VEDAS....

LORD VISHNU, THE ALL-PERVADING GODHEAD IN VEDA: 

[ Commentry On Vishnu Suktam By Rishi Aurobindo]

Rig Veda I.154 ( Mantra Drshta : Dirghatma Auchyatha )

विष्णोर्नु कं वीर्याणि पर वोचं यः पार्थिवानि विममेरजांसि |
यो अस्कभायदुत्तरं सधस्थं विचक्रमाणस्त्रेधोरुगायः ||

1. Of Vishnu now I declare the mighty works, who has measured
out the earthly worlds and that higher seat of our
self-accomplishing he supports, he the wide-moving, in the
threefold steps of his universal movement.

पर तद विष्णु सतवते वीर्येण मर्गो न भीमः कुचरो गिरिष्ठाः |
यस्योरुषु तरिषु विक्रमणेष्वधिक्षियन्ति भुवनानि विश्वा ||

2. That Vishnu affirms on high by his mightiness and he is like
a terrible lion that ranges in the difficult places, yea, his lair
is on the mountain-tops, he in whose three wide movements
all the worlds find their dwelling-place.

पर विष्णवे शूषमेतु मन्म गिरिक्षित उरुगायाय वर्ष्णे |
य इदं दीर्घं परयतं सधस्थमेको विममे तरिभिरित पदेभिः ||

3. Let our strength and our thought go forward to Vishnu the
all-pervading, the wide-moving Bull whose dwelling-place
is on the mountain, he who being One has measured all
this long and far-extending seat of our self-accomplishing
by only three of his strides.

यस्य तरी पूर्णा मधुना पदान्यक्षीयमाणा सवधयामदन्ति |
य उ तरिधातु पर्तिवीमुत दयामेको दाधार भुवनानि विश्वा ||

4. He whose three steps are full of the honey-wine and they
perish not but have ecstasy by the self-harmony of their
nature; yea, he being One holds the triple principle and
earth and heaven also, even all the worlds.

तदस्य परियमभि पाथो अश्यां नरो यत्र देवयवो मदन्ति |
उरुक्रमस्य स हि बन्धुरित्था विष्णोः पदे परमे मध्व उत्सः ||

5. May I attain to and enjoy that goal of his movement, the
Delight, where souls that seek the godhead have the rapture;
for there in that highest step of the wide-moving Vishnu is
that Friend of men who is the fount of the sweetness.

ता वं वास्तून्युश्मसि गमध्यै यत्र गावो भूरिश्र्ङगायासः |
अत्राह तदुरुगायस्य वर्ष्णः परमं पदमव भाति भूरि ||

6. Those are the dwelling-places of ye twain which we desire
as the goal of our journey where the many-horned herds of
Light go travelling; the highest step of wide-moving Vishnu
shines down on us here in itsmanifold vastness.


COMMENTARY (Extract From 'The Secret Of Vedas') :

The Popular Misunderstanding :

It was a view long popularised by European scholars that the greatness of Vishnu and Shiva in the Puranic theogonies was a later development and that in the Veda these gods have a quite minor position and are inferior to Indra and Agni. These errors arise inevitably as part of the total misunderstanding of Vedic thought for which the old Brahmanic ritualism is responsible and to which European scholarship by the exaggeration of a minor and external element in the Vedic mythology has only given a new and yet more misleading form. The importance of the Vedic gods has not to be measured by the number of hymns devoted to them or by the extent to which they are invoked in the thoughts of the Rishis, but by the functions which they perform. Agni and Indra to whom the majority of the Vedic hymns are addressed, are not greater than Vishnu and Rudra, but the functions which they fulfill in the internal and external world were the most active, dominant and directly effective for the psychological discipline of the ancient Mystics; this alone is the reason of their predominance. The Maruts, children of Rudra, are not divinities superior to their fierce and mighty Father; but they have many hymns addressed to them and are far more constantly mentioned in connection with other gods, because the function they fulfilled was of a constant and immediate importance in the Vedic discipline. On the other hand, Vishnu, Rudra, Brahmanaspati, the Vedic originals of the later Puranic Triad, Vishnu-Shiva-Brahma, provide the conditions of the Vedic work and assist it from behind the more present and active gods, but are less close to it and in appearance.


Vishnu's Role In Creation :

Brahmanaspati is the creator by the Word; he calls light
and visible cosmos out of the darkness of the inconscient ocean
and speeds the formations of conscious being upward to their
supreme goal. It is from this creative aspect of Brahmanaspati
that the later conception of Brahma the Creator arose. For the upward movement of Brahmanaspati’s formations Rudra supplies the force.For the formations of Brahmanaspati’s word, for the actions of Rudra’s force Vishnu supplies the necessary static elements,— Space, the ordered movements of the worlds, the ascending levels, the highest goal. He has taken three strides and in the space created by the three strides has established all the worlds. In these worlds he the all-pervading dwells and gives less or greater room to the action and movements of the gods.



Indra Prays To Vishnu :

When Indra would slay Vritra, he first prays to Vishnu, his friend and comrade in the great struggle, “O Vishnu, pace out in thy movement with an utter wideness,” and in that wideness he destroys Vritra who limits, Vritra who covers. The supreme step of Vishnu, his highest seat, is the triple world of bliss and light, which the wise ones see extended in heaven like a shining eye of vision; it is this highest seat of Vishnu that is the goal of the Vedic journey. Here again the Vedic Vishnu is the natural precursor and sufficient origin of the Puranic Narayana, Preserver and Lord of Love. In the Veda indeed its fundamental conception forbids the Puranic arrangement of the supreme Trinity and the lesser gods. To the Vedic Rishis there was only one universal Deva of whom Vishnu, Rudra, Brahmanaspati, Agni, Indra, Vayu, Mitra, Varuna are all alike forms and cosmic aspects. Each of them is in himself the whole Deva and contains all the other gods. It was the full emergence in the Upanishads of the idea of this supreme and only Deva, left in the Riks vague and undefined.



Hymns Of Dirghatma Auchathya :

In this hymn of Dirghatamas Auchathya to the all-pervading Vishnu it is his significant activity, it is the greatness of Vishnu’s three strides that is celebrated. The three strides of Vishnu in the Veda are clearly defined by Dirghatamas as earth, heaven and the triple principle, tridhatu. It is this triple principle beyond Heaven or superimposed upon it as its highest level, "nakasya prsthe" which is the supreme stride or supreme seat of the all-pervading deity. Vishnu is the wide-moving one. He is that which has gone abroad as it is put in the language of the Isha Upanishad, "sa paryagat," — triply extending himself as Seer, Thinker and Former, in the superconscient Bliss, in the heaven of mind, in the earth of the physical consciousness, "tredha vicakramanah".


The Three Strides Of Vishnu :

In those three strides he has measured out, he has formed in all their extension the earthly worlds; for in the Vedic idea the material world which we inhabit is only one of several steps leading to and supporting the vital and mental worlds beyond. In those strides he supports upon the earth the material, the mid-world the vital realms of Vayu, the triple heaven and its three luminous summits, "trini rocana". These heavens the Rishi describes as the higher seat of the fulfilling. Earth, the mid-world and heaven are the triple place of the conscious being’s progressive self-fulfilling, "trisadhastha", earth the lower seat, the vital world the middle, heaven the higher. All these are contained in the threefold movement of Vishnu.

विष्णोर्नु कं वीर्याणि पर वोचं यः पार्थिवानि विममेरजांसि |
यो अस्कभायदुत्तरं सधस्थं विचक्रमाणस्त्रेधोरुगायः ||


The Highest Feet Of Vishnu :

But there is more; there is also the world where the self-fulfilment is accomplished, Vishnu’s highest stride. In the second verse the seer speaks of it simply as “that”; “that” Vishnu, moving yet forward in his third pace affirms or firmly establishes, "pra stavate", by his divine might. Vishnu is then described in as the fierce and dangerous “like a terrible lion ranging in evil and difficult places”, till he stands upon the summits. Thus in these three wide movements of Vishnu all the five worlds and their creatures have their habitation. Earth, heaven and “that” world of bliss are the three strides. Between earth and heaven is the Antariksha, the vital worlds, literally “the intervening habitation”. Between heaven and the world of bliss is another vast Antariksha or intervening habitation, Maharloka, the world of the superconscient Truth of things.

पर तद विष्णु सतवते वीर्येण मर्गो न भीमः कुचरो गिरिष्ठाः |
यस्योरुषु तरिषु विक्रमणेष्वधिक्षियन्ति भुवनानि विश्वा ||


Vishnu As The Highest Goal :

The force and the thought of man, the force that proceeds from Rudra the Mighty and the thought that proceeds from Brahmanaspati, the creative Master of the Word, have to go forward in the great journey for or towards this Vishnu who stands at the goal, on the summit, on the peak of the mountain. His is this wide universal movement; he is the Bull of the world who enjoys and fertilises all the energies of force and all the trooping herds of the thought. This far flung extended space which appears to us as the world of our self-fulfilment, as the triple altar of the great sacrifice has been so measured out, so formed by only three strides of that almighty Infinite.

पर विष्णवे शूषमेतु मन्म गिरिक्षित उरुगायाय वर्ष्णे |
य इदं दीर्घं परयतं सधस्थमेको विममे तरिभिरित पदेभिः ||


He Maintains The Five Worlds :

All the three are full of the honey-wine of the delight of existence. All of them this Vishnu fills with his divine joy of being. By that they are eternally maintained and they do not waste or perish, but in the self-harmony of their natural movement have always the unfailing ecstasy, the imperishable intoxication of their wide and limitless existence. Vishnu maintains them unfailingly, preserves them imperishably. He is the One, he alone is, the sole-existing Godhead, and he holds in his being the triple divine principle to which we attain in the world of bliss, earth where we have our foundation and heaven. All the five worlds he upholds.

यस्य तरी पूर्णा मधुना पदान्यक्षीयमाणा सवधयामदन्ति |
य उ तरिधातु पर्तिवीमुत दयामेको दाधार भुवनानि विश्वा ||


Vishnu Is Bliss :

The tridhatu, the triple principle or triple material of existence, is the Sachchidananda of the Vedanta; in the ordinary language of the Veda it is vasu, substance, u¯rj, a bounding force of our being, priyam or mayas, delight and love in the very essence of our existence. Of these three things all that exists is constituted and we attain to their fullness when we arrive at the goal of our journey. That goal is Delight, the last of Vishnu’s three strides. The Rishi takes up the indefinite word “tat” by which he first vaguely indicated it; it signified the delight that is the goal of Vishnu’s movement. It is the Ananda which for man in his ascent is a world in which he tastes divine delight, possesses the full energy of infinite consciousness, realises his infinite existence. There is that high-placed source of the honey-wine of existence of which the three strides of Vishnu are full. There the souls that seek the godhead live in the utter ecstasy of that wine of sweetness. There in the supreme stride, in the highest seat of wide-moving Vishnu is the fountain of the honey-wine, the source of the divine sweetness, for that which dwells there is the Godhead, the Deva, the perfect Friend and Lover of the souls that aspire to him, the unmoving and utter reality of Vishnu to which the wide-moving God in the cosmos ascends.

तदस्य परियमभि पाथो अश्यां नरो यत्र देवयवो मदन्ति |
उरुक्रमस्य स हि बन्धुरित्था विष्णोः पदे परमे मध्व उत्सः ||


Lord Of The Transcedent Existence :

These are the two, movement of the Vishnu here, the eternally stable, bliss-enjoying Deva there, and it is those supreme dwelling-places of the Twain, it is the triple world of Sachchidananda which we desire as the goal of this long journey, this great upward movement. It is thither that the many-horned herds of the conscious Thought, the conscious Force are moving — that is the goal, that is their resting-place. There in those worlds, gleaming down on us here, is the vast, full, illimitable shining of the supreme stride, the highest seat of the wide-moving Bull, master and leader of all those many-horned herds, — Vishnu the all-pervading, the cosmic Deity, the Lover and Friend of our souls, the Lord of the transcendent existence and the transcendent delight.

ता वं वास्तून्युश्मसि गमध्यै यत्र गावो भूरिश्र्ङगायासः |
अत्राह तदुरुगायस्य वर्ष्णः परमं पदमव भाति भूरि ||


"Om Vishnave Namah" !!!

"Om Shanti Shanti Shanti"