I recommend that everyone who is interested in the ancient history, age and origin of mankind read the work of P. Oleksenko "Artifacts of Ancient India", which tells about the amazing knowledge contained in the Vedas and other ancient Indian books written in Sanskrit. The conclusion is made about the primacy of Sanskrit, as well as about its similarity with many languages of the world, and it is assumed that Sanskrit is the language of the Nostratic community.
In the work of P. Oleksenko, interesting information is provided that Sanskrit sounds are in natural harmony with cosmic vibrations, therefore, even a simple listening to Sanskrit texts and reading them have a beneficial effect on the human body and psyche, and also contribute to spiritual searches. The author cites an Indian legend about the origin of Sanskrit, according to which the ancient enlightened yogis caught fifty different vibrations emanating from the chakras, and each of these subtle vibrations became one of the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, that is, Sanskrit is the internal energies expressed in sounds.
P. Oleksenko's hypothesis that Sanskrit was the language of the serpent-people - the Nagas, or the language of communication between them and the devas - seems to be quite curious and well-grounded.
At the same time, it seems to me very controversial (despite their apparent persuasiveness) the author's reasoning that the ancestral home of Sanskrit was the Indus and Saraswati civilization, and that Sanskrit was created on the basis of the Indian writing, as well as the conclusion following from this that the origins of the Nostratic community were on the Indian subcontinent. Too much is contained in the Vedas and other ancient Indian texts of information that goes far beyond the borders of Hindustan and is more related to another ancient continent - Hyperborea, where, according to the reconstructions carried out by me in the book “The Land of Immortals, Magicians and Wizards. When there was a "golden age" on Earth, there were white gods or maidens.
It also seems to me to be understated by several orders of magnitude given by the author - February 18, 3102 before. AD, especially since it is younger than a number of existing dating of the writing of the Vedas and other ancient Indian texts (the author himself speaks about this in relation to the "Bhavishya Purana") - and after all, the texts contained in the Vedas before they were written were transmitted orally for generations.
The author's assertion that several millennia ago the lifespan of intelligent beings was 1000 years, and a few hundred thousand years ago - 10,000 years, also looks unconvincing. As I showed in my books and works "Formation of a new earth, a new heaven and new people", "5.2 million - 12.5 thousand years ago - from the Creation of the world to the Flood", "Once again about the time of the Creation of the world and the biblical (Noah's) flood. Adjustments made by geology and folklore"and others, intelligent beings had such a lifespan much earlier (millions of years ago).
Despite the disagreements expressed by me, the work of P. Oleksenko "Artifacts of Ancient India" will undoubtedly become a pearl in the collection of works posted on the site.
Modern science is trying to fit the entire history of modern mankind into a certain time frame. That our civilization begins after the global flood that occurred approximately 5-6 thousand years ago. With this approach, Ancient India is an artifact that does not fit into traditional science and modern ideas.
Here are some examples:
First example.
The number 108, sacred in the East, is an attribute of the god Vishnu, the keeper of the world. According to the Vedas, it indicates the structure of the world. Indeed, it shows the ratio of the diameters of the Sun and the Earth, as well as the ratio of the distance from the Earth to the Sun to the diameter of the Sun. Equality of the ratio of the diameter of the Sun to the diameter of the Earth and the distance from the Sun to the Earth to the diameter of the Sun with an accuracy of 1% may also be of interest. Expressed in kilometers, it looks like this:
1 390 000: 12 751 = 109
149 600 000: 1 390 000 = 108
Question: how did the priests of ancient India, the keepers of knowledge, know these proportions?
The second question is: can such proportions and ratios of 1% be a random result?
Example two.
Already in the Rig Veda, multidimensional worlds are described in which the gods live. Our society is only getting closer to understanding this.
Example three.
The Mahabharata and Ramayana describe flying machines - vimanas, which in their flying characteristics coincide with the descriptions of UFOs.
Fourth example.
The ancient Indian epic describes grandiose wars with the use of the weapons of the gods (not only nuclear, vacuum bombs, plasma cannons, but also other types of weapons that modern mankind is just about to "invent").
Fifth example.
In the ancient cities of India, more than 4,000 seals were found, many of which are duplicates, and, moreover, all the signs of the ancient writing are present on seals, both stone and metal! This indicates that we have before us the oldest printed metal set in the world, used in the framework of some organized activity. It is known that woodcut printing existed in India and Tibet two thousand years ago. The Buddhist Canon was printed in Kashmir and Tibet and delivered to Central Asia and China in the middle of the first millennium. This indicates that the idea of printing was well known throughout Asia two thousand years ago and has probably never died since Vedic times.
Sixth example.
According to experts, the ancient Sanskrit language, in which the ancient Indian texts are written, is the most perfect language of all. And it is almost ideal for programming, eclipsing Fortran, Algol and other languages.
Such examples can be continued, but let's try to comprehend these facts from today's positions and within the framework of our worldview.
E.P. Blavatsky writes about the antiquity and origin of the “Vedas” as follows: “The Vedas (Skt.“ Revelation ”) are the sacred scriptures of the Hindus, from the root view,“ know ”, or“ divine knowledge ”. They are the most ancient, as well as the most sacred of all Sanskrit writings. The Vedas were first transmitted orally for thousands of years and then were collected on the shores of Lake Manasa-Sarovara (Lake Manasarovar) on the other side of the Himalayas, in Tibet. When did it happen? While their religious teachers, such as Swami Dayananda Saraswati, reckon their antiquity in many tens of centuries, our modern orientalists grant them, in their present form, antiquity no more than between 1000 and 2000. BC Yet, in their final form, as compiled by Veda-Vyasa, the brahmanas themselves unanimously place them in 3100 BC, the time when Vyasa himself lived ... Their antiquity is sufficiently proven by the fact that they are written in such an ancient form Sanskrit, so different from the present that there is no other similar work in literature. Only the most learned of the brahmana pandits can read the Vedas in the original.
The Vedas were finalized and compiled over fourteen centuries BC; but it has nothing to do with their antiquity ... When we analyze these hymns ... they are of deep interest as the history of the human mind, since they belong to a much more ancient period than the poems of Homer and Hesiod. " *
The Vedas are of great importance: firstly, they lead us to the origins of the ancient Aryan religion, secondly, they give us the keys to understanding India, thirdly, they give us an understanding of the basic ideas of esoteric doctrine and all Aryan religions. They contain the knowledge of the ancient Indians about gods, man and sacrifice, which unites the earthly and divine worlds. They reflected the ideas of a person about the world around him, space, ritual, social structure, ethical values and morality. Some concepts used in the Vedas later pass into the philosophy and worldview of Brahmanism - the concept of the three-part structure of the world, the concept of maya, rita - the world law governing the Universe, the concept of sacrifice, path, etc.
As the Indian scientist R.N. Dandekar, “The Vedas are the music of infinity that sounds from eternity. The ancient sages heard it and passed it on to their descendants as the most precious inheritance. The Vedas are sruti in the sense that they are 'the rhythm of the infinite heard by the soul.'
The Vedas were created gradually, in stages, so at the moment we know four main books.
. "Rigveda"- "Veda of Hymns", or the main Veda.
It is a kind of Bible of humanity, from which all religious traditions originated. This Veda is the main source of knowledge about ancient Indian deities (it says about 333 or 330 million gods). The Rig Veda was recorded in the period 1500-1000. BC, but existed much earlier. The Rig Veda consists of 1028 hymns, collected in 10 mandala books.
At the first, very early stage of Indian culture, it was very important to awaken in a person a sense of mysticism, a sacred relationship to the gods, to identify and explain the basic principles and forces operating in Nature, therefore the Rig Veda is composed of hymns. This book was folded in the language that was called "Vedic", and after processing by the learned priests it was called Sanskrit.
. "Samaveda"- "Veda of tunes".
. "Yajurveda"- "Veda of Sacrificial Formulas."
. "Atharvaveda"- "Veda of magic spells".
"Atharvaveda" (the most recent) was originally associated with the priests of the cult of fire, experts in magic. They laid the foundations for a home ritual that still plays an important role in Hinduism. The Fifth Veda is the Puranas. Attributed to Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata.
In addition to the Vedas, other texts that directly rely on them and develop their individual aspects belong to the Shruti tradition:
Each veda-samhita is adjoined by:
. Brahmanas- contain comments on rules, rituals.
. Aranyaki- reflections for those who live in the forests.
. Upanishads(lit. "to sit at the feet of the Teacher") - texts of an ethical, philosophical and ritual nature.
. Brahmanas were mainly intended for the brahmana priests. Their main task was to reveal, explain a certain order of sacrifice.
. Aranyaki Are teachings dedicated to hermits, aranyaki in translation mean "forest books". For the three highest varnas of the Hindus, there were four necessary stages of development; the first stage is the student, when they began to study the Vedas under the guidance of a teacher; the second stage - "family man", as the chief priest of the family, who conducts the main rituals, is responsible for its development; the third stage in the life of a brahmana - a "hermit", going into the woods for reflection (just for this part, aranyaks were devoted, that is, teachings about spiritual enlightenment for novice hermits, instructions on what sacrifice, contemplation, meditation, unity with God, etc.).
. Upanishads were intended for the fourth stage of development of the "twice-born" - renunciation for those wishing to become ascetics. The Upanishads contain a set of philosophical concepts of Vedism. Upanishads 108, but the main 13. They arose (according to official data) in the period VIII-VI centuries. BC. IN Upanishads and brahmanah certain constellations of stars in precisely indicated positions are mentioned, which allows the creation of the epic to be dated to about 20,000 BC. The Upanishads proper became the basis of one of the philosophical schools of Brahmanism - Vedanta(literally "the end of the Vedas"). The Upanishads are the art of attaining the Divine, they are the instruction of the brahmanas to the kshatriya kings in wisdom.
IN Upanishads basic philosophical concepts appear: Brahman(one, inexpressible and incomprehensible Deity) and Atman (the spiritual principle of man, emanating from Brahman and identical to it), the all-unity of the Divine and the world, the concept of "I", prana (subtle vital energy), Karma (the law of causality), samsara (reincarnation, the cycle of life and death) and moksha (liberation from the wheel of samsara).
In this article, I want to make a small overview of the ancient Vedic scriptures. Using various sources, the article deliberately does not rely on ideological, nationalistic and political opinions and dogmas. She will answer many questions that have arisen about the connection between the sacred scriptures of the Slavic and Indian Vedas, what areas of knowledge they cover, finding the common roots of ancient Russia and India, when and by whom they were written, and many other questions.
VEDA (Skt. Veda - "knowledge"), ancient Indian sacred texts, including: 1) collection-samhita of sacred hymns, priestly and magical formulas (mantras); 2) the exegetical texts of Brahmana - the interpretation of the meaning of ritual actions, as well as the accompanying mantras; Aranyaki - "forest books" intended for additional and secret interpretation of the ritual; The Upanishads are a kind of anthology of esoteric interpretation of the realities of previous monuments in the context of initiating an adept into the mystery of "secret knowledge"; 3) guidelines-sutras (literally "thread") for the work of priestly schools with a sacred language and ritual in the form of disciplines called Vedanga ("parts of the Vedas") - phonetics, grammar, etymology, prosody, ritual studies and astronomy. Mostly the Vedas are understood in the sense (1); the aforementioned exegetical texts built on top of them make up the Vedic corps together with the samhits; the added manuals and related grhyasutras and dharmasutras belong to the category of smrti texts (literally "memory" or tradition) - in contrast to the texts of the first two categories, referring to the most revered group of sruti (literally "hearing", which, according to hieratic etymology, is equated with "seeing "Sacred hymns by the rishis).
The texts of the Vedas have been taking shape over more than a millennium since the era of the initial settlement of the Indo-Aryans in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. Their oral transmission in various localities, by various clans of poets-priests, and then by priestly "schools" (shakhi) and "sub-schools" (charans) took more than one historical era. The main vector of the transmission of Vedic literature is the stage-by-stage codification of the texts of sacred hymns and formulas, at the final stage of which exegesis was also connected to them.
The very word "Veda" in the meaning of "knowledge", which is equivalent to "sacred knowledge", is extremely rare in the first three Samhitas: in the Rig Veda only once - in hymn VIII.19.5, where the "mortal he honored Agni with sacred knowledge ”(translated by T.Ya. Elizarenkova), in Samaveda - not a single one, in different editions of Yajurveda once or twice. Somewhat more often - about a dozen times - it appears in the Atharva Veda, which was later attached to the corpus of the Vedas, and here it is accompanied by the appearance of that figurative meaning, which later became the main one - the “sacred text”. The widespread term "Veda" is already becoming in the texts of brahminical prose - in the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads. Some Indologists have suggested that the formation of the term “Veda” as denoting a special kind of knowledge was influenced by the formula “who knows so”, which has the meaning of a mental action performed during a ritual. In this regard, the meaning of the word "Veda" is also significant in the Buddhist texts of the Pali Canon, where it primarily denotes knowledge in the context of a kind of ecstasy, religious enthusiasm, excitement, strong spiritual emotions of reverence or sacred horror. Actually, the exegetical tradition distinguished in the Vedas as "sacred texts" only two components - mantras and Brahmanas. According to the Yajnaparibhasa-sutra, “the sacrifice is arranged on the basis of mantras and Brahman; the name Veda denotes mantras and Brahmanas; Brahmans are the prescriptions for sacrifice ”(translation by VS Sementsov). In contrast to the Brahmanas, mantras were not considered prescriptions for sacrifice, but the sacrifice itself in its verbal part, which was considered decisive and was expressed, unlike the prosaic Brahmanas, in poetic or rhythmic texts.
The Vedas as the great beginning of the entire Indian culture can also be regarded as the completion of the previous processes - the migration of a large branch of the original Indo-European ethnocultural unity to the territory of India - that Indo-Iranian branch, the carriers of which called themselves Aryans (the modern name of the country "Iran" also goes back to the "Aryans"). According to the most widespread point of view, the Indo-European community originally occupied the areas of Central Asia along the Amu Darya and Syr Darya to the Aral and Caspian seas, and one of its branches reached Afghanistan, and the other to India. According to another hypothesis, the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans covered (in the 5th-4th millennia BC) the territory of eastern Anatolia (modern Turkey), the southern Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia. By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. linguistic traces of the stay of the Aryans in Asia Minor and Western Asia are found, which received the conditional name of the Mitannian Aryan language. Here, as a result of the discovery from the beginning of the 20th century. cuneiform archives from El Amarna, Bocazkl, and then from Mitanni, Nuzi and Alalakh, words of undeniable Aryan origin became known, interspersed in texts in other languages of the names of kings and noble people (dating from 1500-1300 BC), horse-breeding terminology , numerals, names of individual gods. In the marriage contract of the 14th century. BC. Between the Mitannian king and the Hittite king, who gave him his daughter as a wife, the names of the future Vedic gods Mithra, Varuna, Indra, Nasatiev are mentioned (in the names of the kings of Western Asia, the names of Asura stand out, as well as Yami, the twin sister of the Vedic god of death Yama). The "Mitannian Aryans" are related to those who invaded India as two related migratory groups, of which the first was older and died in the first centuries of the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, and the second invaded Northwest India after its heyday the first and before the migration of the Iranian branch to the territory of modern Iran.
The mythology of the Rig Veda - the first monument of Indian culture - contains close parallels with the materials of the later ancient Iranian Avesta and is also deciphered from a comparison with the corresponding characters of other Indo-European traditions, including Slavic and Baltic. Some poetic techniques, verbal formulas and, finally, the idea of the word as the highest creative world force bring the hymns of the Vedic Rishis closer to the religious poetry of the Greeks, Germans, Celts and other Indo-European peoples as the heirs of the Indo-Germanic poetic language in common with the Indo-Aryans. The collection of hymns of the Rig Veda as a whole took shape on the territory of India - mainly in the Punjab, in the basin of the Indus and its tributaries, and the later layers of the monument indicate - in accordance with the movement of the Indo-Aryans to the east - to the area between the Ganges and Yamuna (modern Janma). Hymns were considered as the most effective means of influencing the deities in order to satisfy all the needs of the poet-priest and his customer, and therefore underwent careful processing (they were, according to the language of the Indo-Aryan Rishis, properly “woven”), and this art was perfected by more than one generation of visionary singers.
The most ancient collection of hymns to the Indo-Aryan gods was the Rig Veda (Veda of hymns), which came down to us in one of the editions (tradition numbered five) and contains 1017 hymns, to which 11 additional ones are added. The Rig Veda was divided into 10 books-mandalas (literally "cycles") of various sizes. The most ancient mandalas are considered II-VII, correlated with the names of the ancestors of the clans of singers-"visionaries": Gritsamada, Vishwamitra, Vamadeva, Atri, Bharadwaja, Vasishta. Mandala VIII, adjoining the "family" ones, is attributed to the priestly families of Kanva and Angiras. Mandala IX stood out, possibly from the “family” ones, as a collection of hymns dedicated to the deity of the sacred “divine drink” (which took the most important place in the solemn ritual) Soma Pavamane. Mandalas I and X, compiled as a whole later named, do not correspond to specific clans and sacred objects. The main content of the hymns (richi, sukta) of the Rig Veda is the glorification of the deeds and deeds of the Indo-Aryan gods, as well as requests for wealth, male offspring, longevity, victory over enemies; later mandalas also contain descriptions of individual rites and cosmogonic studies. All mandalas, with the exception of VIII and IX, begin with an appeal to the god of the sacred fire Agni - the most important character in the Vedic pantheon. As a rule, they are followed by hymns to Indra - the most popular, heroic deity of the Indo-Aryans, the king of thunder who defeated the demons. Other significant deities of the Rig Veda are Soma, Mitra and Varuna, responsible for the world order, the solar deities Surya, Savitar, partly Pushan, the wind gods Vayu and Maruta, the goddess of dawn Ushas, associated with the pre-dawn and evening twilight, the Ashvins twins, as well as the assistant of Indra - Vishnu (a less significant role so far belonged to Rudra - the future Shiva). In later mandalas, the god of death Yama appears, as well as the abstract deities Speech, the All-Creator, etc.
Samaveda (Veda of tunes) consists mainly of notated hymns of the Rigveda: out of 1549, only 78 mantras are of non-Rigvedic origin. Samaveda has come down to us in two editions and was intended for the Udgatar priest who sang chants during the solemn ceremony.
The Yajurveda (Veda of sacrifice formulas), intended for a hotar priest who performed ritual actions, is presented in two main versions: Black Yajurveda (four main editions) contains, along with the named formulas, interpretations of the rite; White Yajurveda (two editions) - only formulas. The latter consists of 40 chapters (adhyayas), which contain utterances spoken during the solemn sacrifices of the new moon and full moon (darshapurnamasa), the rite of libation of milk on three sacred fires (agnihotra), animal sacrifices (niruddhapashubandha), a military rite with competitions-races on chariots and drinking the intoxicating drink of sura (vajapeya), the ceremony of dedication of the king to the kingdom (rajasuya), the annual ceremony for the construction of the sacrificial altar of Agni (agnichayana), the solemn sacrifice of the horse by the victorious king (ashvamedha) and other components of the already fully established ritual cycle. The editions of the Black Yajurveda contain, in addition to interpretations, legends and myths associated with a particular rite. One of the central characters of the pantheon is Prajapati ("lord of creatures"), the prototype of the future creator of the world of Brahma; here is the main plot of the cosmogonic myth - the war of the gods-devas and demons-asuras for world domination.
Atharvaveda (Veda Atharvana), also called Brahmaveda (Veda for a brahmana priest who watched the actions of the first three) and Purohitaveda (Veda for a royal priest), according to the material is very ancient, was included in the Veda canon later than the first three samhitas (not without reason a stable designation the Vedas were "Trayi" - "Triple knowledge"). Atharva Veda contains, along with hymns, conspiracies of white and black magic and reflects a different layer of the Vedic religion than the Rig Veda. It has come down to us in two editions, significantly different from each other; the complete edition of Shaunaki contains 730 hymns, divided into 20 chapters. The main content of the monument consists of conspiracies against diseases and petitions for healing (as well as for the enemy's illness), associated with the corresponding magical rites; conspiracies in connection with the atonement of wrongdoings, hymns-spells dedicated to marriage and love (and the elimination of rivals), conspiracies for longevity, petitions for blessings in economic endeavors, etc. Like the Rig Veda, but only in a larger volume, the Atharva Veda includes abstract deities (such as Skambha - the world support) and contains cosmogonic reasoning.
Exegetic texts are closely related both to the Samhitas and to each other. Interpretations of Brahman, which are traditionally distributed as vidhi ("prescriptions") and arthavada ("interpretation of meaning"), are already contained in the texts of the Black Yajurveda, and the esoteric exegesis of Aranyak and Upanishad was considered as a "continuation" of Brahman: the word "Upanishad" itself means cosmogonic constructions , in which the priestly parties competed during the New Year's ritual.
According to tradition, the Rig Veda is associated with the texts of Brahman, Aranyak and Upanishads called Aytareya and Kaushitaki; with Samaveda - Pancavinsa-brahmana and Jaiminiya-brahmana, Aranyaka-samhita and Jaiminiya-Upanishad-brahmana-aranyaka, Chandogya Upanishad and Kena-Upanishad; with Black Yajurveda - Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads of Katha and Taittiriya, also Svetashvatara Upanishad, Maitri Upanishad and Mahanarayana Upanishad; with the White Yajurveda - Brahman and Aranyaka Shatapatha, also Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and Isha Upanishad; with the Atharva Veda (which received the status of the Vedas later than the previous ones) - the Gopatha Brahmana, as well as the Mundaka Upanishad, Prashna Upanishad, Mandukya Upanishad and many later works in the Upanishad genre. In a number of cases, the Upanishads really are included in the Aranyakas of the corresponding Veda, as those are in the corresponding Brahmans, in other cases the connection between these texts within each Veda is justified by the unity of the tradition of the corresponding priestly schools, and sometimes (in the case of the Upanishads of the Atharva Veda) it is an invention of the later codifiers.
The dating of Vedic monuments, due to the lack of external sources, is extremely complicated. It can be assumed that: 1) the collection of hymns of the Rig Veda was codified around the beginning of the 1st millennium. BC.; 2) Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda, as well as Brahmanas (with the exception of Gopatha), Aranyakas and senior Upanishads of Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, Aytareya, Kaushitaki, Taittiriya, also, perhaps, Isha and Kena were issued in this order until the 5th century. BC. - the period of the activity of the Shramana teachers and the preaching of the Buddha (taking into account the new dating of the activity of the founder of Buddhism, substantiated by H. Bechert); 3) Upanishads of Katha, Shvetashvatara, Maitri, Mahanarayana, possibly also Mundaka and Prashna, seem to date back to the time after the preaching of Buddha, more precisely to the 5-1 centuries. BC.; 5) Vedantic, yogic, "ascetic", "mantric", Shaiva and Vishnu Upanishads were compiled up to the era of the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the New Age.
In the "family" hymns of the Rig Veda, ideas about a single world order (rita) are expressed, which regulates the change of natural phenomena and the relationship between people and gods, for which Mithra and Varuna are responsible, about the Deity, which contains the manifestations of individual gods. In the eighth and ninth mandalas, the opinion of skeptics who doubted the existence of the king of the gods Indra is rejected, the question is raised about the essence, the quintessence of things. Cosmogonic hymns raise questions about the origin of the world from the existing and non-existent (sat and asat), about the initial "material" of the cosmos, about the demiurge responsible for its formation and building it according to a certain model, about Speech as the creative beginning of the universe, about the ascetic energy (tapas) as the source of truth and truth in the world, on the ratio of the One and the plurality of its manifestations, on the degree of cognizability of the beginning of things. The Atharva Veda considers, in addition to the above, the structure of the microcosm, the idea of a cosmic support (skambha), vital breath as a micro- and macrocosmic force (prana), desire as a cosmic principle and the "seed of thought" (kama), time as the driving principle of existence (kala) and the Sacred Word - Brahman, which is already considered as the supreme essence, constituting the basis of the universe. In the White Yajurveda, in addition to introducing new entities like Thought (manas) as "immortal light" in a person, dialogues are reproduced between the hotar and the adhvar, who exchange riddles about the structure of the world. In the Brahmans, the main exegetical monuments of the Vedic corpus, where the very exegesis of the sacred word and action is built on complex and multi-stage correlations of the elements of sacrifice, man and the universe, in addition to the above, the relative priorities of word and thought, the beginning of the world are revealed - in the form of both natural phenomena and and thoughts; the old question is interpreted in a new way, what lies at the origins of the universe - existent or non-existent; here the notion of repeated deaths (punarmritya) develops, which will become the source of the doctrine of reincarnation, and the famous identification of the core of the microcosm with the world principle of Atman and Brahman. The Aranyaks clearly outline the correlations of human organs to the phenomena of the natural world, the idea of the Atman as reaching ever greater "purity" in accordance with the hierarchy of living beings. Finally, in the "pre-Buddhist" Upanishads - the oldest edition of the Indian gnosis - in the diverse contexts of dialogues of rivals, as well as mentors and disciples, Atman, Brahman and Purusha are considered as life-forming principles of the world and the individual, the five life breaths-pranas, states of consciousness in wakefulness, sleep and deep sleep, the ability of feelings and actions (indriyas), um-manas and discrimination-vijnana, and observations are made in connection with the mechanism of the cognitive process. Atman-Brahman is an incomprehensible unity, since “one cannot know the knower”, which is defined through negation: “not that, not that ...”. In the Upanishads, the so-called. the law of karma, which establishes the causal relationship between the behavior and knowledge of a person in the present and his reincarnation in the future, as well as the doctrine of samsara itself - the circle of reincarnations of the individual as a result of the action of the "law of karma" and the liberation of the knower as a result of the eradication of the affected consciousness from the circle of samsara (moksha). "Post-Buddhist" Upanishads reflect the worldview of Samkhya, yoga and Buddhism, late "Vedantine" and "sectarian" - Vedantine, "theistic" and Tantric trends.
The Vedas and monuments of the Vedic corps have always been in the field of attention of later Indian philosophers. Criticism of Vedic ritualism and gnosis, on the one hand, and their apology, on the other, already in the era of the first philosophers of India (mid-1st millennium BC) determined the division into “unorthodox” (nastika) and “orthodox” schools. Among the classical "orthodox" systems-darshan, some recognized the authority of the Vedas quite formally (sankhya, yoga), others not only recognized it, but also interpreted the Vedic texts (nyaya), others - mimamsa and vedanta - devoted their research to a special study of the texts of the Vedic corpus; the first specialized in its ritual component (karma-kanda), the second in the gnostic (jnana-kanda). Starting from Shankara and up to the present time, all schools of Vedanta are trying to give their interpretations of the Upanishads, designed to substantiate their philosophical doctrines with "correctly read" sacred utterances. The thinkers of reformatory Hinduism and neo-Hinduism of modern and modern times also tried to rely on the Upanishads, among which are the names of Ram Mohan Raya, Rabindranath Tagore, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, Radhakrishnan.
Vedic exegesis.
The tradition of interpreting the Vedas dates back to the first half of the 1st millennium BC, ahead of their initial record by at least one and a half millennia. Already the predecessors of Yaska, the compiler of Nirukta (5th century BC), interpreted certain complex words of the Vedic text, poems and hymns (the discussions concerned the problem of which deities are implied in certain hymns). Shakatayana, Aupamanyava, Shakapuni, Galava, Mudgala and other authorities are mentioned among the exegetes. Discussions were held about the collection of Rigvedian hymns in general, for example, the question of the possibility of compiling a "continuous" commentary to it. One of the participants in these disputes, Kauts, considered such a comment to be useless, since the Vedic hymns themselves are meaningless (anarthika); to this, Yaska sharply objected that one should not blame the pillar for the fact that a blind person does not see it. However, discussions were also conducted by those who recognized the meaningfulness of the hymns. In the same work of Yaski, there are repeated references to entire exegetical schools. Thus, the aichihasikas ("followers of the tradition") tried to prove the "historicity" of the gods of the Vedic hymns and the events described in them: in their opinion, the Ashvins twins were deified kings, and the central Vedic myth about Indra's victory over Vritra reflected a real battle. Atmavadins ("teachers of the Atman") and nayruktikas ("etymologists") defended the metaphorical character of Vedic subjects: the battle of Indra and Vritra is not a historical event, but a symbol of either the liberation of waters "locked" by clouds at sunrise or the removal of darkness by the sun's rays ... Yaska himself and the compilers of various indexes to Vedic texts, in particular to the characters of the Vedic pantheon (anukramani), who belong to the Vedang tradition, were an exegetical philologist. Saunaka is credited with a list of rishi poets, poetic dimensions, gods and hymns themselves, the poetic treatise of Brihaddevat (a catalog of gods referred to in individual hymns, as well as myths associated with them) and Rigvidhana (a catalog of magical powers that are caused by reciting individual hymns and verses).
The Eight Books of Panini (4th century BC) mention works in the genre of "interpretation" (vyakhyana), for example, dedicated to hymns or individual verses accompanying a particular rite. The appearance in the Dharmasutras of the term denoting a sign in the field of the rules for the interpretation of Vedic rituals and texts (nyaya-vid) and the boundaries between the Vedas and other areas of knowledge dates back to the same era. In these signs one can see not only Mimansaks, but also protonayiks. The formal separation of the Vedantists from the Mimansakas (both schools were engaged in the interpretation of various portions of the texts of the Vedic corpus), which took place no earlier than 2-4 centuries. (with the creation of the Vedanta-sutras) suggests that the two philosophical-exegetical traditions had previously worked together. Later, the Mimansakas continued to interpret the ritualistic material of Samhit and Brahman, the Vedantists continued to interpret the "gnostic" dialogues of the Upanishads. At the origins of medieval exegesis, we find the names of Skandasvamin (6-7 centuries), who commented on the Rig Veda, - the predecessor of Sayana (14 century) - and the famous philosopher Shankara (7-8 centuries), who commented on ten Upanishads. His example was followed by the founders of the Vedantine schools, opposition advaita, as well as the syncretic philosophers who imitated the latter (a typical example is Vijnana Bhikshu, who wrote in the 16th century).
1. What is the Vedas?
The Vedas are divinely revealed scriptures, which describe in detail the nature of this world, the nature of man, God, and the soul. The word "Veda" literally means "knowledge", in other words, the Vedas are a science, and not just a collection of some myths or beliefs. The Vedas in Sanskrit are called apaurusheya. What does it mean "not made by man." The Vedas are eternal, and each time the creator of the universe, Brahma, after another cycle of destruction, "remembers" the imperishable Vedas in order to create this world again. In this sense, the Vedas refer to such eternal categories as God and spiritual energy.
There are four Vedas; they are Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda and Yajur Veda.
Three of them are the main ones and in many respects overlap with each other in content: Rig-, Yajur- and Sama-Veda. The Atharva Veda stands alone because it deals with issues that have not entered the other Vedas. The first three Vedas consist of prayers, or mantras, addressed to the Supreme Lord in his many personal and universal aspects, while the Atharva Veda sets out knowledge about architecture, medicine and other applied disciplines.
The sounds of the Vedas carry a special energy, so it was very important to keep these sounds in their original form. In Vedic culture, a method has been developed for transmitting the Vedas in an undistorted state. Despite the fact that 95% of the Vedas are currently lost, the remaining five percent have come down to us safe and sound.
The secret lies in the Vedic Sanskrit language. The Vedas are called sruti, "heard" in another way. For many centuries and epochs, the Vedas were passed from mouth to mouth, there was a well-developed system of mnemonic rules for memorizing the Vedas; there are still people in India who can recite one or even several Vedas by heart. These are several hundred thousand verses in Sanskrit. The Sanskrit word means "perfect, perfect structure." Sanskrit is a language with unique grammar and phonetics, and many languages of this world have descended from it; in particular, all Western European languages, Dravidian, Latin, Ancient Greek and, of course, Russian. The phonetics of Sanskrit has no analogues in its scientific organization. In Sanskrit, there are twenty-five consonants, they are divided into five rows according to the method of sound production, five letters in each row. These five rows are directly related to the five primordial elements from which the world is built. The first row refers to ether, the second to air, the third to fire, the fourth to water, and the fifth to earth. The Vedas themselves say that each sound of the Sanskrit alphabet carries a certain subtle energy and it is on this energy that the entire Vedic culture is based. Mantras, consisting of these sounds, correctly pronounced, are able to awaken the hidden, subtle mechanisms of nature, and the sages of antiquity, the Rishis ("able to see through the gross reality"), with the help of correct pronunciation, generated a certain wave structure that allowed them to perform miracles.
“When I read Bhagavad-gita, I ask myself, how did God create
The universe? All other questions seem superfluous. "
Albert Einstein
3. What are the Vedas made of?
Each Veda is divided into four sections called Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads. Samhitas are collections of mantras. They, in fact, are called the Vedas. The brahmanas give instructions on how, with what rituals and at what time these mantras should be chanted. Brahmanas also contain a set of laws that a person must observe in order to live happily in this world. Aranyaka is a section of a more metaphysical nature; the secret meaning and the highest purpose of the rituals are explained here. Finally, the Upanishads provide a philosophical foundation for the laws of this world; they tell about the nature of God, the individual soul, the relationship that binds the world, God and the soul. In addition, there are six Vedangas, subsidiary Vedic disciplines. These are Shiksha, the rules for pronouncing the sounds of the Sankrit alphabet; Chandas, the rules of rhythm and placement of stress in verses that make up the Vedas; Vyakarana, which explains the grammar and metaphysics of Sanskrit - how the innermost nature of human life and the structure of the universe are reflected in Sanskrit. Then follows Nirukta, the etymology of the words of the Sanskrit alphabet based on the verbal roots to which every part of Sanskrit speech goes back. Then comes Kalpa, the rules for conducting ceremonies and rituals, and, finally, Jyotish, or astrology, which explains at what time these rituals need to be performed in order for any undertaking to be crowned with success.
4. When and by whom were the Vedas written down?
Five thousand years ago in the Himalayas, they were recorded by the famous sage Srila Vyasadeva. His very name indicates the one who “divided and wrote down” (translated into Russian, “vyasa” means “editor”). The story of Vyasadeva's life is given in the Mahabharata, his father was Parasara Muni, his mother was Satyavati. Vyasadeva wrote down all the Upanishads, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, classified the Samhitas. It should be noted here that initially the Veda is a single whole, one huge “volume”, but Vyasadeva divided this “volume” into four and attached to each of them the corresponding branches of knowledge, the aforementioned Vedangas. In addition to the six Vedangas, there is smrti, literature "for memorization", conveying the same message of the Vedas in a simpler language, using the example of either real historical events or allegorical stories.
Smritis include eighteen main and eighteen additional Puranas, as well as the "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata", historical chronicles. In addition, there are Kavii, poetry collections. They are also sometimes classified as Vedic literature, as they are based on the Puranas, only with a more detailed development of the plot and stories contained initially in the Vedas, and then recorded in the Puranas. To study the Vedas, a very high qualification was required, and, having misunderstood the meaning of certain mantras, one could harm oneself and others. Therefore, in the Vedic culture, there were certain restrictions on the study of the Vedas. But for Smriti, historical narratives, there are no such prohibitions. Puranas, Mahabharata "," Ramayana "can be read by all without exception.
These books contain the original ideas of the Vedas, the eternal sound, which at one time gave birth to the universe. The language of the Puranas is not so complicated, therefore scholars distinguish between Vedic Sanskrit and Sanskrit smriti. Vyasadeva is called the author of the Vedas, but Vyasadeva simply wrote down what existed many millennia before him. The very word Purana means "ancient". These books have always been, including the one Purana, and Vyasadeva presented it in the language understandable to people of the age of Kali, the age of degradation, in which we now live. Therefore, the Vedas and Puranas are equally authoritative. They convey the same message to us, they are written by the same sage and represent a harmonious, coherent corpus of Vedic scriptures, in which one part complements the other.
5. What areas of knowledge are covered by the Vedic scriptures?
The first and most important theme of the Vedic scriptures is spiritual knowledge, knowledge of the nature of the soul. In addition, the Vedas contain a huge amount of other information concerning everything that a person needs for a long and happy life. This is knowledge about the organization of space, vastu: how to build a house, how to arrange it in order to feel good, not get sick, live in peace and prosperity. This is medicine, Ayur Veda, "the science of life extension" This is Vedic astrology, which explains how the earth and the human microcosm are connected with the macrocosm, with the universe, and how a person should plan his day, trips, important beginnings in life.
The Vedas also have a section on music, which speaks of seven basic notes that correspond to the seven chakras, energy nodes in the human body, allowing, according to specially built melodies (ragas), to calm and heal a person, create psychological comfort. The Vedas describe in detail yoga, or a set of various techniques and exercises that allow you to achieve a huge degree of mental concentration, calm your mind, gain mystical powers and ultimately realize your spiritual nature. There are also books on martial arts. There are sections of the Vedas, which contain spells and mystical rituals. There are textbooks on economic prosperity, applied psychology, government, diplomacy. There is Kama Shastra, the science of intimate relationships, which allows a person to gradually move from gross material pleasures to more and more subtle ones, and how to understand that such pleasures are not the goal of human existence.
6. To what extent is Vedic knowledge applicable in our time and in those countries that do not belong to India climatically and historically?
Vedic knowledge is scientific, Veda means knowledge, and any scientific knowledge is universal. When it comes to scientific knowledge, no one asks scientists in which country they discovered this law. If there is a law, it is valid everywhere, including outside the country in which it was opened. The laws stated in the Vedic scriptures are valid at all times and under all circumstances, you just need to know how.
So, for example, Newton's law of attraction operates everywhere on earth. On other planets, it will also work, but with certain modifications, and even at the north and south poles of the Earth, the coefficients and constants may differ slightly from the standard ones. Similarly, Vedic knowledge. For example, Ayur Veda formulates general universal laws of a healthy life, but it also explains how to apply these laws in specific conditions, in a different climatic zone, where the sun rises later and other herbs and fruits grow. The principles remain eternal and unchanged, and the ways in which these principles are applied may change, depending on time and circumstances.
7. Are the Vedas confirmed by modern scientific research?
Yes. One of the striking examples is the data given in the Vedic Siddhantas, astronomical calculations, in which, thousands of years before Copernicus, the structure of the universe was described and the distances from the Earth to the planets of the solar system, with their radii, were given. Also, the Vedic mathematicians knew the number "pi", and with different approximations. But the most curious and vivid confirmation of the authority of the Vedic scriptures is the discovery of the Swiss scientist Hans Jenny, MD, anthropologist, follower of Rudolf Steiner. Jenny tried to find a connection between form and sound.
We have already said that Vedic sounds, or Sanskrit sounds, create a certain vibration in the ether, which eventually takes on visible tangible forms. In an attempt to understand what form different sounds have, Jenny, using a special device that converts sound vibrations into visible lines on a squeak or powder, discovered that the sound om, with which many Vedic mantras begin and which is symbolically represented by Lakshmi-yantra (a special graphic image of proportionally spaced squares, triangles and circles), when correctly pronounced, generates this yantra on the sand! Moreover, the correctly pronounced sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet also gave rise to shapes that resembled the letters of this alphabet.
8. What is common between the Vedic scriptures and the scriptures of other peoples?
Of course, parallel passages can be found, because the Vedic scriptures are so vast that, in principle, everything can be found there. In this regard, the case with Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (1914-2003) is curious, as he himself writes: “I recall a conversation that I had with Vladimir Nikolaevich Lossky in the thirties. He was then very negatively opposed to Eastern religions. We discussed this for a long time, and he firmly told me: "No, there is no truth in them!" I came home, took the ancient Indian book of the Upanishads, wrote out eight quotations, returned to it and said: “Vladimir Nikolaevich, when I read the holy fathers, I always make extracts and write the name of the one who owns this saying, but here I have eight sayings without authors. Can you recognize them 'by sound'? " He took my eight quotations from the Upanishads, looked and within two minutes named the names of the eight Fathers of the Orthodox Church. Then I told him where it came from ... This served as some kind of beginning to revise this issue by him. "
Another example of parallels is the beginning of the Bible, which describes how God created the world. God said, "Let there be light," and the light appeared. This is reminiscent of the lines from the Vedanta-sutra, where Brahma, the "chief architect" of the universe, before creating, recalls the words of the Vedas, pronounces them aloud and thus brings to life various objects of this world. And in the Gospel of John we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Vedas also say that the first element of this world was sound, spiritual sound, nondifferent from God himself. This is the name of God, and in the Vedas it is called Om.
9. Which of the Vedic books are considered the main ones?
Among the vast corpus of Vedic literature, the main books are the Vedanta-sutra, the first eleven Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita and the Bhagavata Purana or Srimad-Bhagavatam. The Bhagavad-Gita is a concise, accessible and consistent exposition of all the philosophical axioms contained in the Upanishads, and the Srimad-Bhagavatam is the quintessence of both the philosophy of the Upanishads and all the Puranas. The same Puranas mention that the Srimad-Bhagavatam serves as a natural commentary on the Vedanta-sutra, as evidenced by the same beginning of both works: janmadi asya, which means "He from whom the creation begins, who maintains the creation and who is the cause destroying it ”. The Sanskrit word Vedanta means "the crown of all knowledge", sutra means "aphorism".
The Vedanta Sutra explains the meaning of the Upanishads, eliminates the apparent contradictions that arise in the mind of one who studies the Upanishads. For example, if you read the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, its different volumes, it may seem that this knowledge is completely unrelated to each other. But if you understand the connecting point, the idea that underlies this knowledge, then at first glance, disparate information will appear to be collected into a single whole. In the same way, a huge corpus of Vedic scriptures may seem scattered, but only to a person who does not know the end-to-end idea on which everything else is strung.
10. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the "Russian Vedas". What it is?
One of the researchers of this issue, O.V. Tvorogov wrote that in 1919 Colonel of the White Army A.F. Isenbek discovered wooden plaques with inscriptions on them in a devastated manor house in the west of the Kharkov region. He ordered the orderly to collect the planks in a sack and took them with him. In 1925 A.F. Izenbek, who lived in Brussels, met Yu.P. Mirolyubov. Chemical engineer by education, Yu.P. Mirolyubov was no stranger to literary pursuits: he wrote poetry and prose, but most of his works (published posthumously in Munich) are searches on the history and religion of the ancient Slavs. Mirolyubov shared with Isenbek his plan to write a poem on a historical plot, but complained about the lack of material. In response, Isenbek pointed to a bag with planks lying on the floor: “Over there, in the corner, do you see the bag? Sea bag. There is something there .. ". In the sack I found, - recalls Mirolyubov, - planks tied with a belt passed through the holes. Over the next fifteen years Mirolyubov rewrote the tablets (Isenbek did not allow them to be taken out of the house). For the first time the world community got acquainted with the "Veles Book" from the message of the emigrant magazine "Firebird", published in San Francisco in 1953. And in 1976, Soviet scientists were also interested in this topic.
The newspaper "Nedelya" published a note by two scientists, V. Skurlatov and N. Nikolaev, in which, in particular, it was reported: "Veles's book depicts a completely unexpected picture of the distant past of the Slavs, it tells about the Russians as" grandchildren of Dazhdbog ", about the forefathers Bohumir and Ore , tells about the movement of Slavic tribes from the depths of Central Asia to the Danube, about battles with the Goths and then with the Huns and Avars, about the fact that Russia, which had perished three times, rebelled. She talks about cattle breeding as the main economic occupation of the ancient Slavic-Russians, about a harmonious and peculiar system of mythology, a world view, largely unknown before ”.
From the point of view of the classical Sanskrit Veda, we can only say that the original Veda eventually divided into many parts, which began to be named after the sage who stores this knowledge, or the main character in the stories associated with this particular Veda. The Vedas are a supranational concept. What is now called "Russian Vedas" is a collection of ancient legends. They really contain, as in the classical Vedas, information about the creation of the world, about various demigods, rulers of the elements, space, as well as stories about ancient heroes, founders of various clans and tribes. There is numerous archaeological and linguistic evidence that Russia and India have common historical roots.
The ancient city of Arkaim on the territory of the Urals, the Sanskrit names of the rivers in Central Russia and Siberia, the close connection between Sanskrit and Russian - all this gives reason to believe that in ancient times, in the vast space from the Arctic Ocean to the southern tip of India, a single culture flourished, which now called Vedic. The "Vedicity" of Isenbek's findings confirms the fact that the sages of ancient India also tied tablets on which they wrote, collecting books from them.
Literature
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Vadim Tuneev
Presumably recorded in the second millennium BC. The Vedas contain spiritual knowledge covering all aspects of life and regulating social, legal, everyday, religious life. They describe the rules that must be followed when a new person is born, married, died, etc.
When the Aryans mastered the Indian subcontinent, they did not have a written language, respectively, and chronicles that would record the events of both external and internal life in chronological order. Spiritual history, dating back to time immemorial, has come down to us in poetry collections, which were originally transmitted through the centuries through oral tradition.
The Indian Vedas, written in a special kind of language that does not coincide with Sanskrit and is closest to Avestan, contain hymns, descriptions of details of various rituals, spells and conspiracies that should be used to protect against various kinds of diseases and misfortunes. In accordance with the orthodox interpretation, the composing of hymns was perceived as a sacred rite. Their creators were not just priests, but seers. Receiving knowledge from the gods, they comprehend them by intuition or "inner gaze".
According to the Vedas were collected and classified into four collections (samhitas) by the sage Vyasa. He is the author of the epic Mahabharata and the Vedanta-sutra. The question as to whether he was the only person who divided a single collection into four parts, or several scientists did it, is still a subject of discussion. One way or another, but the word vyasa means separation.
The Indian Vedas, containing the essence, are literature that has stood the test of time and possesses high religious authority for all mankind. It should be said that a diverse literature arose on their foundation. These are brahmanas, upanishads, aranyakas. The purpose of the commentaries was to make the understanding of the sacred texts accessible to subsequent generations. So, the "brahmanas" offer a comprehensive interpretation (theological, etymological, grammatical), explain how all the Vedas are related to each other.
The Indian knowledge contained in these collections is the basis not only for local beliefs, in fact, all the major religions on the planet to one degree or another were influenced by them in the process of their creation. It is clear that today these roots are forgotten. But among modern religions, there is one that keeps the flame of Vedic wisdom alive - Hinduism.
Over the centuries, serious steps have been taken to preserve the greatest legacy, even though its meaning and significance are poorly understood today. The messages in these scriptures are very profound and remain beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. Of course, anyone can spend a lot of time studying the Indian Vedas (reading them, trying to delve into the hidden meaning), but in general this enterprise will have little success. The main reason, as a rule, is that our landmark is modernity. But still, many are trying to comprehend the truth of the scriptures, which are the gateway to the depths of eternity.
Indeed, there are a lot of similar moments, and I will cite the most striking of them. Of the entire vast family of Indo-European languages, Russian and Sanskrit (the language of ancient India) are the closest to each other, and there is also an amazing similarity between the pre-Christian cults of the Slavs and the religion of the ancient Aryans - Hinduism. Both of them call the books of knowledge Vedas. Vedi is the third letter of the Russian alphabet (Az, Buki, Vedi ...). It is curious that even the national currencies of the two countries are similarly named. We have rubles, they have rupees.
Perhaps the most surprising is the information in both traditions about a certain land in the far north, which in the European tradition is called Hyperborea. In his centuri, Michel Nostradamus calls the Russians “a Hyperboorean people,” that is, those who came from the far north. The ancient Russian source "The Book of Veles" also speaks of the exodus of our ancestors from the far north in the period of about 20 thousand BC. NS. due to a sharp cold snap caused by some kind of cataclysm. According to many descriptions, it turns out that the climate in the north was previously different, as evidenced by the finds of fossilized tropical plants in the northern latitudes.
MV Lomonosov, in his geological work "On the Layers of the Earth", wondered where in the Far North of Russia "so many ivory bones of extraordinary size came from in places that are not convenient for them to inhabit ...". One of the ancient scholars, Pliny the Elder, wrote about the Hyperboreans as a real ancient people living near the Arctic Circle and genetically related to the Hellenes through the cult of Apollo of Hyperborean. In his "Natural History" (IV, 26) literally says: "This country is all in the sun, with a fertile climate; there are no discords and any illnesses ... ”. This place in Russian folklore was called the Sunflower Kingdom. The word Arktika (Arktida) comes from the Sanskrit root Arka - the Sun. Recent studies in the north of Scotland have shown that 4 thousand years ago the climate at this latitude was comparable to the Mediterranean and there were many thermophilic animals. Russian oceanographers and paleontologists also found that in 30-15 thousand BC. NS. the Arctic climate was mild enough. Academician A.F. Treshnikov came to the conclusion that the underwater mountain formations - the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges - rose above the surface of the Arctic Ocean 10-20 thousand years ago, and there was a zone of temperate climate.
There is also a map of the famous medieval cartographer Gerard Mercator, dated 1569, in which Hyperborea is depicted as a huge arctic continent of four islands with a high mountain in the middle. This universal mountain is described both in Hellenic myths (Olympus) and in the Indian epic (Meru). The authority of this map is beyond doubt, since it already depicts the strait between Asia and America, which was discovered by Semyon Dezhnev only in 1648 and began to be called by the name of V. Bering only in 1728. It is obvious that this map was compiled according to what something unknown to ancient sources. According to some Russian scientists, there is indeed a seamount in the waters of the Arctic Ocean, almost reaching the ice shell. Scientists suggest that she, like the aforementioned ridges, plunged into the depths of the sea relatively recently. Hyperborea is also marked on the map of the French mathematician, astronomer and geographer O. Finey in 1531. In addition, it is depicted on one of the late 16th century Spanish maps held in the Madrid National Library.
This disappeared ancient land is mentioned in the epics and tales of the northern peoples. An ancient legend from the collection of folklorist P.N.Rybnikov tells about the journey to the Sunflower Kingdom (Hyperborea):
“He flew to the kingdom under the sun,
Climbs off an airplane eagle (!)
And he began to walk around the kingdom,
Walk along the Sunflower ".
Moreover, it is interesting that this "airplane eagle" has a propeller and fixed wings: "a bird flies and does not flap its wing."
Indian scientist Dr. Gangadhar Tilak in his work "Arctic homeland in the Vedas" quotes from an ancient source (Rig-Veda), stating that "the constellation" Seven Great Sages "(Ursa Major) is right above our heads." If a person is in India, then, according to astronomy, the Big Dipper will be visible only above the horizon. The only place where it is directly overhead is in the area beyond the Arctic Circle. Does this mean that the characters of the Rig Veda lived in the north? It is difficult to imagine Indian sages sitting in the middle of snowdrifts in the Far North, but if you raise the sunken islands and change the biosphere (see above), then the descriptions of the Rig Veda take on meaning. Probably, at that time the Vedas and Vedic culture were the property of not only India, but many peoples.
According to some philologists, from the Sanskrit name of Mount Meru (located in the center of Hyperborea) comes the Russian word Mir with three main meanings - Universe, people, harmony. This is very similar to the truth, because according to Indian cosmology, Mount Meru on the metaphysical plane of existence penetrates the poles of the Earth and is an invisible axis around which the world of people revolves, although physically this mountain (aka Olympus) is not manifested now.
So, a cross-analysis of different cultures speaks of the existence in the recent past of a highly developed civilization in the north, which disappeared under unclear circumstances. This land was inhabited by those who glorified the Gods (the universal hierarchy) and therefore were called Slavs. They considered the Sun God (Yaro, Yarilo) to be one of their ancestors and therefore were Yaro-glories. Another frequently used term in connection with the ancient Slavs is Aryus. The word Arius in Sanskrit means:
- "Noble",
- "Who knows the highest values of life."
Usually they were called the upper classes of Vedic society in ancient India. How this term migrated to the Slavs is not entirely clear, but some researchers see a connection between this word and the name of the divine progenitor of the Slavs - Yar.
The "Book of Veles" says that it was Yar, after a sharp cold snap, that brought the surviving tribes of the Slavs from the Far North to the region of the modern Urals, from where they then went south and reached Penzhi (the state of Punjab in modern India). From there they were later taken to the territory of Eastern Europe by the Indian commander Yaruna. In the ancient Indian epic "Mahabharata" this plot is also mentioned and Yaruna is named by his Indian name - Arjuna. By the way, Arjuna literally means "Silver, light" and has something in common with the Latin Argentum (Silver). It is possible that another interpretation of the word Arius as "white man" also goes back to this root Ar (Yar). This concludes my short excursion into historical parallels. For those who are interested in this topic in more detail, I recommend referring to the books of VN Demin "Mysteries of the Russian North", NR Guseva "Russians Through the Millennia" (Arctic Theory), "The Book of Veles" with translation and explanations. I. Asova.
Now we will talk about philosophical and cultural similarities. As you know, all ancient cultures were based on the understanding that a person is dependent on external forces that have their own personifications (Deities). Ritual culture consists of certain ceremonies that associate the supplicant with the source of a particular energy (rain, wind, heat, etc.). All peoples have the idea that these Deities, although they are located in the higher regions of the cosmos, thanks to their power, are able to hear the requests of a person and respond to them. Below I will give a table of correspondence of the names of the Deities who were worshiped in Russia and in India.
| Ancient Russia | India | Deity Principles |
|---|---|---|
| Trig - Heads (Three main Deities); Vyshny (Vyshen), |
Tri-murti; Vishnu, |
Vishnu - maintenance |
| Indra (Dazhdbog) | Indra | Rain |
| Fire god | Agni | Energy of fire |
| Mara (Yama) | Mara (Yama) | Death (Mary's = died) |
| Varuna | Varuna | Patron saint of waters |
| Roof | Krishna | Wisdom and love |
| glad | Radha | The goddess of love |
| Surya | Surya | The sun |
I have given only those names in which there is a full or partial match, but there are also many different names and functions. After such (although not complete) list of Deities, the idea of the paganism of the ancient beliefs of Russia and India naturally arises.
However, this is a hasty and superficial conclusion. Despite such an abundance of Deities, there is a clear hierarchy, which is built into a pyramid of power, at the top of which is the highest source of everything (the Highest or Vishnu). The rest simply represent His authority as ministers and deputies. The President, being singular, is represented through an extensive system. In the “Book of Veles” it is said about this: “There are those who are deluded who count the Gods, thus dividing Svarga (the Upper World). But are Vyshen, Svarog and others - the essence of the multitude? After all, God is both one and many. And let no one divide that multitude and say that we have many Gods. " (Krynitsa, 9). Paganism in Russia also existed, but later, when Vyshny was forgotten and the concept of hierarchy was violated.
Also, our ancestors believed that reality is divided into three levels Rule, Reality and Nav. The world of rule is a world where everything is correct, or an ideal upper world. The world of Revelation is our manifest, obvious world of people. The world of Navi (non-Reveal) is a negative, unmanifest, lower world.
The Indian Vedas also speak of the existence of three worlds - the Upper World, where goodness dominates; the middle world, overwhelmed by passion; and the lower world immersed in ignorance. Such a similar understanding of the world gives a similar motivation in life - it is necessary to strive for the world of Rule or goodness. And in order to get into the world of Pravi, you need to do everything right, that is, according to the law of God. From the root of the Rule originate such words as Prav-yes (that which gives the Rule), U-ruling, Is-ruling, Government. That is, the point is that the concept of Rule (the Highest Reality) should be at the heart of this government, and this government should spiritually elevate those who follow the ruler, leading their wards the path of Rule.
The next similarity in the spiritual realm is the recognition of the presence of God in the heart. In the article before last, I described in detail how this concept is expressed in the Indian source Bhagavad-gita. In Slavic thought, this understanding is given through the word "conscience". Literally "Conscience" means "according to the message, with the message." "Message" is a message or Veda. Life in accordance with the News (Veda) emanating from God in the heart as His information field, this is “conscience”. When a person comes into conflict with the unwritten laws emanating from God, he conflicts with God and himself suffers from disharmony in his heart.
It is well known that the Indian Vedas proclaim the eternal nature of the soul, which can exist in different bodies, both higher and lower. The ancient Russian source "Veles's Book" (hereinafter VK) also says that the souls of the righteous after death go to Svarga (the Upper World), where Perunitsa (Perun's wife) gave them live water - amrita, and they remain in the heavenly kingdom Perun (Yara - the forefather of the Aryans). Those who neglect their duty are destined for the lower forms of life. As Perun himself says in VK: "You will become stinking pigs."
In traditional Indian society, when meeting, people greeted a friend, remembering God. For example, "Om Namo Narayanaya" ("Glory to the Almighty"). In this regard, the memoirs of Yuri Mirolyubov, who was born at the end of the 19th century in a village in the Rostov region in southern Russia, are very curious in this regard. Mirolyubov's grandmother was a strict follower of the ancient Slavic culture, and from her he learned a lot about the traditions of his ancestors. In addition, he himself studied ancient Slavic folklore for a very long time and was engaged in a comparative analysis of the cultures of Russia and India. The fruit of these studies was the two-volume monograph "Sacred Russia". So, according to Y. Mirolyubov, at the beginning of the twentieth century in the village where he lived, people greeted each other with these words: “Glory to the Vyshny! Glory to the Roof! Slava Yaro! Glory to Kolyada! "
Both traditions speak of the divine origin of food. In Russia, this connection was visible in such a chain of concepts as Bread-Sheaf-Svarog. Svarog (the one who bungled the world) gives a seed from which herbs and grains grow. Threshed cereals were tied into sheaves, and bread was baked from grain. The first loaf from the new harvest was offered to the sheaf as a symbolic image of Svarog, and then this consecrated loaf was handed out to everyone piece by piece as a sacrament. Hence such a reverent attitude towards bread as a gift from God.
The Indian source "Bhagavad-Gita" (3. 14-15) also says that "All living beings eat grains growing from the earth, fed by rain. The rains are born from the performance of rituals, and the rituals are set out in the Vedas. The Vedas are the breath of the Supreme. " Thus, a person depends on God even in matters of nutrition.
By the way, both in India and in Russia, food was supposed to be sanctified before eating. This is a kind of expression of gratitude to God for his support. And these offerings or sacrifices were strictly vegetarian, bloodless. Here is what is said in the chapter “Troyan Centuries” in VK: “The Russian gods do not take human or animal victims, only fruits, vegetables, flowers and grains, milk, nutritious antimony (kvass) and honey, and never a live bird, fish. It is the Varangians and the Hellenes who give the Gods a different and terrible sacrifice - a human one ”. That is, in Russia there was a restriction on the consumption of meat, as in India. In the Bhagavad-Gita (9. 26) Krishna also speaks exclusively of vegetarian offerings: "Offer Me a leaf, flower, fruit or water with love and devotion and I will accept it." Both in India and in Russia it was customary to worship the sun three times a day - at sunrise, at noon and at sunset. In India, the brahmanas - the priests - still do this by reciting the special Gayatri mantra. In Russian, on behalf of the Sun God - Surya, now only the name of the paint of the sun color remains - red lead. Also earlier in Russia, kvass was called suritsa, because it was insisted on the sun.
We all remember the "distant kingdom" from Russian fairy tales, but who knows what this unusual definition is? The Indian Vedas provide an explanation for this term. According to Indian astrology, in addition to the 12 main signs of the Zodiac, there is a belt of 27 constellations even more distant from the earth. These 27 constellations are divided into 3 groups of 9 each. The first group refers to the "divine", the second - to the "human" and the third - to the "demonic". Depending on which of these constellations the moon was in at the time of a person's birth, the general orientation of a person in life is determined - whether he strives for lofty goals, is more mundane or is prone to destruction. But the very image of the “distant (3 x 9) kingdom” serves either as a metaphor indicating distant lands, or directly speaks of interstellar travel, which is described in the Indian Vedas as a real opportunity for a person of those times. By the way, in both traditions, the Milky Way is considered the path to the highest planet of this world, where the creator of this cosmos Brahma (Svarog) is located. And the Pole Star was considered both in India and Russia as the "Throne of the Most High". This is a kind of embassy of the Spiritual World in our universe. Indeed, the position of the Pole Star is unusual. This is the only stationary luminary, and therefore navigators are guided precisely by it.
The mountain snakes known from Russian fairy tales also find their explanation in the Indian Vedas. It describes multi-headed fire-breathing snakes that live on the lower planets of space. The presence of these characters in ancient Slavic tales indicates that our ancestors had access to more distant realms than we do now.
The next parallel may be a little shocking. This is the swastika symbol. In the minds of modern Western people, this symbol is inevitably associated with fascism. However, less than a hundred years ago, the swastika was on the banknotes of Russia! (see photo). This means that this symbol was considered auspicious. Anything will not be printed on state banknotes. Since 1918, the sleeve emblems of the Red Army soldiers of the South-Eastern Front were decorated with a swastika with the RSFSR abbreviation. This symbol is often found in ancient Slavic ornaments that adorned homes and clothing. The ancient city of Arkaim, discovered by archaeologists in 1986 in the South Urals, also has a swastika structure. Translated from Sanskrit, "swastika" literally means "a symbol of pure existence and well-being." In India, Tibet and China, swastika signs adorn the domes and gates of temples. The fact is that the swastika is an objective symbol and the archetype of the swastika is reproduced at all levels of the universe. Confirmation of this is the observation of the migration of cells and cell layers, during which the structures of the microcosm in the form of a swastika are fixed. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has the same structure. Hitler hoped that the swastika would bring good luck to him, but since in his deeds he was clearly moving not in the direction of the rule (the right-hand direction of the swastika), this only led him to self-destruction.
Surprisingly, even the specific knowledge about the subtle energy centers of our body - the chakras, which is contained in the Indian "Yoga Patanjali Sutra", was known in Russia. These seven chakras, which have their gross incarnations in the form of the glands of the endocrine system, are a kind of "buttons" on which the subtle body is "fastened" to the physical. Naturally, in Russia they were called more familiar words for us: embryo, belly, fiercely (solar plexus), heart, throat, forehead and spring.
The reckoning of time was similar in both traditions. Firstly, the year began, as expected, in spring (March-April), which corresponds to the passage of the sun through the first sign of the zodiac - Aries and marks the awakening of nature after winter. Even the modern names of some months in a literal translation reflect the old order. For example, September comes from the Sanskrit Sapta - seven. That is, September was previously considered the seventh month. October (octo - eight). November (Sanskrit Nava - nine). December (Sanskrit Dasa - ten). Indeed, a decade is ten. Then December is the tenth month, not the twelfth. Secondly, both in India and in Russia there were six seasons of two months each, and not four of three. This has its own logic. Indeed, although March and May are considered spring, they are very different and a more detailed breakdown of the year into six seasons more accurately reflects the reality.
The passage of time was considered cyclical, not linear, as it is now. The longest cycle in India was considered the day of Brahma - the Creator (4 billion 320 million years), which in Russia was called the day of Svarog. Of course, such a long cycle is difficult to trace, but given that the principles of the macrocosm and microcosm are common, we can observe the cyclical flow of time on a smaller scale (day, year, 12-year and 60-year cycles) and then extrapolate this rule to the very the idea of eternal time. It is not for nothing that the image of time in different traditions is presented in the form of a wheel, a snake biting its own tail or in the form of a banal dial. All these images emphasize the idea of cyclicality. It's just that on a large scale, a part of the circle may well seem to be a straight line, and therefore myopic modern people are quite happy with the limited linear concept of the passage of time.
As for writing, before the Cyrillic alphabet, writing in Russia was very similar to the Indian alphabet. As Y. Mirolyubova's grandmother used to say, “first they drew God's line, and under it they sculpted hooks”. This is what written Sanskrit looks like. The idea is this: God is the ultimate limit, and everything we do is under God.
The numbers that we now use and call Arabic were taken by Arabs in India, as can be easily seen by looking at the numbering of ancient Vedic texts.
And here are examples of the lexical similarities between Sanskrit and Russian:
Bhoga is God;
Matri - Mother;
Pati - Dad (Father);
Bratri - Brother;
Jiva - Alive;
Dvara - The Door;
Suha - Dry;
Khima - Winter;
Snekha - Snow;
Vasanta - Spring;
Plava - Swim;
Priya - Nice;
Nava - New;
Light - Light;
Tama - Darkness;
Skanda (god of war) - Scandal;
Swakar - Father-in-law;
Dada - Uncle;
Fool - Fool;
Vak - Blather (speak);
Adha - Hell;
Radha - Joy;
Buddha - To wake up;
Madhu - Honey;
Madhuveda - Bear (in charge of honey).
The abundance of geographical names (toponyms) of Sanskrit origin on the territory of Russia is also interesting. For example, the rivers Ganga and Padma in the Arkhangelsk region, Moksha and Kama in Mordovia. The tributaries of the Kama are Krishneva and Hareva. Indra is a lake in the Yekaterinburg region. Soma is a river near Vyatka. Maya is a city near Yakutsk, etc.
So, the historical, cultural and linguistic ties between Russia and India are obvious, but a typical mistake is to look for who influenced whom. Russian chauvinists, on the wave of interest in this topic, are pushing the idea that the Aryans brought the Vedas to wild India from the territory of Russia. Historically, these speculations are easily refuted, and the students in this case turned out to be more talented than the teachers, because in India this culture is better preserved than in our country. Vedic culture has existed in India since ancient times, as evidenced by the excavations of the city of Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley. It is easier to understand the connection between the two cultures through the adoption of a single spiritual proto-culture, from which both civilizations drew their knowledge. Despite the intermediate obscurity of history due to cataclysms and migrations, the original origin of man and civilization is known - a spiritual reality. That is why we instinctively strive upward, towards our origins. The Vedas speak of the existence of a higher, ideal world, which is projected onto material nature, like the moon is reflected in a river, but this ideal image is distorted under the influence of ripples and waves (the flow of time). Since the beginning of creation, there has been a single civilization with a single culture and language (all were one voice). Under the influence of the general law of entropy, consciousness began to shrink, culture began to simplify, differences appeared (different languages), and now we can hardly find only the remnants of the former community.