What is Veda (Sanatana Foundation of Universal Dharma)

Prologue to the Sanatan

This book is a self-contained Introduction and companion to Dr. Tulsi Ram’s English translation of the Vedas, initiated by Messrs. Govind Ram Hasanand with the publication of the English translation of Yajurveda in 2011, and completed by the Arsh Sahitya Prachar Trust with the English translation of all the four Vedas in 2013.

For the idealists, who make no compromise for anything less than all the Vedas, it will serve as the dawn for the day. But for those readers, who do not have the time for a long continuous study of the Vedas, it would serve as an independ- ent study in the form of meaningful reflections of the organismic unity of the universe, the creative evolution of the world of existence and the universal Law operative in the universe.

It deals with some of the important themes of the Vedas such as the Vedic view of Ishwara (God), Jivatma (the soul) and Prakrti (Nature), creation v. evolution (creative evolution), socio-political organization of humanity from the individual and family as a unit upto the international organization of the human community, Vedic view of Dharma and ‘Sanatana Dharma’ and its variations from time to time across the fluctuations of history, scientific attitude to the study of nature and Antaric Sakshatkara (subjective realization of reality) as against Bahya Sakshatkara (objective realization and scientific verification).

At the end, there is an essay on the technique of interpretation of the Vedas in the Arsh tradition of Yaska, Panini, Patanjali and Dayananda in comparison with the Western way of Vedic interpretation. The Glossary of certain important Vedic terms and some selected Vedic mantras with their meaning will certainly engage the attention of the reader. For the generality of the readers, this book will mean, it is hoped, the freshness of the Vedic morning with all the light and vigour which the dawn brings with it.

To understand the Veda, it is important to know the human context in the wider context of the world and the pre- historic context of human knowledge:

What is man’s distinction as compared to the other living beings? Neeti Shastra says it is Dharma. But, as we know, other life forms too follow their dharma, placed as they are in the divinely organized context of Nature. They follow their dharma at the instinctive level, without choice. Man’s basic distinction is Chetana, consciousness, in fact self-consciousness and consciousness of the boundless environment outside and the bottomless depth within. That order of consciousness includes man’s consciousness of Dharma, both Nature’s and man’s Dharma, Sanatana Dharma, and the Sanatana totality.

Man’s consciousness is not closed, it is open. It opens on to cosmic consciousness, depending on your freedom of choice to extend it to the maximum and even to the Infinite. If you want to know the world, watch out, observe, study science and evolution. If you want to appreciate it, see it as the poetry of God in the medium of Prakrti.

If you want to discover the mystery of it, try to appreciate the presence of Divinity in it. If you want to know the seed and the source of the mystery, listen to the silence of Nature and therein you will hear the voice of God. You will experience the presence of God through the heart beats of Nature.

If you are a rationalist, watch out, see the regularity of natural phenomena, work out the implications of the divine Will vibrating in every particle of matter and in every wave of natural energy and you will be self-guided to the Divine Presence.

So much through the senses and through the human reason.

But you are not only the body, the senses and the reason (Buddhi). You are the atman (atma), a living, self-conscious, entity divinely attached to a higher Consciousness, the Cosmic Atman. You are placed in a wonder-world of beauty, Divinity, Immortality and Infinity. Your reason includes memory, both conscious and unconscious in the form of Sanskars recorded in the DNA. The atma itself is the knower and also its own medium of higher consciousness.

Close the outward doors of the senses, bring the mind to stillness, keep your intellectual eye open inwards, and you will experience the presence of a mysterious higher consciousness. Concentrate on It, and you will feel a mysterious, expansive and elevated consciousness arising and amalgamating with it, a state of Being described as Kaivalya in Yoga Darshana, as a possibility in Rgveda, 8-44- 23, and as a reality in the closing mantra of Yajurveda, 40-17.

Veda is Knowledge, Divine Knowledge, the articulation of Divine Consciousness, eternal, original, and for us in this world, first and final, received in the pre-historic, original, self- existent language (now called Vedic Sanskrit) by the Self- realised Sages in a state of Samadhi when the human mind was elevated to the same frequency as the frequency of the Cosmic Mind (Yajurveda, 34-5).

This book gives the reader a sample foretaste of the vast experience of what can be called the Story of Creation from the Zero hour of chronological time to the completion of the story through which the evolution of nature and the play of humanity on the world stage comes full circle in one cycle of eternal existence. If the Veda is the Script of that story, this book can be called the Prologue of the play. The Epilogue, no human mind can write, because that would survive only in the Silence of the Eternal Divine Wakefulness.

I would conclude this message of good wishes for the readers with the opening mantra of Mandūkyopaniṣad:

Om: Ityetadakşaram idam sarvam tasyopākhyānam bhutam-bhavad-bhavishyaditi sarvam Onkara eva. Yacchānyat trikālāfitam tadapyońkāra eva.

Aum: This is the Eternal Imperishable Word and Ever Ex- istent Divine. This all is the Play and the Script of That. The past, the present and the future, all that is is Onkāra only. Even that which is other than that and beyond, that too is Onkara only.

Enjoy this Prologue and stand by to experience your play of the Vedic wonder-world of life.

-Gianender Kumar Sharma

O Man, Your path is up and Onwards, 
Never Downwards