Vedic literature is based on the Vedas –which were later compiled into four books – the ṛk, yajus, sāma and atharva. Each of these, in turn, are divided into the saṁhitā-s, brāhmaṇa-s, āraṇyaka-s and upaniṣad-s. Just the saṁhitā-s are divided into 10 maṇḍala-s with 1028 sūkta-s in about 10600 verses called ṛca-s. How do we study all this?
Then there are the brāhmaṇa-s, āraṇyaka-s , upaniṣad-s. Multiply that by four (since we have four Veda-s) and we are looking at an ocean of information.
In her very first introductory lecture, Prof. Mahulikar, as if, unravels the huge universe of what constitutes Vedic literature to show us how vast the spread is. But in the process, she has shown us both her depth of knowledge and India’s jaw-dropping vastness of tradition and heritage. And the simplicity with which she bares it to us does not frighten or overwhelm; instead, in its sharp clarity, it makes us want to travel with her (and her charming manner of presentation) through this expanse and know the treasure fully.
Of great interest to us will be the Vedic deities. Śrī Rāma, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Śiva … these are not Vedic deities! That does surprise the novitiate. The Vedic era worship was different. How are they different from the deities we commonly worship and why are they different? In her talk on Vedic Mythology, Dr. Mahulikar will show how man during the Vedic era, worshipped the natural phenomena and then deified them, and before long he had humanised them. So, then, what led to this process of apotheosis where nature was personified? Further still, what led to the divinisation of the natural forces in the first place? In the process, one will verily see the evolution of man and his intense need to anchor in a divine force. Furthermore, she will take a few examples and get into the form, colour, personality and appearance of these deities, and why some of them are shown as having multiple hands and heads despite the need to humanise them, including what weapons they are credited with, what adornments they wear and so on.
Some of these deities have over time gained a personality that is either oppressive or benign. The epithets and adjectives that some of them are now attributed with (such as yama-devatā as being the Lord of Justice and death) – how did that come to be? And this leads up to the numerous stories about these deities in the brāhmaṇa literature and the upaniṣad-s also.
The Vedas are not man-written; they are what we call apauruṣeya – not of man. The ṛṣi-s passed on their compositions and expressions to the next generation, who heard the Vedas and passed it to the next, again orally. Hence, the Vedas are also referred to as śruti or that which was heard.
Later periods saw the smṛti – or that which is recalled, remembered. These usually have an author, such as veda-vyāsa. These include the itihāsa (Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata) and the purāṇa-s, the dharmaśāstra and the arthaśāstra. What are the smṛti? Whatever knowledge was imparted by the ṛṣi-s was recollected and penned down on palm leaves. That is smṛti. They do not deviate much from the śruti.
To take one example: the Yājñavalkya-smṛti is a dharma text that deals with legal processes and jurisprudence. Composed in Sanskrit it dates to the 3rd to 5th century CE and has three notable sections: ācāra-kāṇḍa (customs), vyavahāra-kāṇḍa (judicial process) and prāyaścitta-kāṇḍa (crime and punishment, penance). This will give us an idea of how structured the Indian legal system was. And apart from Yājñavalkya, there were others on dharmaśāstra: Manu, Atri, Parāśara, Bṛhaspati, Vasiṣṭha…
That was how active, vibrant and robust the Vedic Era was. To have Prof. Mahulikar touch upon all this is verily like stepping into that era and examining our glorious past.
Then we have this common debate whether the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata were real events of the past or whether they are just literary magnificence. Both these texts are itihāsa. The etymology clearly points to these as being historical events: iti-ha-āsa = thus-indeed-it was! As for purāṇa, they engage mankind in a friendly way to adhere to the teachings of the veda-s in whatever field it may be.
So, did people in the Vedic era simply know what to do just reading the texts?
Prof. Mahulikar quotes from the Mahābhārata where there is a stanza that says:
itihāsapurāṇābhyāṁ vedaṁ samupabṛṁhayet,
bibhetyalpaśrutād vedo māmayaṁ prahariṣyati.
Veda Vyāsa says (in the above couplet) the meaning of the veda should be substantiated, endorsed, complemented by itihāsa and purāṇa . Otherwise, the veda-puruṣa himself, (the Vedic literature as such) fears that mām – ayaṁ – prahariṣyati — the reader will misinterpret me! This is how engaging and communicative the Vedic texts are. That stanza above means, if the meaning of the veda becomes ambiguous, then look for the reflection of that in the itihāsa, in the purāṇa, and based on that find clarity.
One such situation arose in the matter of the veda-s when towards the end of the Vedic Period the language of the veda-s became too archaic for the people. That led to the development of the vedāṅga-s – six ancillary scientific texts that helped interpret and understand the Vedas.
This is very interesting to understand how the post-Vedic period studies evolved. For instance, the Kalpa vedāṅga-s that describe the vedic and domestic rites and social customs were drawn up as a set of aphorisms or sūtra-s. Thus arrived the sūtra period.
The trouble was being aphoristic in style, pithy sentences; chances of ambiguity and misinterpretation were also high. This gave rise to the bhāṣya-s – clarificatory notes on the sūtra-s!
Prof. Mahulikar’s structured, layer by layer unravelling of how the Vedic literature grew varied and vast, from vedāṅga-s to sūtra-s to bhāṣya-s to darśana-s to…. is rendered simple thanks to her keen understanding of the subject and an appreciation of the human mind. Thus, she says, there is bhāṣya literature, be it for darśana-s or the vedāṅga-s.
Oh, what are darśana-s! They are the codified systems of philosophies that weave the understanding of the veda-s. They are ways of seeing things. Each system or school has a sūtrakāra ṛṣi who developed the sūtra-s or aphorisms for that darśana. Enter, more commentators and commentaries and commentaries on commentaries!
All these so far are still the Vedic literature. Having studied these and pondered and mulled on these, great scholars burst into poetic or prosaic expression. Thus came about classical Sanskrit literature, purely for intellectual recreation, where the thinkers wrote in prose or poetry or a mix. On the other end of the spectrum are the sciences, if we may call them that – arthaśāstra, kāvyaśāstra, nāṭyaśāstra, kāmaśāstra – all from the smṛti period – and so many more that deal with specific subject matters.
How did these works travel down so many years? Many were found as manuscripts but very often without signatures as to authorship!
Prof. Mahulikar cites the example of a great playwright, Bhāsa from Kerala, who predates Kālidāsa too. But his work was discovered much later, only in 1910 when a bunch of palm leaf manuscripts were found with many plays in Sanskrit language but written in the Malayalam script!
But his name was not mentioned anywhere on it. (This will likely lead Prof. Mahulikar into another lecture (hopefully) on how scribes those days understood Sanskrit but wrote it in their mother tongue script! This is truly very interesting.)
The manner adopted to ascribe those thirteen plays to Bhāsa is called textual critique in manuscriptology. This is what it means: scholars examining palm leaves use a sort of literary forensics to probe into ‘who does this text sound like?’ They examine stylistic references in the play, in what manner his plays open and close, what typical phrases repeat in every play… using all these and more tools, Bhāsa’s plays were ascribed to him!
There is so much to know about all that happened a long time ago, all that went into creating the glory that is India, all that nourishes to this day the very foundation on which our country stands. All that distilled into Sanātana-dharma and into every aspect of governance, trade, commerce, medicine, jurisprudence, warfare, defence, statecraft … so much of it was translated and applied by other growing nations and civilisations …
The good thing is, Prof. Mahulikar’s lectures will mostly be standalone lectures, each of it will in itself complete a topic so that we get a brief yet elaborate overview and understanding of all that we wish to know. This is truly a rare opportunity to know our roots.
