What the origin of thought and language
Before giving examples, as I promised, of how in the Vedas are found some of the most important ideas of infinity, &c., it is necessary to say something about the origin of language which presupposes almost simultaneously with it the origin of thought. Language, as Aristotle calls it, is but the outward thought, and thought is the inward language. Both of them are logos. Wherever a word exists in ay language the corresponding thought is sure to exist, and a thought has no clear and distinct shape in the mind of the thinker, unless is it fixed in a word, So the thought and language of man grew simultaneously, and our surest method of tracing the thought of man to its very root is to trace the history of human speech. Herein lies the greatest importance of the Vedas. They supply us with ample material for tracing the history of human speech and thought to its very origin. And inasmuch as they give us this, when, and how of the origin of all human thought, they have of the origin of all human thought, they have a right to be called the revelation. No other existing book can satisfy this condition, and can before, be no revelation. But where, then, did, languages come from? This theory of revelation will lead us in the right direction. PM रिसर्च फेलोशिप योजना में किया संशोधन MHRD ने…
Composition of water in Rig Veda by Pt. Gurudatta
It is well known that the Indian grammarians call the alphabetical sounds of the Sanskrita language the akshara samannoya. This means the Veda, i.e., the other revelation which consists of literal sounds. In other words, according to the Hindu theories of revelation, which we have seen to be the only true one, these literal sounds are the eternal sounds of Nature. The origin of the articulate speech of man, which is made of these literal sounds, is in the sounds of nature. And this everybody will acknowledge, if he examines carefully the roots of the Sanskrita Language, out of which have been formed, as Yaska and Shakatayana tell us, all the nouns and verbs, &c., of the language. The roots are the sounds which man learned to imitate from nature, and out of these by-and-bye grew the language which is now our pride, as also did its sister languages. For sometime men used to talk only with roots, as they could not have done otherwise. And these roots expressed single ideas. When man had progressed so far that the combination of two single thoughts became a necessity of his life, two roots expressing the two different ideas were placed side by side. For better understanding, I give an illustration from a later process in the formation of language, the composition of nouns and from the English language, which will be more familiar to the reader. The word kingdom mean the house or dominion of a king. Before their composition. Both of these words conveyed a separate and independent idea. When the necessity was felt of expressing an idea compounded of these two, these words were placed side by side. But dom did not as yet lose its independence, and carried to the mind of the speaker, as before the idea of a separate power. Bu-and-bye, however, it became deponent on king, and lost its separate and independent power. In fact, it became, to borrow an expressive idea from the Chinese grammarian, empty, Henceforward it was only as mere suffix, and nothing more. वेद भाष्य कौन से है और किस भाष्यकार के उत्तम भाष्य है ?
The same happened with the last of the roots which we have seen were placed side by side in the beginning of the second stage in the development of language thus, for example, the two roots and were placed side by side, when it became a necessity to express the compound idea of a being, which “gave” and “sent the rolling sound of thunder” This gave us the word रुद्र, the “howl giver.” The word is a compound, very similar to the later इन्द्रजीत, which literally rendered is only “Indra-win,” the high accent being on the word Indra. But the principal idea that the root rua the other became very soon empty, and was reduced to a more suffix, giving to the root the idea of agency just as in the word Indrajit. Having thus far explained the process of the formation of nouns I Amy leave the rest, for here I shall only have to do with nouns. One thing let us remember now. It is that, in order to understands any thought properly, we must trace the word which is tis outward representative, to its root, and thence form the radical meaning to trcae all the intermediate steps to the then meaning of the word. Then only shall we find what was the sensuous beginning of all our ideas, i.e., their true revelation. But we must have light-houses to guide our courses in this dark ocean of linguistic investigation. There must be some intermediate link that may give us some clue at least to the origin and development. And that light-house, that link, is supplied by the Veda. There we see the ideas growing and coming out, and in as much as they are the only existing revelation. भारत और अमेरिका आमने-सामने अफगानिस्तान में शांति बहाली के मुद्दे पर
THE NAMES OF THE VEDA EXPLAINED
Revelation in Sanskrita is called the Shruti, the Amnaya, or Samamnaya, and the Veda. I have explained the meaning of Shruti. It means the voice of Nature. When these voices have done their work, man has come to know something, to possess all these ideas which he could not have possessed without them; then this Shruti becomes the Veda, in as much as it is now known. The word Amnaya comes from the root to meditate upon, with the prefix on all sides, and the suffix. It means that which ought to be thoroughly meditated upon. And indeed it is only by a thorough and critical examination of the Samhitas that we can reach in that mass of song true to revelation. This Veda is quite independent of the Samhitas. It will exist all the same, whether they exist or not. But if the Samhitas be lost, it will become difficult for us to recover the true Veda: for it is to be found in them alone, as their names themselves testify. The Samhitas are called respectively the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, etc. The meanings of these are the following:- The Rig Veda means a book, a collection in which the Veda is found in the Richas or praises the Sama Veda means that science which is on the subject of samans: and so on. With this meaning these books are, in a figurative sense, something simply spoken of, as the Vedas; but their names are simply the Rik, the Saman, etc. or, the Rig Veda, the Sama Veda etc. खुजली के उपाय सभी चर्म रोगों का एक झटके में सफाया कैसे करें ?
Thus we see that in reality the Veda cannot be a book, it cannot even be articulate speech. The ture Veda rather a matter of felling and knowing. And that feeling and that knowledge the Samhitas give us in a very tangible form. - Guru Ji
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