musings 75

Vedas are enigmatic.. 

We really do not know whether the mantras just describe the ordinary things observed around.. in nature and surrounding, or whether they have some symbolic and mystic connotations... or both..

We go by interpretations right from the time of Shiksha of Panini and others, and Nirukta of the likes of Yaska and commentaries by the greats like Sayana, Bhattabhaskara etc..

But we really are not of the level where the meaning can be interpreted satisfactorily..even with such learned commentaries.

We attach a spiritual and exalted place to Vedas and we view them with utter reverence..

Max Muller and others of the west did not carry that spiritual connotation.. they need not too.

So their translations would be worldly..

Even the root words found in Vedas can mean and convey widely different meanings and ideas..

We use Sanskrit, and Vedas peripherally, but no one knows the real depth..

But there is a modern trend among neo-intellectuals to find hidden meaning in everything without knowing what is the thing that is hidden, if at all..
 That trend would make even the ordinary fellows look like great scholars.. but such interpretations are not to be accepted blindly..

When there is a guru parampara.. tradition of preceptors, and if the instructions and interpretations given by them are accepted as valid for generations, why should we try to negate such hoary traditions and berate the gurus and start interpreting things ourselves.. of course, unless we have greater knowledge, and more valid reasons to do so?