another pair while we're at it. **Inaudible or two** is day to night. Just to give you some beginnings. **inaudible word or two**, Agni and Indra.
Now there is a, a parallel somewhat in Homer where Odysseus's men eat the oxen of the sun. The sun God Helios. And it's quite interesting that the old Mycenaean mythic horizon which was still alive in the vision of Homer. I, I think you most of us realize that these really enormously developed seer poets like Shakespeare or like Homer or like Dante, in the depth of their comprehension. The reverberations of their sight extend beyond the simple time-space of their culture, of their circumstance and they become universal. And in that reverberation, they become attuned to some of these primordial stories and developments which are in the spiritual air as it were. And become tuned in for them. And they relate these in the forms of their time.
This, this basic myth. And the, the primary story is that the sun metaphorically owns cattle. The cattle are like the light rays.
END OF SIDE ONE
The primary story is that the sun metaphorically owns cattle. The cattle are like the light rays. They're the givers of nourishment from the sun. And this has been hidden away or stolen away by demons. Or by dragons. By opposing forces. And because the cattle of the sun or its light-giving nourishing ray extensions have been shepherded away someplace and hidden, there must be a hero who can go out and seek in the darkness and find them and release them by breaking the corral or the magic charm around them. Or the darkness, which has kept them in.
There is a brief section in The Secret of the Veda by Sri Aurobindo where he gives a wonderful little discussion. And brings in a word which we'd like to get to. And so, quoting this, The conquest or discovery of the sun and the dawn. The dawn is the birthing of the sun. And it's when it's ray, when the rays are first visible to us. The conquest or recovery of the sun and the dawn is a frequent subject of illusion in the hymns of The Rigveda. And it's true it occurs time after time. Sometimes it is the finding of Syria. That is objectively the sun, the sun God. Sometimes defining our conquest of Svara. And Svara is the world wherein the sun has its being. And tends to be a metaphysical realm. That is to our perception it tends to be a metaphysical realm. To a poet seer it would be that presence which is real, and this is illusory. But to us in our context here it is a transcendent visibility.
It is perfectly clear from several passages that Svara is the name of a world or supreme heaven above the ordinary heaven and earth. Sometimes indeed it is used for the solar light proper both to Syria and the world which is formed by his illumination. Illumination. We have seen that the waters which descend from heaven or which are conquered and enjoyed by Indra and the mortals who are befriended by him are described as **inaudible few words**
And the commentator on The Rigveda **inaudible word** not a very good commentator, classic commentator. There's a little exposition here and Aurobindos quoting. The main thing **inaudible word or two** thought it was just a reference on the reference level and called it waters, physical waters. And he calls this Slovakia moving. So, were moving water. But this misses the meaning entirely. Aurobindo pulls out. The thunderbolt of Indra is called the heavenly stone. And it is called Svara. So, all of these words go back to this root var that means from that realm. This modulation of capacity from that realm would be visible in our time-space as a lightning bolt. That sort of a thing.
So, it is the light from this transcendent world that is the, the lighting that we see of Indra. And Indra himself is Spar-pati, the master of spar, of the luminous world. And since he is the master of the luminous world it is up to him as it is for the king in a kingdom, the master of that world must see to it that its organization, its cycle of completeness, is maintained. He is the guardian. He is the, the night watchman of that whole corporation. And it must function. And he must see to it that it continues to function.
Moreover, as we see that the finding and recovery of the cows is usually described as the work of Indra. Often with the aid of the Angirasas rishi. And these rishis are descended from someone probably named Angirasas. But they are described in book five of The Rigveda as being those first poet seers, who in their um spiritual imagination revealed first the path through to the conception of the world of spar, of light. They were those poet seers who first made those neurological patterns available in our species. To see with the eyes of enlightenment that world and to see that these natural forms were not just Gods like Agni the fire out here. Or even transposed into a hearth. But were somehow tied in with that invisible world of inner presence.
And so, the Angirasas rishi where that special family of poets. And there were many families of poets who carried the dignity of that origin with them. It's just like I, I know a man from Nepal who's from the Shakia clan. And they are the, the historical Buddhist original family, tribe. And they're the only ones who can make prayer **inaudible** in Nepal and sell them. That is forbidden for other people to make money on these kinds of objects but that that original clan still extend may do that. That is a honorable work for them. So that the Angirasas rishis would be that clan, that family, who with great pride and dignity go back to that original sage seer lost in the dawn of prehistory. We don't, no one knows exactly when or where.
But it is the work of Indra with the aid of these Angirasas rishis. And by the instrumentality of the mantra that is the word sacrifice of Agni and Soma so as also the finding and recovery of the sun is attributed to these agencies. And moreover, the two actions are continually associated together. We have as it seems to me,
This is Aurobindo.
Evidence in The Veda itself that all these things constitute really one great action of which they are parts. The cows are the hidden rays of the dawn. Their rescue out of the darkness leads to or is the sign of the uprising of the sun that was hidden in the darkness. And this again is the condition always with the instrumentality of sacrifice. Its circumstances and it's helping God of the conquest to of spar.
He says of spar but it's better to say too spar. The supreme world of light.
That is to say whenever we participate meaning in this, somewhere on this circle of ritual sacrifice. And we understand that it has its nearest expressions in the mythology. And we can carry our understanding of what we're doing in this sacrifice beyond simply the manipulation of physical objects. Through into the realm where we can describe to ourselves and to each other and share in that expressive description a consciousness of what we are doing, we have a chance to penetrate through to that inner sense. And every time that we do, we enter into that realm of the spar. Where instead of doing something foolish like worshiping an idol we transcend in our actions, both the ritualistic idolatry that would be possible if we stopped there. Or the mythic egotistical idea that we are the ones who are doing it. And enter into the realm in which Indra or Agni become really divine. And are free through this cage of darkness you to back up to the realm of reality as it is and flourish and **inaudible word** nature. Because we have added our gateway of consciousness purposefully with dignity and understanding and penetration. And we have done our part as beings in this cosmos. And The Rigveda with Thomas then becomes a spiritual book and not just a collection of quaint songs to natural entities.
Well let's take a break here and then we've got a few slide images.
I have two short extracts from The Rigveda and then I have some images. I like to, I like to mix up with a presentation in terms of language, discursive language, visual imagery. So that those who are more able to mnemonically recall visual imagery will have a chance as well as those who are audio. So, I'll, I have two extracts from The Rigveda to bring us back from our break to our line of thought. And then some visual imagery to amplify. Because we're not just looking at one phenomenon but the, the course will develop throughout the whole breadth of Asia, classical Asia. And what we want to do with the visual imagery is start with The Rigveda and take an overview for several different aspects, as many as we can in just a few slides. Because we're looking at an arena which has an enormous capacity for continuity.
I used to have at one time in my offices a history graph. A graph of history about four or five and about five feet long somebody did in in the 40s, the late 40s. You know we had a tremendous era of integration in the late 40s. After the second world war they were, there were huge developments all over the world to try and make materials and organizations and development. So that we never again would have to have the kind of conflagration or even worse than we have in the second world war. Unfortunately, that energy has dissipated by now and all we have left are arcs of understanding like the P.R.S. that was the era when the United Nations was being formed and everything. This history map had only two continuous lines of development, India and China. Everything else was washed out by circumstance at one time or another. I used to look at that with great humility because there's always a possibility that what we have achieved will be put on ice, indefinitely.
This is from an extract from book three of The Rigveda, hymn number 55. It is by one of the great poets seers Prajapati. And maybe we can hear in and see through the imagery a little deeper now.
At first the shining of the earliest morning. In the cow's home was born the great Eternal. Now shall the statutes of the Gods be valid. Great is the God supreme and soul dominion. Let not the Gods hear us Indra, Oh Agni. nor fathers of old times who know the region. nor the signs set between two ancient dwellings. Grace is the Gods supreme and soul dominion. My wishes fly abroad to many places. I glance back to the ancient sacrifices. Let us declare the truth when fire is kindled. Great is the Gods supreme and soul dominion. King universal foreign **inaudible word** quarters extended through the woods, he lies and couches. One mother rests, another feeds the infant. Great is the God supreme and soul dominion. Lodged in old plants he grows again and younger. Swiftly within the newly born and tender. Though they are unimpregnated he makes them fruitful. Great the God supreme and soul dominion. Now lying far away child of two mothers, he wanders unrestrained. the single young one. These are the laws of Baruna and Vitra created the God supreme and soul dominion.
Just the next track. I'm sorry I don't know Sanskrit to chant for you. That was Prajapati and now a ten-verse hymn from The Rigveda by Parashara. One of the really
this is from book one. Parashara about eight hymns that are kept and remembered. And he is really a poet seers of the highest water. This was him 71 from The Rigveda book one.
The mothers who dwell in one abode desiring came to him who desired them. And gave him pleasure as to their eternal spouse. The sisters took joy in him as the Rey cows and the dawn. When she comes dusky, flushing red, then shining up in rich hues. Our fathers by their words broke the strong and stubborn places. The Angirasas seers shattered the mountain rock with their cry. They made in us a path to the great Heaven. They discovered the day and the sun world and the intuitive ray and the shining herds. They held the truth. they enriched the thought of this human being. Then indeed had they mastery and understanding, bearing wide the flame. The powers at work go towards the Gods making the birth to grow by delight.
So, a little bit of Prajapati and Parashara. Now I have some slide images. And they were **inaudible several words**.
For those who are new to these lectures machines never cooperate. I guess it's just one of those things.
This is the seal from the **inaudible word or two** it was found there around 1922. We've never been able to disciple the script within the civilization. But I think if you look with your mind's eye open, you can see you the, the wheel punctuates this sentence of expression. And you can see the forms that look somewhat like containers from various aspects, like the opening for nourishment to come in. It's like a container with the spoon and the container empty and the nourishment complete. And then the sign for the fullness of life. We don't know what those words to see or grammar or anything but even just looking with the mind's eye open in this way we can see that it isn't just a **inaudible word** but it's symbol. And inside that circle of **inaudible word or two** mythology we have a symbol. That which has no particular reference, but which has a presence that reverberates through the entire continuum.
This was the statuette found at **inaudible word or two**. You see that **inaudible word** round **inaudible word** and I don't think that you need the Beverly Hills **inaudible word** at all. **inaudible few words** is that it?
And this was a terracotta box that survived all the while **inaudible several words** interesting melody rap road there. Some **inaudible word** symbol embellishing him. Shamrock like. Natural imagery. Tremendous dignity **inaudible word**.
This is **inaudible several words**
is Sheva sitting in a lotus position. And you can see the royalty of the first major position with a **inaudible word** tiger already positioned on the side. And the horns of sacred cow placed on my middle crown. It isnt much but after four thousand years there isn't that much.
This is the, now we expand and look at images from the rest of the series. The series now images from the spread of Asian wisdom. This expansion. **inaudible word or two** the very center of India. **inaudible several words**.
This is one of the gates of Sanchi. and you can see the white desert. Hot dusty blue skies that are familiar to us. and the embellishment of these gates of the chakra stories of **inaudible word** former lives.
This is a **inaudible word or two** dancer. **inaudible word** from the **inaudible word**.
This is **inaudible word or two** from the great **inaudible word**
classical learning **inaudible word**.
**inaudible word** and image, an early image of the Buddha. And interesting to note that the **inaudible word** on the statue is an early **inaudible word**. And the first image of this in human form were done after the incursion of Alexander the Great **inaudible word or two** in the Greek ideal of, of man in the expressive capacity of **inaudible word** sculpture. Before that only a footprint **inaudible word or two** in the arch was used.
This is one of the caves in **inaudible word**. Also discovered I think in the 1920s by a British lieutenant riding hellbent away from some gang of thugs. He had been run into this canyon and here were caves that had been lost in the 6th century. They are now somewhat restored. There are quite a few of them **inaudible word**.
This is the interior of the caves.
This is the interior of **inaudible few words** having painted wall and ceilings depicting the civilization of 2nd, 3rd and 4th century in history India.
This is part of the door of **inaudible word**in one of the farthest reaches and penetration of Indian and Buddhist civilization.
Here are the Chinese scrolls, **inaudible word or two**.
And the Chinese scroll of the **inaudible word or two** in a garden setting. Notice the enormous sophistication moved by the **inaudible word** the classics of Asia. Tremendous sense of continuity of Asia reoccurring time after time **inaudible few words** we can see now
**inaudible word or two ** painting.
**inaudible few words** India. The Persian influence. You can tell by the very sophisticated acknowledgement **inaudible word or two** named **inaudible word** It seems like a Persia **inaudible word** all the sophisticated Indian **inaudible word** go back to Persia. So, everybody leans from somebody else.
An old Chinese painting of Kwan Yin **inaudible few words**
Well come bac to these as the
.in the summer hour series of **inaudible word** and **inaudible word** various countries and times lot of these images will come back to us. And we'll have to apply the knowledge of the Chinese celestial terms. And well go through them **inaudible few words**
Chinese landscape scroll and some
.
And then the same, the view of what is reportedly the **inaudible word or two** here **inaudible word**. And you see transcendental crack **inaudible few words**
.what to do about that?
One of the **inaudible word** things about Tibet at the top of a very difficult mountain passage and its usually someplace to put a **inaudible few words** in stone **inaudible word** a marker. Its a real **inaudible word or two**. You never thought it was **inaudible few words** well appreciated the capacity **inaudible several words** libational rock here inside of that structure rather than choosing something which is more familiar. I thought this was an interesting look at the embellishment, complications detailing patience working out in the **inaudible word**.
From **inaudible word** Wat. The wonderful smile that **inaudible few words**
And **inaudible word** again. the structure is overgrown by the roots of the trees, **inaudible word** down over the **inaudible few words**.
This image is the meditator with Naga serpents as a and they enveloping **inaudible word** of protection behind. The earth spirits organize and protect. The **inaudible word** has no fear of them. They complement each other **inaudible word** here.
Here the tremendous wonderful expression on the face of this girl. A sculpture in Aux Provence. Reminds one of the expression of spiritual dignity in **inaudible word** or outside of Chartres cathedral **inaudible few words**. The tremendous capacity of human beings to recover the **inaudible few words**. Living in the **inaudible few words** caves in the middle of the Gobi Desert that **inaudible few words**
I discovered in our time **inaudible word** again the tremendous visionary capacity of these artists out in the silk road outpost **inaudible word** to have this penetration of artistic and personal vision to see the nuclear elements of reality. And the free foreign floating of gravitationalists experience. **inaudible several words/sentence or two** that kind of penetration form. Usually have a **inaudible several words**
**inaudible few words** into nothing. Next time when we do the I-Ching well get into the yin and the yang. The duration and the **inaudible word**. That kind of **inaudible word**.
**inaudible word or two** tree and the wonderful arrangement here **inaudible few words** and sparse.
Wonderful print by **inaudible word**. We can pretty **inaudible few words** the bridges and **inaudible word**. The view at play and take in the symmetry and **inaudible word or two ** in cloud form. **inaudible word or two** very informed of the tradition.
**inaudible few words** viewing the waterfall.
Self-portrait. **inaudible word** very infrequently **inaudible word or two** sort of thing. He said in one of his diaries at 90, he was finally ready to draw a line. He **inaudible few words**
A page from Bashos **inaudible few words**. And the drawings in there **inaudible few words**
And this is by a great haiku poet named **inaudible word**. The idea of landscaping. Whole tradition in Asia. All of the people **inaudible word** the fact that we have our mobility within nature. And our presence in the landscape is a constant balanced reminder that that is our position. that is our **inaudible word**. And there is no other worth entertaining further along. **inaudible word** expand nature to include whatever plants or star systems or galactic endeavors we wish. That we are within the natural realm and our mobility and **inaudible few words** well within. We know that realm of pure **inaudible word**.
Landscape. This is a **inaudible word** from the **inaudible few words** in East Germany. **inaudible word** to nature. And this is a tremendous vitality and concentration here. The lines of the **inaudible few words** that spring forth. And hints of that strain, that intensity, that variety comes the awareness of this tremendous width. And the flap of the cape following the point of that horizon while the certain sphere of the **inaudible word or two**. One of the **inaudible word**.
Tremendous insight of **inaudible word**. The **inaudible word** of nature.
And bring it to **inaudible few words**
**inaudible word** turning back **inaudible few words**
**inaudible few words** the temple. **inaudible word** floating symmetry requires time to nourish the actual work in that point stuck inside horizons. And that horizon is the light.
A great Chinese scroll **inaudible word or two**.
Japanese. What a great **inaudible word or two**
**inaudible few words** tapestry.
And this goes to the **inaudible word**. This is the Emperors **inaudible few words** personal Buddha **inaudible few words** China. **inaudible few words**. I think it is.
So, we are going to sit in on the throne of **inaudible few words** and set a place and **inaudible word** them and play with them and **inaudible several words**.
So next week well look at China and the I-Ching. **inaudible several words**
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