Yoga

Ghrta is clarified butter. Since cow was in abundance in the Vedic age, there was also abundance of gh?ta. As such, it was a matter of great use in life. It was used in sacrifices as well as was an important ingredient of food. Consequently it has found a significant place in the Vedas.

Gh?ta was used during the Vedic period as well as throughout the whole history of India as a delicious and extremely nourishing food content is evident from the heavenly damsel Urva??’s statement in the ?gveda that she took a lump of gh?ta only once a day and on the strength of it moved around fully contented even after four years of departure from Pururavas. (?gveda X.95.16 )

As the Vedic seer was in the quest of the essence of things, he did not permit the product of milk stop at the stage of butter. He saw to it that the butter could be made rather durable. With this end in view, he clarified it and thus could produce gh?ta, which is durable and can assume two forms, solid and liquid without losing anything in essence.

Vedic seer compares the look of Agni with the gh?ta prepared out of the milk of cow and clarified in fire (Rigveda, IV.1.6).

Needless to point out that the gh?ta prepared out of the cow’s milk is slightly yellowish as compared to that prepared out of buffalo’s milk, which is white. Seer V?madeva repeats the same simile when he observes that Agni in appearance is akin to perfectly clarified gh?ta, shining and taintless, as well as is gold (Rigveda, IV.10.6). Thus in the seer’s view, Agni, gold and gh?ta are kindred in appearance and basics in the total scheme of things.

As such, gh?ta comes to form the ideal of the appearance of gods and their costumes. Ap?m Nap?t, for instance, along with waters in the form of smiling beautiful ladies around him, has been described as clad in attire akin to gh?ta in appearance (Rigveda, II.35.4).

Vi?v?mitra also, like G?tsamada, views Agni as clad in gh?ta (Rigveda, III. 27.5). So is the case with V?madeva with respect to sacrifices, however. He describes them as gh?tanir?ijah, adorned in gh?ta (Rigveda, IV.37.2). Vasi??ha also observes how Mitra and Varu?a have been given the attire of gh?ta by seers (Rigveda, VII .64.1). As is evident from the literal meaning of the word devat?, god, it is but natural for the latter to be shining. It is quite in keeping with this feature of gods in general that they are envisaged as robed in gh?ta signifying thereby their lustrous appearance.

The word gh?ta does not remain confined to its literal sense. When a particular deity is described as gh?ta?irnik, the word gh?ta in this usage comes to signify particularly lustre rather than the substance called gh?ta.

Indeed when a particular word or object is used to point to a particular feature of itself alone instead of the whole of it, it becomes symbolic in its usage. It comes to signify something quite different and detached from what it literally stands for. Here gh?ta, for instance, is meant only to signify the lustrousness of the appearance of the divinity concerned.

Interestingly, the word prat?ka, used subsequently to signify symbol as such, occurs several times in the ?gveda particularly in association with gh?ta.

In all such usages, gh?ta forms the first member of the compound while the second one is formed either by Agni or by U?as.

In one such mantra, for instance, Agni is described as gh?ta-prat?ka as also ?tasya dhursad, sitting at the crest of ?ta, the universal order or sacrifice (Rigveda, I.143.7). Here while gh?ta stands for lustrousness, prat?ka signifies resemblance to. Thus Agni is called gh?taprat?ka on account of its resemblance to gh?ta in lustrousness.

The word prat?ka has been taken sometimes in the Br?hma?as in the sense of mouth (Brihadaranyaka Upanisad I.5.2). Prat?ka signifies mouth by virtue of its power of consumption. This is what happens in the process of symbolisation also. Symbolisation entails de facto consumption of the object symbolised by the symbol.

For instance, when U?as is described as gh?taprat?ka, gh?ta takes the whole of U?as in its ambit and comes to the fore to represent her in all her lustrousness. In such cases, dimensional proportion between the symbol and the object symbolised stands rather discounted. It is in this discounting of the proportion, of course, that lays the utility of the symbol to a great extent.

The above, however, is just the elementary state of symbolisation. Starting from here it may take a long stride where neither the symbol nor the object symbolised is allowed to remain in its original form. One such case in relationship to gh?ta is the description of U?as as cows milching gh?ta.

This expression is placed against the background of the description of U?as in the plural as rich in cows as well as horses and heroes and invocation of them as such to cast their brilliant lustre down to the earth. With this ground-work they are conceived as cows yielding gh?ta for universal consumption and all round protection and well being (Rigveda, VII.41.7.).

If the U?asas are expected to yield gh?ta, it is quite in the fitness of things to conceive of them as cows. Cows, however, do not yield gh?ta directly. Gh?ta is a product of milk produced through human effort.

Conceiving of U?as as yielding gh?ta involves a long process of figurative thinking including representation of dawns by cows and abstraction of gh?ta out of the cow’s milk. Moreover, if U?as as a cow is not the real cow, the gh?ta yielded by the U?as-cow can by no means be the real gh?ta.

It must symbolise what U?as has been characterised by in the first part of the mantra at least. These features of U?as are their abundance in cows, horses and heroes. While cow, among several other things, stands for illumination and knowledge, horse and hero symbolise strength, particularly animal and human. Thus gh?ta would naturally symbolise illumination and strength by virtue of its properties of lustre and nourishment.

It is interesting to note that how the Upani?adic story of Satyak?ma’s education by sage Haridrumata has a direct bearing on the highly symbolic mantra seen by D?rghatamas .

To remind ourselves of the main points of the story, Satyak?ma, an initiate in Vedic education, was given the charge of four hundred cows by the teacher and was asked to take them to the pasture land, take due care of them and not return to the school until they became one thousand.

Satyak?ma does accordingly and when the cows reach the required number of one thousand, the bull from amongst the cows happens to initiate Satyak?ma in the mystery of Brahman, the Ultimate Reality. Supposing Brahman as four-footed, he proposes to teach Satyak?ma in one aspect of Brahman called prak??av?n and explains it as comprising the four directions, i.e., east, west, north and south as different aspects of that phase of Brahman. After teaching so much, the bull directs Satyak?ma to proceed on his return journey where Agni would teach him next into the mystery of Brahman.

When he stops in the evening and kindles the fire, Agni begins to teach him how the earth, the intermediate space, the heaven and the ocean form different aspects of one leg of Brahman known as anantav?n.

Having taught him next in this regard the swan in its turn teaches him how Agni, S?rya, Candra, and Vidyut form different aspects of the third leg of Brahman known as jyoti?m?n.

In course of this, the bird madgu finally teaches him how breath, eye, ear and mind form the fourth leg of Brahman known as ?yatanav?n.

This teaching by the four agencies proves so effective that when Satyak?ma reaches in the presence of the teacher, the latter finds him as already fully enlightened leaving little scope for any further teaching except formalising what he already had learnt. (Ch?ndogya Upani?ad, IV.4-9)

When we go through this account vis-a-vis the details embodied in the mantra, we have no difficulty in correlating the facts mentioned in them. In the first place, in the mantra, as well as in the story, it is the cow which forms the basis of the creation as well as learning about the mystery of creation. This suggests that the mystery of creation can be got unveiled by taking recourse to the fundamental principle of creation itself, as knowledge is closely associated with the object of knowledge.

Secondly, if in the story what Satyak?ma is handed over are cows numbering four hundred, in the mantra also while creating the waters Gaur? at one stage shows herself as four-footed developing out of one-footedness and two-footedness successively. Four, of course, is a square number capable of serving as the basis of reaching perfection, which is symbolised by thousand.

Accordingly, if in the story the four hundred cows are to grow into thousand, in the mantra Gaur? at the state of perfection grows into thousand syllabled. Thus, if the four hundred cows correspond to the four-syllabic Gaur? or V?k, the one thousand cows correspond to the thousand-syllabic.

Thirdly, if in the story it is when the cows grow into one thousand that the bull emerges out of them and enlightens Satyak?ma in the knowledge of Brahman partly at least, and further shows the definite way to fuller enlightenment, in the mantra also it is equally well understood that when V?k would become thousand-syllabled it would automatically make one enlightened in the whole mystery of creation out of the Ultimate Being whose Creatrix Gaur? is and which itself is directly mentioned by the seer almost in the same continuation just after a few mantras as ekam sat.(Rigveda, I.164.46)

Finally, if the bull of the story mentions the four directions i.e., the east, the west, the north and the south as constituting one of the four legs of Brahman, the mantra mentions the same together by the term pradi?a?catasrah, the four directions leaving only samudra to be mentioned further by Agni in the story.

In fact, as the earth, the intermediate space, the heaven, Agni, S?rya, Candra, and Vidyut all are creations out of space, indeed in co-ordination with time, what the agencies other than the bull taught to Satyak?ma is simply an elaboration on the bull’s teachings.

If this be admitted, it can confidently be said that it is the bull who is the real teacher of Satyak?ma. And there is no misunderstanding about it that the bull is just a counterpart of the Gaur? of the Rgvedic mantra. He, indeed, is the same bull who in V?madeva’s famous mantra occurs as four-horned, three-footed, two-headed, seven-handed, threefold bound and as bellowing constantly from within the mortals having entered within them (Rigveda, IV.58.3).

The four horns of this bull may tentatively be taken to have been rendered into the four feet in the Upani?ad, representing the four forms of manifestation of It in the world, i.e., spatial, temporal, physical and psychic. By virtue of lying inherent in the psychic being of the mortals, the bull is capable of emerging from within and teaching them about the Reality along with all its manifestations.

This is the real secret of the process of learning and knowing, all other things involved in the process being just accessories to this final objective, just as attainment to the state of thousand-syllabled V?k is the final objective while the way to attaining to this objective lies in traversing along the path of monosyllabic, disyllabic, quadri-syllabic, eight-syllabic and nine-syllabic words. This psychology of learning has symbolically been brought out in the story of Satyak?ma J?b?la through cows used as symbols.