To start at the very beginning, there’s a clutch of ancient Indian writings that have been grouped into four main categories collectively called The Vedas. To the uninitiated, these are volume upon volume of indecipherable (to the layman not versed in the language) Sanskrit texts that literally tell you how to live your life to the full. To the initiated, however, these are a treasure trove of every imaginable fact, feeling, facet or fabrication of existence.
From this, you may gather that these books could be more interesting than any on the New York Bestseller lists or anything that Dan Brown could have imagined, and you would be absolutely right. However, there’s just one problem. Accessibility. Both physical and mental.
To give you an idea of what you are likely to be up against, here’s a very broad, and very brief, outline of the Vedic library: Main volumes: Rig Veda: Stories about Indian mythologies, gods and goddesses – poems for recitation. Sama Veda: Detailed religious rituals, rules and reasons – melodies for chanting. Yajur Veda: Instructions for the rituals mentioned above – formulas for worship. Atharva Veda: Spells and chants (mantras) against enemies and diseases – to put it politely, magic formulas.
If you think this sounds quite simple, let’s go into a few details. The four Vedas are then subdivided into: Aranyakas of religious rituals and observations. Brahmanas of commentaries on those rituals. Samhitas of mantras, hymns and prayers. Upanishads encompassing the overall philosophies underlying everything.
At this point, nobody will be blamed for thinking of giving up even trying to pronounce some of these titles and turn towards Reddit and Quora to help solve some of life’s riddles that plague the world today, pun unintended. However, before opening either app, do a random search on the relevance of the Vedas in this the digital age. You will be (or maybe not) surprised to see these 2000 year old texts telling you not only how to survive a pandemic in the 21st century, but also how to live, love and laugh the Vedic way in a world that is riding out wave after wave of uncertainty on a planet that is hyperventilating at the slightest cough.
One of the first things to leap out during a random search is how the Western World has already helped itself to Sanskrit vocabulary when in need of succinct expressions to cover a gamut of emotions and situations that English has thrown its hands up at. This is how avatar, karma, bungalow, sugar, thug, bangle, shampoo, guru and nirvana have been absorbed into our daily speak. (List upon list of appropriated words is waiting inside the worldwide web which, though allegedly on some borderless cloud, is actually engulfed in a very manmade server somewhere on earth.)
As you continue scrolling through the reams of material that your query has triggered, you will quickly discover the brilliant relevance in today’s world of millennia old Vedic quotes that seem to have been written just yesterday by someone attached to a sorority newsletter!
To begin with…
‘Laziness erodes a person of his enthusiasm and energy. As a result the person loses all opportunities and finally becomes dejected and frustrated. The worst thing is that he stops believing in himself’. Samar Veda Substitute ‘Lethargy’ for ‘Laziness’ and the scenario comes alive in countless homes, offices, cities and villages today. And, moreover, this could have come straight from the mouth of my psychology professor.
‘Riches roll like the wheels of a chariot, turning from one to another.’ Rig Veda If you can picture in your mind’s eye thousands and millions of dollars floating away from Bernie Madoff towards Elon Musk and the quote comes alive.
‘Do not be led by others, awaken your own mind, amass your own experience, and decide for yourself your own path. – Atharva Veda This, in various versions and differing syntax, is the mantra of every self-help guru on the internet and at retreats everywhere.
‘Good thoughts can be imbibed by reading and studying good books and by contemplating on them.’ Yajur Veda The plea of every parent who owns a teenager, chanted as a desperate cry to wean kids away from flat screens. No data available on success rates.
To move away from quotations, the Vedas are also quite a neat collection of handbooks on every subject ranging from science, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, management, art, sculpture, architecture, you-name-it and what-not! The list goes on and on but the trick is to find sensible translations and then translate the thoughts into action on a daily-life basis, choosing only what is appropriate to you.
Be warned that trying to understand most Vedic literature, no matter how exciting in concept and execution, is like trying to wade through a sea of superglue wearing weighted boots and dodging traffic cones below the waterline. Even renowned Sanskrit scholars have admitted that it’s a tough job. But if you can get hold of good translations and spend a bit of time co-relating the thoughts of the Vedas to your own life, you are sure to gain some really interesting insights that could help you cope with the stresses and frustrations of our suddenly-changed world. It worked 2000 years ago. It should continue to work for another 20 centuries.
The underlying Main Point of the Vedas is that basically it’s all about karma. Chant as much as you want, indulge in as many rituals as you can fit into your schedule, follow rules and regulations till you bubble, try to strive, to seek and to find the ideal path to life, but underlying it all is the karma you are repaying, the karma you are collecting and the karma you are balancing in the debit/credit balance of your particular akashic record. This is not taking potshots in the dark, it’s what the Vedas are trying to teach through hymn, song and sonnet.
But keep in mind that if you believe in karma you must also believe you cannot reason with crazy and argue with stupid. Also remember that karma has no menu and serves up only just desserts. Equally important, remember even though you believe in karma it does not mean you can do bad things to people all day long and then assume they deserve it. (That’s not how karma works even though the faithful say it’s karma and it’s pronounced hahahaha!)
As long as our karmic cycles, (irrespective of which part of the world we are in) make provision to appreciate karmic jokes, the Vedas may slowly but surely start playing a relevant and much bigger role in weeding out the darkness that’s seeping into a global collective soul that takes offence at the drop of a hat and is being slowly engulfed in insidious community depression. Hopefully a touch of humour incorporated into karmic lessons as outlined in the Vedas will help open our hearts to a world where the Vedas can bring us closer to Universal acceptance of differences, a world where laughter, inspired by the Rishis, could actually be great medication during a pandemic. Then, even if it’s not exactly worked like a well-oiled machine in the past 2000 years, perhaps it will, finally, in 2022!
May the Vedas live even longer and prosper!
(www.scrolldroll.com Quotes from the Vedas)
