Antiquity of the Vedas vs the Historicity of the Rishis:

 By Ved Kovid, Durgadas 

(c) Ved Kovid, Durgadas / Arogya Ayurvedic Health Ltd.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this article may be copied or reproduced in any manner, in print or electronically, except by direct permission from the author .

For many, as the Bible is essentially a hodgepodge of shruti (revealed) and 

smriti (remembered) traditions, it is a kind of a Purana or history-book and sadly, this is the way that several today, influenced from Abrahamic faiths (India included due to influences from Islam from 8th Century AD onwards) have labelled the Vedas as being the same, when they are not.

A question, often in the minds of people is, if the Vedas are so ancient, then why are the names of rivers such as Sarasvati, Ganga, Sindhu etc. and personalities such as Ila, Manu, Vishwamitra, Bharadvaja etc. mentioned in the Suktas?

There is a clear answer to this, in the Brahmanas as Shatapatha Brahmana, the Yajur Veda, the Upanishads and also Nirukta of Yaskacharya, which all take such terms in the case of common terms not as proper nouns or names, which contradicts the Vedic themes.

The later names of Rivers etc. were given as per the original qualities (gunas) and inner meanings implied in the Vedas, not the other way around. Similarly, the Rishis also derived their names from (a) the subject matter of the hymns and (b) the gunas or qualities of such common nouns used in the Vedas, often in the hymns they became masters of. For example, Dhanvantari would have been called 'Vaidya' (physician) or 'Shastracharya' (expert in surgery) due to his knowledge of the science of Ayurveda and Surgery, but these are taken as common not as proper nouns. Similarly, the term 'Sushruta' appears in the Rig Veda, relative to ENT disorders and the Vaidyas (Ashwins), being a common term for Surgeons and Physicians in the Rig Veda who were required to hear this science well - a common epithet ascribed to the last 'Sushruta' who composed the Samhita, but this was not his proper name (as evidenced also from the fact he traces Shalya-Tantra (science of surgery) back to the oldest of Vaidyas (known as the Ashwins in his own Samhita).

The outer also always reflects (and derives from) the inner. For example, the natural order is that shabda (sound) derives from akasha mahabhuta, not the other way around. Jyoti (light) and tejas (heat) derive from Agni, not the other way around, as also, Ila (Ida), Bharati (Pingala) and Saraswati are names for the inner nadis in Yoga, not of the outer rivers of which the names were later applied to, as per their qualities. Stating the Rig Veda contains history is like saying that vak (speech) precedes the formation of the jihva (tongue), or that the term 'Three' in English is contemporaneous with the original (clearly older) origin in the Sanskrit term 'Tri' (as an example of how trying to find historical personages in the older Veda fails).

Sri Krishna, born around 3200BCE for example doesn't imply that he was the first and others of the same title came later, either. Krishna simply denotes one of a darker complexion, the night (ratri) and also the quality of darkness (tamas). So, there are many Krishnas and we don't take 'Krishna' appearing in the Rig Veda as a proper noun, simply as in later times there were people named 'Krishna'.

Rishi names and their sampradayas, as also Kings were also named from the terms seen in the Rig Veda, which is the origin of their names, as per the gunas associated with that particular word or formation of aksharas. That is the beauty of Sanskrit and also how the Vedas reveal the origin of Sanskrit itself and the origin of all names, let alone terms and titles of later times for personalities, places etc.

Even Yajnavalkya tells us that Indra means lightening, and that the personality "Indra" himself derives his name from Idandra, relating to spiritual insight. An 'Indra' in later times also denotes one who is a Raja, Senapati, Yogi etc. as a common noun, just as 'Babaji' and 'Guruji' are respected common terms for enlightened and respected men, not proper names or nouns. We must also apply them to the Vedas, since there is no evidence to the contrary, except in the mental products of Semitic faiths and equating the Vedas with the Puranas, which are 'smriti' and not 'shruti', denoting athiya and paurusheya and not adhyatmika and apaurusheya as the Vedas, as per the sacred traditions of India.

Manu (I.23) also states that the three main Vedas - Rig, Yajur and Sama were derived from and thus revealed first to Agni, Vayu and Aditya respectively, showing their nature as predating the (known) history of the world and cannot contain historical accounts. Names etc. of the Rishis and Manus are also due to their qualities extracted from the Vedas (Manu, I.21), not otherwise.

Where there are aspects that one can perceive as 'historical', one should also remember the story of Valmiki, who wrote the events of the Ramayana before they occurred also. This is also to show the vision of the Rishis  what to speak of Brahman who first revealed them? It was the order of Vyasa that, when editing the Vedas for the modern age, attributed the names attached to the various Suktas as per those who perceived their meanings and mastered these mantras - not their originators, in the same manner that the later Tantric Mantras have their respective Rishis who didn't first reveal them, but mastered their application and Devata-sadhanas in more recent times, from already ancient traditions of their own.

An example again is how Shalya-Tantra is ascribed to the historical 'Sushruta', even though his Guru, Dhanvantari and others come from an already ancient lineage going back to the Ashwins etc. and as Rishi Yajnavalkya, in his own Vajasenayi Samhita, traces his own lineage still, back through the Taittiriya traditions and back to Hiranyagarbha. To ascribe any of his teachings simply to him, then, is to deny the long lineage he himself came from (the origin of his own Veda recession)! He, like the Rishis simply 'restored', rather than discovered or wrote these Suktas and vidyas.

We even ascribe Advaita Vedanta to Shankaracharya, even neglecting his Guru lineage of Gaudapada and Govindacharya, not to mention looking back to Dakshinamurthy or Shiva himself and Advaita Seers in the tradition such as Sri Yajnavalkya, Bhishmacharya and Sri Krishna, as also Parashurama and his own Guru, Dattatreya who are still revered in the tradition for their teachings!

The Veda then, is the garbha or origin and seed of all of these later titles and names as per the gunas, just as the Rishis of the later times were all simply reformers of age-old existing traditions, not their founders; in the same manner, the Vedic Rishis derived their names as per the gunas of the hymns of which they mastered, but being originally revealed to Agni, Vayu and Aditya in the beginning of time before Swayambhuva, the first Manu, several millions of years ago!

The Devanagari Script and the Vedas:

As with the antiquity of the Vedas some millions of years ago, so also is the antiquity of the Devanagari script, the sacred script for writing the Vedas, which some scholars have tried to derive from the Indus and Brahmi scripts.