The knowledge within the Vedas is one of the greatest puzzles of human history. How could the rishis have come by their extraordinary insights about the nature of both the inner as well as outer reality in ancient times? Well, from their understanding of the Atman, the consciousness within us, for our knowledge of reality is contained in consciousness, and therefore, turning inwards to the source will lead to insight.
The Vedas have poetry, philosophy and science of the highest order; they also are the Atma Vidya, the 'science of consciousness, which is the frontier of physics, psychology and neuroscience. The understanding of this science is essential if you would like to know answers to questions such as whether artificial intelligence (AI) will ever become conscious. The fate of humanity depends on it, for if computers became conscious, they most likely will get rid of humans.
The Vedas have not only provided guidance to sages in India; they have also inspired many of the leading scientists, writers and artists in the West. They open up the inner world of the mind and show possibilities for the human spirit that one would not otherwise imagine.
Much has been speculated about the Soma of the Vedas, which the rishis claimed took one to immortality. Was it a herb or a drink, or something else? The entire ninth book of the Rig Veda is devoted to purifying Soma, which has mostly been seen as the pressing of the drink of the same name from a plant. Soma is also the moon and sometimes Vishnu or even Shiva (as Somanāth). Soma is also called the child of the waters indicating that the moon emerges from the flowing water-like space encompassing the sun.
The allusions become clear when one notes that the moon is lit and nourished by the sun, just as the mind is illumined by the lamp of consciousness. Since the individual's self-identification is with the mind, it is on the moon where the divine nectar of immortality resides. The pressing of the Soma is the purification of the mind, mirrored in the sacred theatre of the pressing of the herb, that it makes it possible to connect to the heart of one's being.
With this understanding of the purification of the mind, it is easy to see the logic of the symbolic rebirth of the consecrated man at the beginning of the Soma rite that is described in the Aitareya Brahmaņa. Both Sushruta and Charaka in their Ayurveda texts speak of rejuvenation through Soma, hinting at both the use of the purification of the mind and the power of the herb.
Gen G D Bakshi's new book Soma Veda: The Physics, Philosophy Poetry of the Mystic Atharva Veda provides new light on the important question of Soma in the Vedas by investigating the least understood of the Vedas, namely the Atharva, which has many clues regarding herbs and their powerful effects, which are especially important for insight into Soma. The book has many original insights including the theory that the Kishtwar area of Jammu and Kashmir was one of the places where the hymns were composed. Gen Bakshi reminds us that Marud Vridha, the river of the Kishtwar region is mentioned in the famous Nadi Sukta of the Rig Veda.
While some scholars believe the plant Ephedra was the main Soma plant, it does not match the description in the Rig Veda. The Atharva Veda speaks of five great plants of which Soma is the best, and also its connections with the Kushta plant and with the Ashwatha tree.
Kishtwar Saga: Where the Atharva Veda was Received
Kishtwar Saga
In the September of 2000, I was posted as Sector Commander-in-Ia charge of counter-terrorist operations in the Kishtwar region of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. This book was largely written while serving in that fascinating area. As I travelled the region extensively, I realised that I was traversing a trail hallowed by thousands of years of fascinating history. I had reached one of the pristine sources of the ancient Vedic civilisation in India.
The Bhadarwah-Kishtwar region had always exercised a strange fascination for me. When I was a child of just four years, my father was posted to Udhampur which was (and still is) a major military headquarters (HQ). From the top of the three-storey building where we were staying, I would watch, with such fascination, the sun emerging each day from behind the towering, hazy blue mountains of Bhadarwah. That mountain wall seemed to me to be the very edge of the earth. As a child of just nine, I felt that it was so close. If I could just walk up to it, I would be able to peer down that abyss and see the golden ball of the sun emerge from the end of this earth. One day, I actually took our Alsatian dog and began to walk towards the massive blue wall of mountains that appeared so very close. I walked and walked and soon lost my way in the forest of thickets. Luckily, my father's peon saw me and brought me home. I had tried to cross the wall on my horizon. I did not know then that the horizon merely recedes when you walk towards it. The strange thing was that, almost 40 years later, I came back to the Bhadarwah mountains as the Brigade Commander of the 9th Sector Rashtriya Rifles, then headquartered in Kishtwar. It was nicknamed the Mystic Ninth.
Vedas (1232)
Upanishads (517)
Puranas (636)
Ramayana (770)
Mahabharata (381)
Dharmasastras (171)
Goddess (534)
Bhakti (253)
Saints (1640)
Gods (1320)
Shiva (410)
Journal (176)
Fiction (66)
Vedanta (386)
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