Maharishi Dayananda's Contribution for Vedas

CONTRIBUTION OF MAHARISHI DAYANANDA FOR VEDAS
Maharishi Dayananda Sarasvati (1824-83) considered the Vedas as a rock of firm foundation, taking them for his guiding view of life, his rule of inner existence and his inspiration for external work, and even more, as the word of the eternal Truth on which man’s knowledge of God and his relations with the Divine Being and with fellows can be rightly and securely founded. According to him , all the sciences meant for the good of mankind flow from the fountain head of the Vedas ever since the creation of the universe. The Vedas radiated that light that illuminated the world by teaching those universal and eternal truths and principles that help the mankind to realize the Nature and co-relation of God with the soul and the creation.
Indeed , the Vedas are the first source of the knowledge, ever come to mankind.. The various branches of knowledge and sciences were just the offshoots sprung from the first nucleus of the Vedas. The Maharishi Dayananda, thus, rediscovered the radical theory in his life time which the ancient sages like the code-giver Manu said ‘sarvaevedat prasidhyati’ (all knowledge flows from the Vedas)।Manu further said in such an unambiguous terms as ‘Vedoakhilo dharmulam’(Manu-Sm‚ti: 2-6). It means the Veda is the source of all Dharma i.e. religion, morality, righteousness and good conduct .Again, for them who want to acquire correct knowledge of Dharma, the Vedas are the highest authority.(ibid 2-3).

According to Maharishi Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950), ‘Among all the materials of our past the Veda is the most venerable and has been directly and indirectly the most potent.... as authoritative revelation, and inspired Book of Knowledge, the source of all sanctions and standard of all truth.’ In his book entitled ‘Secret of the Veda’, while expounding modern Theories about the Vedas, he has commended as follows : ‘It is a remarkable attempt by Swami Dayananda, the founder of the Arya Samaj, to re-establish the Veda as a living religious Scripture। Dayananda took as his basis a free use of the Indian philology which he found in the Nirukta. Himself a great Sanskrit scholar, he handled his materials with remarkable power and independence. Especially creative was his use of the old Sanskrit tongue which is best expressed---(as) ‘multi-significance of roots’. We shall see that the right following of this clue is of capital importance for understanding the peculiar method of the Vedic Risis’.

• ‘Dayananda’s interpretation of the hymns is governed by the idea that the Vedas are plenary revelation of religious, ethical and scientific truth. Its religious teaching is monotheistic and the Vedic gods are different descriptive names of the one Deity; they are at the same time indications of His powers as we see them working in Nature and by a true understanding of the sense of the Vedas we could arrive at all the scientific truths which have been discovered by modern research.’
  
  In his famous essay on ‘Dayananda and the Veda’ Aurobindo Ghosh wrote:
  ‘Among the great company of remarkable figures that will appear to the eye of posterity at the head of renaissance, one stands out by himself with peculiar and solitary distinctness, one unique in his type as he is unique in his work. Such is the impression created on my mind by Dayananda.’
  He has further stated, in his above essay, the broad principles, underlying Dayananda’s thought (contribition) about the Veda (s), as follows:
  "An interpretation of Veda must stand or fall by its central conception of the Vedic religion and the amount of support given to it by intrinsic evidence of Veda itself. Here Dayananda’s view is quite clear, its foundation inexpugnable (that) Vedic hymns are chanted to the One Deity under many names, which are used and even designed to express His qualities and power---.It is the explicit statement of the Veda itself. (cf. Rv.164.46).
  Dayananda asserts the presence of an ethical element (in the Veda), he finds in the Veda the law of life given by God to the human being...Dayananda asserts the presence of such a cosmic element, he finds in the Veda the secrets of creation and law of Nature by which the Omniscient governs the world. Neither western scholarship nor ritualistic learning has succeeded in eliminating the psychological and ethical values of the hymns.
  Dayananda affirms that the truths of modern physical sciences are discoverable in the (Vedic) hymns. There is nothing fantastic in Dayananda’s idea that Veda contains truth of science as well as truth of religion.. I will even add...that Veda contains the other truths of science the modern world does not at all possess, and in that case Dayananda has rather understated than overstated the depth and range of Vedic wisdom.
  Objection has also been made to the philological and etymological method by which he arrived at his results( for interpretation of the Vedas), (which) objection I feel certain is an error---.Nirukta bears evidence to this capacity and in the Brahmans and Upanishads we find the memory of this free and symbolic use of words still persisting.
  Interpretation in detail is a work of intelligence and scholarship and in that men seem likely to differ---, but in all the basic principles, in those great and fundamental decisions where the eye of intuition has to aid the ---intellect, Dayananda stands justified by the substances of Veda itself, by logic and reason and by our growing knowledge of the past mankind. The Veda does hymn the one Deity of many names and powers; it does not celebrate the divine Law and man’s aspiration to fulfill it; it does purport to give us the Law of the cosmos.
  · On the question of revelation---suffice it to say that here too Dayananda was perfectly logical---.There are always three fundamental entities which we have to admit and whose relations we have to know if we would understand existence of all, God, Nature and the Soul. If as Dayananda held on strong enough grounds, the Veda reveals to us God, reveals to us the Law of Nature,---(and) the relations of the soul to God and Nature, what is it but a revelation of Divine Truth? And if, as Dayananda held, it reveals them to us with a perfect truth, flawlessly, he might well hold it for an infallible scripture---Modern thought, affirming Nature and Law but denying God, denied also the possibility of revelation, but so also it denied may things which a more modern thought is very busy reaffirming.
  · We can not demand of a great mind (like that of Dayananda) that it shall make itself a slave to vulgarly received opinion or the transient dogmas of the hour; the very essence of its greatness is this, that it looks beyond, that it sees deeper.
  · In the matter of Vedic interpretation I am convinced that whatever may be the final complete interpretation, Dayananda will be honoured as the first discoverer of the right clues. Amidst the chaos and obscurity of old ignorance and age-long misunderstanding, his was the eye of direct vision that pierced the truth and fastened on that which was essential। He has found the keys of the doors that time had closed and rent asunder the seals of the imprisoned fountains.’

Ved Prakash
01-10-08