paarsurrey
Veteran Member
Is "India" as a region/country or "Arya" as a race or tribe even mentioned in Veda? I did not read it while reading Yajurveda. If yes, please quote from Yajurveda. Kindly.
Regards
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Is Vedic Sanskrit a dead or a near dead language?
- Thread starter paarsurrey
- Start date
Regards
One may kindly read this post http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...ciences-is-it-true.189484/page-4#post-4856126
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
And one's post there reads:
"You are so far out on a linguistic limb here that you're holding on by the shoots. India is a Greek name. Aryan means noble in the spoken Indo-Iranian languages..I might also mention that the name Iran comes from 'aryan'."
One means that neither India is mentioned in the Veda/Yajurveda as a region/country nor "Arya" or "Aryan" as a race mentioned in the Veda/Yajurveda. Right? Please
Thanks and regards
I mean both:
- The name India is of Greek origin.
- The Vedas do not mention a people named “Aryans”
Satyamavejayanti
Well-Known Member
Namaste,
Ill try to simplify it, the 4 Veda listed in the Upanishads (which probebly were composed after the Samhitas) are the Samhitas (Collection of Mantras), these 4 contain 3 preexisting types of Mantras such as Rik, Yajus and Saman (as we can find reference to these three types in the Samhita collection them self), so to say that one builds off another (such as yajurVeda build off RigVeda, as you previously did) is not accurate as this is like saying the apple builds off and comes post the banana, the point is these are two different types of Mantras.
We cannot say the Rik type Mantras came before the Yajus type Mantras, because we don't have this data, but when we consider the traditional view that these 3 types were all in one collection until someone split them into the 4 we have today, now if the tradition holds Vyasa (or Krishna Dwapiyana or whomever) therefore we cannot discount this claim completely.
Maybe they knew something that we did not?
This is all am trying to say in this regard.
Now as for the OP question, can anyone here demonstrate that "Mantra", is a Language?
psychoslice
Veteran Member
I believe if we cling to old out dated scriptures, no matter what those scriptures are, then yes they are dead, truth cannot be imprisoned in any scripture, it is ever flowing, to imprison it is to let it rote and it then smells of dogma and fundamentalism.
Very few people read the Vedas, so very few are clinging.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Yes I know that, but I do mean those few who do, and anyone else with regards to whatever scriptures.
I actually don't know anyone who clings to the Vedas the way you are describing. That style of Hinduism just isn't like that. Still, there may be the odd nut out there that starts every discussion with , 'Well, lets see what the Vedas say." I have met people who do that with e Gita though.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
it can also be the deep desire to read the Vedas hoping for enlightenment, and again any scriptures can be that also, you may not know anyone, but then who is going to tell you they are desiring their scriptures, I'm just putting it out there that this can happen.
Of course it could happen. My point is just that the Dharmic faiths have far less emphasis on scripture than the Abrahamic faiths. That's not just some conjecture.
shivsomashekhar
Well-Known Member
This is a point that seems to be very hard to communicate. A lot of people from other religions are just not able to comprehend that most Hindus have no reliance on scripture.
I've tried and failed miserably on this forum several times. Sometimes I've even called in for backup. But yes, you get the feeling that a million Hindus could reiterate the same thing, and none of us would be believed. Once the mind is programmed to think that all religions are the same version of bad, regardless of what said religions ACTUALLY believe, it's hard to make a hole in that box. I predict a response that will confirm what you and I just said, too.
Editted ... My brother assumes that I'm just the Hindu version of what is known colloquially here as a Bible thumper. He's never once asked me a single question about my religion. Ever since the change of name announcement, its been that way, lol.
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I think one is less likely to find "enlightenment" in the Vedas than we are in the Upanishads. The Vedas aren't the equivalent of the Dhammapada or the Bible, or even the Tao Te Ching. The Vedas, from what I've seen, are primarily hymns of praise and directions for performing sacrifices. I don't know if meditating on the Nasadiya Sukta or the Mantra Pushpam (two of my favorites) for 1,000 years will bring one any closer to enlightenment. Not to mention contradictions because they were compiled over the course of centuries, if not millennia, as society changed, and they became layered. That doesn't invalidate them, but it offers "something for everyone". I don't think one can just read the Vedas and hope for more than being able to say "I read the Vedas, yay me!"
But I think you have to admit that some of the stories in the Purāṇas are downright awesome, and have some great lessons.
My view, and you probably know this already, is that you will never find enlightenment in books. You have to find it within yourself, in the sahasranama chakra, through yoga. The books are ultimately a distraction. Road map, maybe, but not the destination. Of course this is summed up in my sampradaya's beliefe that there is no such thing as jnana yoga, just the state of jnana. On a deeper level, I feel sorry for people who read too many books. It just congests the mind with more stuff, limiting intuition, taking up space, and then you have to clear it all out in order to progress. Easier not to jam it all in there in the first place.
Just an opinion.
And is there any external to self? In my understanding, the vedas are not the external books. But study of the Vedas require study at the feet of a guru.. thus comes the name 'Upanishad'.
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Does this mean that scriptures are irrelevant? The three major gurus: Shankaracharya, Ramanuja, and Madhava have formalised their vedantic systems based on Vedas, Upanishads and Gita. We follow teachers of these schools.
As per Shankara, there is no way that one can know of Atman or Ishwara, except through proof of Vedas.
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Unfortunately I can testify to that. I have packed away almost all the books dealing with philosophy. They drove me to distraction, and away from practice. The same thing happened with Heathenry... too many books telling you how to reconstruct a world that is 1,000 years in the past, that you can't possibly live in. What good is knowledge if you can't use it. You know the saying "all book knowledge but no common sense".
Who exactly is this 'we' you speak of?