Blissful Hearings and Seeings: Rig Veda 1.89.8 & Taittiriya Aranyaka

The phrase in the title of this post, “blissful hearings and seeings” is from the RL Kashyap’s work on the first Shanti mantra of Taittiriya Aranyaka (TA), which finds its place in the Vedic corpus in various places, including as Verse 1.89.8 of the Rig Veda. The verse was well-known during the Vedic times, as is now, in that it finds its place in the Taittiriya Aranyaka, Sama Veda, Vajasaneya Samhita, Aitreya Aranyaka, Prashna Upanaishad and the Mandukya Upanishad. This post provides a brief descriptive comment about the Mantra.

Verse

भद्रं कर्णेभिः शृणुयाम देवाः ।

भद्रं पश्येमाक्षभिर्यजत्राः ।

स्थिरैरङ्गैस्तुष्टुवांसस्तनूभिर्व्यशेम देवहितं यदायुः ॥

Transliteration

bhadraṃ karṇebhiḥ śṛṇuyāma devāḥ |

bhadraṃ paśyemākṣabhir yajatrāḥ |

sthirair aṅgais tuṣṭuvāṃsas tanūbhir vyaśema devahitaṃ yad āyuḥ ||

Word by Word Meaning

The padaccheda of the verse along with its word by word meaning as is available is given below. We'll revisit this later.

भद्रम् (bhadram): blissful

कर्णेभिः (karṇebhiḥ): with our ears

शृणुयाम (śṛṇuyāma): may we hear

देवाः (devāḥ): Oh Gods

पश्येम (paśyema): May we see

अक्षभिः (akṣabhiḥ): with our eyes

यजत्राः (yajatrāḥ): O worshipful ones; O worthy of sacrifice

स्थिरैः (sthiraiḥ): firm

अङ्गैः (aṅgaiḥ): limbs

तुष्टुवांसः (tuṣṭuvāṃsaḥ): praising you

तनूभिः (tanūbhiḥ): with bodies

व्यशेम (vyaśema): may we live out; may we pass through

देवहितम् (devahitam): God given; ordained by the gods;

यत् (yat): which

आयुः (āyuḥ): life span

Translation

RL Kashyap's commentary on TA translates it thus:

"O Gods, may we hear (only) what is blissful;

may we behold with our eyes what is blissful.

Praising you with bodies having firm limbs,

may we enjoy the God-given span of life."

Some Questions

The Mantra appears as a Shanti mantra in both Taittiriya Aranyaka and Aitariya Aranyaka. Why, of all mantras in the Rig Veda, has this mantra been placed as the Shanti mantra in TA? The broader project of the Vedas as not merely information source but as normative content is perhaps reflected in this Mantra and its placement in TA. It connects body, and its organs, mind, teachers, gods and the cosmos.

The mantra seems to prioritise hearing over seeing. The first stanza of the mantra is a prayer to the Gods that “may we hear (only) what is blissful”. The second stanza continues with the prayer that “may we behold with our eyes what is blissful”. This structuring may not have been accidental. The mantra does not state about what is seen first. The prioritisation to hearing seems to accord with the idea that the Veda is Shruti (what is heard).

There are various questions concerning RV 1.89.8 vis-à-vis TA that require answering. For instance:

• Why was this mantra chosen as the first Shanti Mantra of Tattiriya Aranyaka than another one?
• Why was this prioritised over the the second Shanti Mantra that actually appears a few verses earlier as RV 1.89.6?

More on this in another post.

Some References:

Rohini Bakshi, bhadram karṇebhiḥ RV 1.89.8 & svasti na indro RV 1.89.6 transliterated (27.02.2017)

RL Kashyap, Taittiriya Aranyaka: Krishna Yajur Veda - Text in Devanagari Translation and Notes Vol. I (2016)

When were the Brahmasutras Written?

This post summarises the state of current knowledge on the dating of the Brahmasutras. They are based on Nakamura (1983) and Uskokov (2022).

 These and other works point out the following conclusions:

• Brahmasutras were written between 200 to 450 CE
• Brahmasutras as they exist today were not written by a single person. The latter parts were added somewhere between 400 to 450 CE.

Our understanding of Brahamasutras has been augmented in the recent past by a scholar of immense repute- Nakamura. Nakamura's works cited here have been written originally in Japanese and translated into English. Chapter X of Nakamura’s work, History Of EarlyVedanta Philosophy: Part One (1983) discusses this. Some interesting conclusions are worth noting here. Brahmasutras was composed by the Vedanta school of philosophy, particularly the school that “revered” Chandogya Upanishad:

• Extensive interpretations and explanations from Chandogya Upanishads (p. 430).
• Even Shankara’s commentary quotes Chandogya Upanishads often (p. 431).
• But Brahmasutras pick from other Upanishads such as the Taittriya Upanishad (p. 431).
• Originally, the Brahmasutras were intended to “synthesize, harmonize and unify the thought” of all the Upanishads but remains true to the Chandogya Upanishad. (p. 431).
• Later additions in Brahmasutra reflected other Upanishadic theories.

On the dating, Nakamura argued that the later portions of the Brahmasutra which attack the Buddhist theory of consciousness must have been additions after 400 CE. The Brahmasutra, according to him, would have passed through 3 stages:

• Stage 1: Composed in schools of Sama Veda whose attention centred on the Chandogya Upanishads.
• Stage 2: Upanishadic theories were addressed and the Brahmasutras were enlarged.
• Stage 3: Additions of the logical refutation of other schools made and the Sutras were unified.

Nakamura cautiond that “we cannot absolutely conclude” of this stagewise evolution (p. 433), though. Also, Nakamura states that the Brahmasutras could have been regarded as a secret work, given that it was not addressed in the Buddhist canon.

Based on the dates of Vasubandhu (320 to 400 CE) and Nagarjuna (who lived earlier), Nakamura pegged the earliest possible date of the present compilation of the Brahmasutras to 400 CE. The latest possible date is 400 to 450 CE, given that there were several commentaries of the Brahmasutras, according to him (p. 436). Nakamura clarified that given that the Brahmasutras went through the three stage evolution, the earlier versions would have been written much earlier, prior to even the Christian era.

Uskokov in the work titled "The Philosophy of the Brahma-Sutra" (2022) seems to agree with Nakamura’s dating. He concludes: “Be that as  it may, the Brahma-sūtra could not have been finalized much later than the fifth century because we know for a fact that several prominent Vedāntins wrote commentaries on it before the eighth century Śaṅkara”  (p. 6) Uskokov also pegged Shankara’s commentary on the Brahmasutras at 750 CE (p. xiv).

So, to conclude, the current state of knowledge dates the Brahmasutras as they exist now, to the 5th century CE, specifically, between 400 to 450 CE.