Purusha
Sukta: an Aurobindonian Interpretation—the Fourfold Order and the Four Powers
of the Divine Mother
Purusha Sukta in the Rig Veda (X: 90) celebrates
famously the Sacrifice of the Purusha performed by the Gods, the Rishis and the
Sadhyas, the accomplished celestial beings. All is established in the Sacrifice
and therefore Sacrifice is the best means of achieving whatever has to be
achieved, asserts a scriptural text. What did these sacrificers intend to
achieve by performing the difficult sacrifice? the cosmic order, the
possibility for growth, conquest, expansion, winning new grounds, making the
law of the higher truth-existence operational in the universal functioning,
instituting the dharma? Indeed, it was for that, and only by it could they
themselves ascend to greater realms of immortality. It is in the Sacrifice of
the Purusha, the Holocaust of the primal Being, Yajna of the Great Person that
the incomparable deed was carried out. In an enterprising act, by making an
offering of this Purusha himself, the Male who is the begetter of things in all
the worlds was this Yajna completed. Its jubilation in the Rig Veda is a
forceful triumph-song of the Creator poised for Cosmic Action,—“a profound
composition,” as Sri Aurobindo says about it.
Cosmic activity got initiated in the performance of
this Yajna. It is said that Brahma remained inactive “because of not knowing”
and he was advised, as we have in the Sakalya Bramhana, to perform a Yajna.
“From your sacrificed body you shall create bodies for all living creatures, as
you have done in Kalpas before this, in the earlier Eras.” The recommended
Yajna was the Sarvahuta Yajna, the Offering of All, presented in the Purusha
Sukta. In it Male the Begetter was the Ahuti, the sacrificial offering to the
Mystic Fire; Spring and Autumn and Summer in the completeness of cyclic Time
were the elements for the offering; the Gods, Sadhyas the accomplished beings,
and the Rishis were the Ritviks, the priests performing the Yajna; in it all
Nature was the Barhisha, the Altar. And what was the yield of the Yajna? It
consisted of clarified butter mixed with white curd, and the birds and the
beasts, the Sun, the Moon, the Wind-God, and Indra and Agni, and the Metres and
the Hymns and the Chants, and the realms of bright dwelling, and the Ordinances
of the Truth, the Directives of the Dharma. To establish all this, the
sacrifice was performed; in it Sacrifice itself became a sacrifice in greatness
of the cosmic working. Thus in it the Gods ascended to heaven, opening the path
of immortality.
We shall first go though the text with a free rendering,
more in terms of its swift intuitive-perceptive sense than the exact literary
phrasing or contents, in the suppleness of the meaning and the shades the roots
of the words bear. This is more an interpretative trans-creation than the
strict analytic-discursive argument presented about the process of this cosmic
functioning. In fact the Sukta is a small beautiful poem in sixteen stanzas, a
well-structured, well-argued well-presented significant thesis in poetry
extending to universal dimensions. Such indeed is the power of all genuine
mystic speech which has found the original expression, an expression that
springs up from the depths of luminous silence. Its metaphor is bold, such as
the transcendental Purusha being a four-footed creature, like Vamadeva’s Agni
the Bull with four horns; its lyricism is dense and classical, functional as
well as suggestive; its symbolism is vibrant with the life of the object that
it represents; its image is Keatsian, and minute and sharp, the sight behind it
making the invisible at once visible, tangible; its lines, coming from
infinity, have the power to carry us to the infinity to which they go, to which
they belong. They bring the knowledge they possess in such abundance and in
such exaltation. And yet we must appreciate that the language of the Purusha
Sukta is essentially ritualistic. To the modern mind it might appear archaic
and it will be difficult for it to fully or enthusiastically comprehend it; but
it is a highly charged expression. There is also the difficulty that its idiom
belonging to the classical Sanskrit can be taken in several ways, both literal
and symbolic, aspects whose deeper psychological connotations we have lost in
the intervening centuries. However, there is something astonishing also about
the hymn. Though it is a composition belonging to the Vedic period, it is
unusually fresh even today. What is necessary is to know how to enter into its
living spirit and move in its dynamism which is powerful as well as
felicitous.
From a psycho-spiritual point of view we can prepare
ourselves to enter into its richness, into its contents and meaning by
absorbing what Sri Aurobindo has written in The Essays on the Gita: “All this
manifold universe comes into birth and is constantly maintained by God’s giving
of himself and his powers and the lavish outflow of his self and spirit into
all these existences; universal being, says the Veda, is the sacrifice of the
Purusha. All the action of the perfected soul will be even such a constant
divine giving of itself and its powers, an outflowing of the knowledge, light,
strength, love, joy, helpful shakti which it possesses in the Divine.” But
first let us hurriedly run through the Purusha Sukta.
The Sukta-text as we have in the Tenth Mandala of the
Rig Veda, consisting of sixteen stanzas, is reproduced in the following. A
possible interpretative-suggestive rendering is also presented; the intention
is not only to get some general feel of what it is trying to convey, but also
to have an idea of its charged ambiance so as to move in its vibrancy.
sahasra śīrşā
puruşah sahasrākşah sahasrapāt |
sa bhūmim
vishvato vŗtvātyatişţhad daśāngulam
||1||
Purusha the Cosmic Being has a thousand heads, and he
has a thousand eyes and a thousand feet to walk; he has chosen this bhūmi the
Earth for his growth, for increase, to extend himself, to widen; while doing
so, he stands apart by the width of ten fingers, far seeming yet close to this
chosen place.
puruşa évédam
sarvam yadbhutam yaccha bhavyam |
utāmŗtatvasyéśāno
yadannénātirohati ||2||
This Purusha alone, and none else, is all what had been
and what shall be, that which existed in the extreme past, and that which shall
appear in the times to come; truly, he is the Lord of the immortal realms,
excellent, and reigning over the worlds, Ishan, and also of that which grows
abundantly by food, in the richness of matter.
étāvānasya
mahimāto jyāyāmccha pūruşah |
pādosya vishvā
bhūtāni tripādasyāmŗtam divi
||3||
All that is here, that is visible, that indeed is his
greatness, but much more is the glory and greatness, the distinction of the
Purusha; this, what is seen is, just one-fourth of him, one leg of the
creature, the other three, invisible, being in the heaven of immortality.
tripādūrdhva
udaitpuruşaha pādosyéhābhavat punah |
tato vişvaň
vyakrāmatsāśanānaśané abhi
||4||
With those other three parts this great Purusha
ascended above, went up to the heaven of immortality; one alone remained here,
this one becoming again and again, and from this came, extending over every
side, sentient and insentient objects, objects and beings, those eat and those
eat not.
tasmādvirāļajāyata
virājo adhi pūruşah |
sa jāto
atyarichyata paschādbhūmimatho purah
||5||
Thence was born Viraj, the Splendid, the Excellent, the
King, and in this birth of Viraj came things concerning the Purusha; thus born,
he grew at once large, exceedingly large, eastward and westward, extending
beyond the Earth, both behind and in the front.
yatpuruşéna
havişā dévā yajnamatanvata |
vasanto
asyāsīdājyam grīşma idhmah śaraddhavih
||6||
Even as the Gods performed the Yajna, this Purusha
himself was made a sacrificial offering, an oblation to the great Mystic Fire.
The Spring became the clarified butter, and the Summer the Fire-wood, and the
Autumn the burnt offering to the Yajna.
tam yajnam
barhişipraukşan puruşam jātamagratah |
téna dévā
ayajanta sādhyā ŗşyascha yé
||7||
That splendid Being, Purusha, who was born before the
beginning of things, ahead of everything, the earliest, they made him the
oblation in the Yajna; on the seat of sacred grass they sprinkled on him the
consecrated water, the Accomplished and the Seers and the Gods performed the
sacrifice.
tasmādyajnāt
sarvahutah sambhŗtam pŗşadājyam |
paśūn
tāmschakré vāyavyānāraņyān grāmāscha yé
||8||
This was the Sarvahuta Yajna, Offering of the All, made
by them, and from it was obtained clarified butter mixed with coagulated milk;
from it winged forth birds flying in the air, and beasts in the wild woods, and
the meek ones of the small villages.
tasmādyajnāt
sarvahutah ŗchah sāmāni jajňiré |
chhandhāmsi
jajňiré tasmāddyajustasmādajāyata
||9||
From that Sarvahuta Yajna in which the Cosmic Being was
sacrificed came the hymns of the Rig Veda, and the songs of praise, the chants
of the Sama Veda, the Riks and the Samans; in them were born the Metres that
govern the movements of the things in the universe, and soon the conduct of the
rites, the sacrificial formulae of the Yajur Veda.
tasmādashvā
ajāyanta yé ké chobhayādatah |
gāvo ha
jajňiré tasmāt tasmādjjātā ajāvayah
||10||
Horses, and creatures with only one row of teeth, and
with two rows one in each jaw, and the cattle of the pasteur, the kine, and the
goats, and the sheep were born in that sacrifice.
yatpuruşam
vyadadhuh katidhā vyakalpayan |
mukham kimasya
kau bāhū kā urū pādā uchyété
||11||
When this Purusha was dismembered, in how many parts
did they do so? and how did they specify these parts? in what forms they shaped
him? What became of his mouth, and by what do they call his arms, his thighs,
and his feet, how are these named?
brāhmaņosya
mukhamāsīdbāhū rājanyah kŗtah |
urū tadasya
yadvaiśyah padbhyām śudro ajāyata
||12||
His head is the Brahmin, the wise and the learned, and
his arms became Rajanya, the king, the man of valour; what were his thighs they
were made into Vaishya, the man of transaction, the tradesman and the dealer
and the agriculturist, even as his two feet turned into Shudra, the labourer
and the artisan and the doer of perfect works.
chandramā
manaso jātaschakşoh sūryo ajāyata |
mukhādindraschāgnischa
prāņādvāyurajāyata ||13||
From his mind was born the Moon, and the Sun had the
birth in his two eyes; from the mouth came Indra and Agni, and from his breath
issued forth the Wind-God, Vayu.
nābhyā
āsīdantarikşam śīrşņo dyauh samavartata |
padhyām
bhūmirdiśah srotrāttathā lokāmm akalpayan ||14||
From the navel of this Purusha appeared the mid-region,
and from the crown of his head spanned out celestial realms, and Bhumi the
Earth from his feet, and from the ears the ten directions; by the sheer power
of formulation came into existence organised worlds.
saptāsyāsan
paridhayastrih sapta samidhah kŗtāh |
dévā
yaddyajnam tanvānā abadhnan puruşam paśum ||15||
Seven were the pieces of the fuel-wood laid around the
Fire, and were used three times seven the fuel sticks, samidhah; in this Yajna,
in which the Gods are the performers of the rite, they tied this Purusha in the
manner of a sacrificial animal.
yajnéna
yajnamayajanta dévāstāni dharmāņi prathamānyāsan |
té ha nākam
mahimānah sachanta yatra pūrvé sādhyāh santi dévāh ||16||
By the Yajna did the Gods perform the Yajna, Sacrifice
in the sacrifice as a sacrifice, and in it were established the first
associated Ordinances of the Truth; such in their excellence and in their glory
did in them the Gods ascend to heaven, there where they were the earlier Gods
and the Achievers, the Claimers of the Truth everywhere.
The language of the hymn is at once revelatory and
powerful; it has mantric force in it: its inspired diction carries the
intention of the sacrificers to their desired fulfilment. The theandric aspect
in which the Gods and the Rishis and the Sadhyas are involved has in it the
full merit of accomplishing what is proposed to be accomplished. Out of the
body of the Cosmic Purusha, the one-fourth who remained here, the Beast who had
his one leg dangling down in the cosmic sphere, the Purusha whom the
sacrificers sacrificed in the Yajna, Viraj the first divine emanation in the
immense operation, arose the realms of grandeur, and the powers and divinities
in several functionings, and the rhythms of the ever-increasing truth and the
formulations of the righteous conduct, and the fourfold order of society that
presently governs all the movements and operations of the earthly world. The
focal point in this Sacrifice of the Purusha is Bhumi, the Earth for his
growth, for propagation, for riches, prosperity, to extend himself in ten
directions of the creation. This sacrifice indeed is the Transcendent’s own
willing and felicitous sacrifice, a wise and judicious rewarding investment in
the Cosmos, showing also his great concern for the creation. By Yajna the
process was set into motion; by Yoga it will be fulfilled.