Bharatheeyam : ( 08/11/2012. )

Chapter-4. Swami Sri  Adi  Sankaracharya - The Genius ( Sankara Jayanti ) :  Part-9. Now, we know very well how we have slowly drifted away from the original intention of the Veda Mantras by the degeneration of the time process – the advent of Treta, Dvapara and Kali Yuga, or whatever we may call it. So, the emphasis got completely shifted from the universal to the external, material, and even prejudiced way of thinking. The offerings in these Yajnas or sacrifices meant to propitiate the gods that are many, were in the beginning holy articles such as clarified butter, certain grains and pulses, wood from sacred trees like Asvattha, Palasa and so on, gruel cooked out of rice, Payasam, Charu, etc. But once we make a mistake, we do not stop with it. It goes on multiplying, and there is an aggregate of errors. Mistake after mistake began to be committed with the pious intention of propitiating the gods; all kinds of offerings were poured into the sacred ...

Chapter-4. Swami Sri  Adi  Sankaracharya - The Genius ( Sankara Jayanti ) :  Part-8. But how could we transfer these objects that we would like to offer to the gods in the celestial region? They are invisible! The celestials are not known and they are not seen. So sacrifices or Yajnas were instituted, and the holy fire, the sacred Agni became the secret messenger or the carrier of the oblations to the gods. We say, "Agnaye svaha" and make offerings to the Supreme Messenger of the Divine Being, Agni. May He be pleased. In all the Havans and Yajnas, we will find the first deity to be invoked is Agni. This ritual is called Agnisthapanam. It is invocation of the celestial behind the principle of fire, or the divinity of fire, who is called Fire-god, Agnidevata. He is first invoked and then He is told: "Please take this to Indra", "Please take this to Yama", "Please take this to Varuna", and so on. He will carry our ...

 Chapter-4. Swami Sri  Adi  Sankaracharya - The Genius ( Sankara Jayanti ) :  Part-7. In a third stratum of thought in this march of social history, these very divinities which were thus propitiated, began to be recognised as being almost like human individuals.  Now they can get angry as any human being can get angry and they can also be pleased as any human being can be pleased.  Perhaps they could even be bribed through various types of offering.  Thus we hear of contention among the very gods and fights among the celestials, which is really very strange.  How could the gods fight amongst themselves?  But that is envisaged by the mind which studied the gods and the celestials in the light of human nature.  As we are, so the gods also are.  So, as we please people,  we have to please the gods also in the very same way, applying the same methodology as we apply towards human beings....

 Chapter-4. Swami Sri  Adi  Sankaracharya - The Genius ( Sankara Jayanti ) :  Part-6. These Mantras which were visibly recorded for posterity became objects of study and also vehicles for invocation of the many gods. To the originators of these Mantras, the gods were not manifold; they were the many phases of the One. But, now, they lost their connection with the original unity or the background, and only the phases are seen as the multifarious divinities presiding over the quarters of the cosmos – Indra, Agni, Varuna, Mitra, Aryama and many such celestials. These deities began to be invoked through the very same Mantras which were originally the revelations of the sages. While in the original Samhitas, in their primordial condition, they were effects of a diviner experience, now they became a cause rather than an effect of an invocation of these multifarious gods. We invoke these gods by placation, by propitiation, by begging and by requesti...

Chapter-4. Swami Sri  Adi  Sankaracharya - The Genius ( Sankara Jayanti ) : Part-5. This is a slightly posterior period to that of the exuberance of the Veda Samhita Mantras wherein there was only a spontaneous spiritual outpouring of devotion to the One on account of Its having been recognized in realization, in direct experience. But, when we make a study of these outpourings, they do not look like the manifestations of the One Experience. All study that is historical is esoteric, prosaic, mechanized and sensory, and hence the esoteric significance that was the background of the very origination of these Veda Mantras got lost in the process of time, in the passage of history. The outward form and the visible significance as hymns offered to the various centers of divinity – the many gods, as they usually say – got emphasized, and these gods became not only objects of reverence, but also objects of fear. It was not that gods were always beneficent. T...

Chapter-4. Swami Sri  Adi  Sankaracharya - The Genius ( Sankara Jayanti ) : Part-4. The most catholic definition of the Supreme Reality we have is given to us for the first time given in the body of the Rigveda Samhita : Ekam Sat – the One Being, One Reality, One Substance, One Existence that the sages recognise and designate as the manifold. In various ways they sing of the glories of this One Mighty Being. But on the other hand, for pure exoteric observation, it would rather look like an acceptance of polytheism or the worship of many gods, as if there is a real multiplicity of the realm of the Adhidaiva, as a counterpart to the multiplicity that we see in the realm of the Adhibhuta or the physical world. The variety of the physical world became the source of a susceptible feeling in the minds of people later on, through the passage of time, that, perhaps, the souls also are many and the gods also are many, because the objects in the world are many! ...

Chapter-4.Swami Sri  Adi  Sankaracharya - The Genius ( Sankara Jayanti ) : Part-3. It was a spontaneity of feeling which was, in a sense, a natural result of the intuition of the sages. Throughout the Samhitas, if we make a deep study of them, we will see spread out in various places, thoughts and devotional feelings in their various emphases and stresses, all beckoning the aspiration of the human soul to what is implied and what is hidden behind the manifested phenomena. Now here, in this psychological situation of mankind, we have a twofold significance from the point of view of cultural history. On the one hand, it was a visible expression of an inner realisation by which the sages plumbed the depths of infinity and proclaimed for all eternity and to all mankind : "Ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti, Indram Varunam Mitram Agni...." All the variety, whether in the field of the Adhidaiva (the transcendent, the presiding principle) or the Adhibhuta (the ...