The Rig Veda: Powerful Repository of Knowledge in Hindu Law
Among the four Vedas in Hindu Law, the Rig Veda is believed to be the earliest and most powerful repository of knowledge and timeless wisdom.
Hindu Law and Rig Veda
The famous German historian, Max Mueller, stated that the Vedas have a two fold purpose, one is that it belongs to the history of the world and the other is that it belongs to the history of India. India was a powerful hub of trade and commerce. From 1000 BC till1,500 BC, the language called Bhasa or Vedic Sanskrit was prominently in use as we use English today. World over, scholars have continuously tried to unlock the mystical power of the Vedas, particularly the Rig Veda.
The Frog Song in Rig Veda
In Mandala 7, which is mainly prayers in prayers of Lord Indra, there final sukta is a Frog Song. What makes this Frog song worth understanding is that it is a unique, satirical presentation that compares priests with frogs. The sheer depth, creativity and humor that went into this composition is remarkable and advanced.
Prayer Addressed to the Forests
In today’s world, we acknowledge that forests have precious life surrounding it and therefore, we need to preserve it. Movies like Avatar take us closer to the world of natural beauty and beings, both of which are threatened when some men attempt to exploit it and in the process, destroy it completely. Today, we have environmental laws and forest laws to safeguard the natural resources. Back then, without statistics, data or real time information trickling in, the wise sages knew these eternal truths and documented them between 4,000 and 1000 BC.
For example, a sukta in the Rig Veda is in praise of the Goddess of the Forest. The English translation of these powerful Sanskrit suktas are not considered perfect or complete but they give us a general idea of the incredible insight and knowledge that the sages had.
A tiny part of this prayer to the Forest Goddess is rendered like this:
‘The forests do not perform violent acts towards anyone. The forest is a fertile region. There is food in the form of fruits and roots. Is it not natural that I should sing the praise of the Goddess?’
A correction for this post; the Vedic period or Vedic civilization actually came after the Harappan civilization. The Vedic Age is attributed to the Aryans who are known to have come and destroyed the Harappan civilization. While the destruction or elimination of Harappas is still disputed, the fact that reign of Aryans started after Harappas is not challenged which means the Vedic age started after Harappan period. First of all, I would like to know the source which claims that the Vedic period existed and matured before the Harappan civilization. As far as I know there has never been a debate on this issue that the Vedic age started before the IVC simply because there has been no evidence of it.
There has always been efforts by people like Dr. N.S. Rajaram and Dr. Natwar Jha but those have always been criticized as efforts in supporting the Hindu Nationalist movement which propagates the theory of indigenous Aryans. They have claimed to have deciphered the Indus Valley Civilization's script which is an unproven fact till now and not supported anywhere academically. In fact all there are articles are published in the "Voice of India" which itself is a supporter of Hindu Nationalist Movement. In fact, Dr. D.N. Jha, one of the most prominent Historian in India, in the California textbook case testified that the last phase of Harappan civilization existed much before the Vedic period. See this link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-text-row-resolved-by-Indian/... At this point, no scientific records or academically proven theory exists that places Vedic age before the IVC. This article also references only the work of Dr. Rajaram and Jha on this subject which is entirely based on the assumption and unproven claim that both of them, together, were able to decipher the Harappan script. Neither scientifically nor academically proven and accepted claim.
Thank you for reading our article and sharing your valuable inputs with us. You are right - it is definitely important to have historical facts in place when establishing a historical context of value for the reader. However, in the context of our article, our purpose is not historical but to establish the legal validity of the Vedas in forming the basis of Hindu law, irrespective of the historical debate about the dates of specific periods. What an Indian court would typically consider is the body of the Vedas in determining its influence in Hindu law. With your inputs, we will be able to assess how to bring higher accuracy with regard to information about historical dates and periods in our articles. We will work on your feedback.
Thank you so much for sharing your feedback with us and please continue reading and commenting on our articles so that we can make each article better than before.
Dear Vikrant Sir,
As I know that Vedas are the first book in this universe, so how can it be possible that Vedic age actually came after the Harappan civilization? I will give more information about Vedas with the sources ASAP.
Vikrant, It was a good study and you have presented it in a good way. I have small doubt regard your aryan invasion into Harappan
civilization. Can you please tell me whom do you mean by Aryans and whom as Harappans?
Even any body (including LIG) can help me in answering it?
1. If the Aryans brought the Vedas say about only 2 - 3 thousand years back into India, why is it that there is no text or scriptures in these other countries which talk about firstly Sanskrit, and then Medicine, Chemistry, Astronomy, Astrology, Music, Dance, Ethics, Folklore, Ramayana, Mahabharat, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanashids etc. the vEdas contain all of this and much,much more.
2. Secondly, why do Vedas only sing praises of the Saraswati River in India, and not of the other parts of the world or Central Asia if that is where the knowledge is supposedly come out from.
3. Thirdly, why did people of Centarl Asia who claim that the knowledge came from them, reject a highly advanced body of knowledge so that it only was carried forward by India. In-fact a lot of Vedic knowledge was destroyed by invaders from Central Asia because it was totally alien to them.
4. Fourthly, there is no Aryan race as per the Vedas themselves. All learned people were referred to as Arya. Arya is a man or woman of knowledge.
5. The Dwarka civilization from where now artifacts of at-least 9000BC have been extracted, how do you weave that aspect in your theory.
6. It is on the basis of these arguments, whether by India or western scholars that the AIT has now been rejected.
7. What are your views?
The above comment is neither factual nor accurate. Hence editors and others need not be apologetic. There is still a great deal of debate around Aryan Invasion myth. Works by Dr. Lalji Singh in the field of DNA analysis have clearly proved that there has been no migration to the Indian subcontinent. On the other hand, the mass of evidence unearthed on the Harappan belt proves the existence of a dried up river called Saraswati. Hence many modern scholars , most of whom do not belong to the "Hindu Nationalist" camp, have corroborated the idea that Indus Saraswati civilization is the Harappan civilization, the Aryan invasion was a colonian and Marxist myth propagated by vested interests to perpetuate the interest of fundamenatlist Christian and Marxist ideology in India. Marine archeological evidence in finding the submerged city of Dwarka whose age predates that of "Aryan invasion" also debunks the myth. Most of the evidence unearthed in Harappa points to influence of Rig Vedic symbols and therefore Rig Veda can only be written before or during Harappan period. Also there is no evidence of any invasion anywhere in the ruins and the Vedas have no mention of any place outside India (strange, because if Vedic people came from outside surely they must have carried some cultural baggage from there. We all know how Muslims still carry the Arab tag with them). Also since there is a quote from a newspaper article as "evidence" of a scholarly nature, let me quote from a better source: - http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/white-invasion-aryan-theory.html
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