z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 04.indd MK SJ YS 23 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 142
142 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
“May we exterminate from hence (the evil spirit), who in the form of brother, husband, or paramour, approaches thee, and seeks to destroy thy offspring.”
“May we exterminate from hence (the evil spirit) who, having beguiled thee by sleep or darkness, approaches thee, and seeks to destroy thy offspring.”
The Vedas contain two things. In the first place they contain the hopes and wishes of the Aryans as expressed by the Rishis. As observed by Mr. Muir:
“The whole character of these compositions, and the circumstances under which, from internal evidence, they appear to have arisen, are in harmony with the supposition that they were nothing more than the natural expression of the personal hopes and feelings of those ancient bards by whom they were first recited. In these songs the Aryan sages celebrated the praises of their ancestral gods (while at the same time they sought to conciliate their goodwill by a variety of oblations supposed to be acceptable to them), and besought of them all the blessings which men in general desire— health, wealth, long life, cattle, offspring, victory over their enemies, forgiveness of sin, and in some cases also celestial felicity.”
This is also the view of Yaska the author of Nirukta who says:
“(Of the four kinds of verses specified in the preceding section) ( a ) those which address a god as absent, ( b ) those which address him as present, and ( c ) those which address the worshippers as present and the god as absent, are the most numerous, while those ( d ) which refer to the speaker himself are rare. It happens also that a god is praised without any blessing being invoked, as in the hymn (R. V. i. 32). ‘I declare the heroic deeds of Indra’, etc. Again blessings are invoked without any praise being offered, as in the words, ‘May I see well with my eyes, be resplendent in my face, and hear well with my ears’. This frequently occurs in the Adhvaryava (Yajur), and in the sacrificial formula. Then again we find oaths and curses as in the words (R. V. vii. 104, 15), ‘May I die to-day, if I am a Yatudhana,’ etc. Further, we observe the desire to describe some particular state of things, as in the verse (R. V. x. 129,
2), ‘Death was not then, nor immortality,’ etc. Then there is lamentation, arising out of a certain state of things, as in the verse (R. V. x. 95, 14), ‘The beautiful god will disappear and never return,’ etc. Again, we have blame and praise, as in the words (R. V. x. 117, 6), ‘The man who eats alone, sins alone, etc. So, too, in the hymn to dice (R. V. x. 34, 13) there is a censure upon dice, and a commendation of agriculture. Thus the objects for which the hymns were seen by the rishis were very various.”