Blissful Hearings and Seeings: Rig Veda 1.89.8: Translations

Refer to the last post titled "Blissful Hearings and Seeings: Rig Veda 1.89.8 & Taittiriya Aranyaka" where we provided an overview of RV 1.89.8. We noted how RL Kashyap's work translates RV 1.89.8:

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 ||

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."

This post compares the view of HH Wilson with RL Kashyap. We'll discuss Sayana later. For now, let's deal with Wilson., whose translation of the verse reads as below:

"Let us hear, gods, with our ears, what is good; objects of sacrifice, let us see with our eyes what is good; let us, engaged in your praises, enjoy, with firm limb and (sound) bodies, the term of life granted by the gods."

Let us have see these two translations side by side:

Kashyap	Wilson
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	Let us hear, gods, with our ears, what is good; objects of sacrifice, let us see with our eyes what is good; let us, engaged in your praises, enjoy, with firm limb and (sound) bodies, the term of life granted by the god

A comparison of Kashyap and Wilson, thanks to ChatGPT, does not reveal a substantial difference in the English meaning of the verse, except for certain places. This table classifies the translation as identical (when both translations are the same), similar (when there is not much difference in the meaning in translation) and not similar (where there is a substantial difference):

Sanskrit	Wilson	R. L. Kashyap	Assessment
bhadram	what is good	what is blissful	Not similar. Kashyap’s stress is more on the spirituality aspect while Wilson’s attribution of meaning is more neutral: “good”.
karṇebhiḥ	with our ears	with our ears	Identical
śṛṇuyāma	let us hear	may we hear	Identical
devāḥ	gods	O Gods	Similar
bhadram	what is good	what is blissful	Not similar. Kashyap’s stress is more on the spirituality aspect while Wilson’s attribution of meaning is more neutral: “good”.
paśyema	let us see	may we behold	Not similar- “see” is more neutral unlike Kashyap's “behold”, which tilts towards a spiritual interpretation
akṣabhiḥ	with our eyes	with our eyes	Identical
yajatrāḥ	objects of sacrifice	worshipful ones	Not similar- “see” is more neutral unlike Kashyap's “behold”, which tilts towards a spiritual interpretation
sthiraiḥ aṅgaiḥ	with firm limbs	with bodies having firm limbs	Similar
tuṣṭuvāṃsaḥ	engaged in your praises	praising you	Identical
tanūbhiḥ	with bodies	with bodies	Identical
vyaśema	let us enjoy	may we enjoy	Similar
devahitam	granted by the gods	God-given	Similar
yad āyuḥ	the term of life	the span of life	Similar

As would be apparent, the translations differ substantially when it comes to construing the words, bhadram, paśyema, and yajatrāḥ. It is well known that Wilson focussed on Sāyaṇācārya (14th century commentator of the Vedas) while RL Kashyap followed Aurobindo's spiritual approach to the Vedas as opposed to the textual one. To illustrate, Kashyap dedicated the first volume of the commentary on Yajur Veda Samhita to Aurobindo. In the preface to his work, he explicitly stated: "My aim is to bring out the spiritual and psychological wisdom contained in the 1346 mantra-s of this  kāṇḍa. The main source for my work is the essays of Sri Aurobindo on the inner Yajña in the Veda and his translations of the Rig Veda mantra-s."

References:

HH Wilson, Rig Veda Sanhita, Vol. I (1850) (reprinted 1925) (link for 1.89.8)

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

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)