From time immemorial, symbols have played a significant role in the life of men. In fact it will not be far fetched to say that man has grown with the symbols. Since ‘mind’ is the prime quality of homo-sapiens, it acquires some distinct features of its own and the role of symbols fills the bill perfectly as one of them.
During the primitive stages of mind’s development especially when the languages were not full-fledged in terms of sounds and syllables, human beings visualised certain ideas in terms of certain colours, forms and shapes. Man being famous for gregariousness, tried to communicate such basic instincts as, ‘hunger and thirst’ or ‘fright and flight’ in forms and shapes by drawing them in air. In fact it could be said that this was just a continuation from the animal kingdom.
But with the development of thought process, there was also a progressive development in the usage and application of symbols by men. Toys become symbols for the children. Now, the world has come to such a state, that it has become well nigh impossible to dissociate symbols from any field of work and profession. The media savvy and high tech world uses symbols in all their ramifications. Institutions have grown up because of their symbols. Life Insurance Corporation of India is synonymous with the two hands protecting a burning lamp. State Bank of India‘s symbol of a key hole in a circle will tell even an uneducated in the rural area that it is a bank. There are religious symbols, like ‘swastik, AUM, Cross or the crescent moon to name a few. Buddhism is very symbolic. There are healing symbols in Reiki for good health, and Feng shui symbols for better quality of living. In terms of colours red warns of danger. Green is for prosperity. There are safety symbols in industries and for roads and other means of transport. Examples can go on and on.
Characteristics of Symbols
The English word ‘Symbol’ owes its origin to the Greek word, ‘Symbolon’ meaning ‘a sign’ by which one knows or infers a thing. Swami Swahananda, in one of his articles states that, “a symbol, typifies, represents or recalls something by possession of analogous qualities or by association in the fact or thought”1. Human beings use symbols so much so that it has become an innate tendency in them.
In due course, symbols began to be used to interpret more and more abstract things, thoughts, human virtues, beliefs, and faiths and so on. Naturally, artists, poets and writers took to symbols as fish take to water. While artists including painters and sculptors used symbols to depict variety of moods and thoughts in their colouring schemes and models respectively, poets with their rich imagination weaved tapestries of scenarios in words with rhymes and rhythms, which came to be called as poems, sonnets etc.
Another significant characteristic of symbols is its concurrence with religion. Since religion itself is based on a belief in the supernatural power or God, symbolism started playing a significant role in trying to explain the different aspects of their respective re ligions. To quote once again, Swahananda, “religious truth being intangible, has given rise to symbology. Every religion has its own body of symbols which suggests the ultimate reality, the deity and other spiritual truths.”2
Symbols are also used to educate the common man who doesn’t have the calibre to understand higher knowledge and that is what our Puranas, and Itihasas do. One of the best examples, as told by Dr, Muralidharan3 is that churning of the milk ocean by the Devas and Asuras for getting divine nectar is nothing but the training of the mind. The human mind struggles between good and evil thoughts (ocean of milk), and after a lot of conflicts, troubles and strains (symbolised by churning), the sadhaka is able to win over the asuric tendencies and approach the divinity (nectar) His mind is able to conquer the evil thoughts and retain the good ones. The poison (evil deeds and thoughts) which comes out, in him, is neither let out, for the fear of destroying others nor is swallowed for the fear of one’s own destruction. The chit shakti has the force to retain it at the background and hidden in him for some time and as the sadhaka advances in his sadhana, these thoughts slowly fade away into oblivion. Swami Swahananda also expresses a similar thought when he says, “….or the fight between the gods and the demons mentioned in the Upanishads, has been explained as the spiritual fight between good and evil forces in individual mind or in the world at large.”4
Symbols also have a mystical force behind them without which the effect of the symbol will come to a nought. It is this force coupled with the psychic energy of the user which gives the desired result. Sanatana dharma being the oldest one is heavily loaded with innumerable symbols. These symbols bring out the inner meaning of the thought to be conveyed, and are mainly of two types - one for the eyes and the other for the ears. Reiki symbols serve as an excellent example for this. This mystic force will be dealt in more detail, when we come to vedic symbols a little later in this essay.
There is a very lucid explanation of ‘symbols’ in the doctorial thesis of Dr. Prema Nandakumar on Savitri. According to her, there are two terms to every symbol which are to be equated; on the one side there is the visible image or sign and on the other side the idea or the force that the image or sign is meant to signify. She goes on to explain the uniqueness of our religious symbols. She goes on to explain the uniqueness of our religious symbols. She takes the help of Thomas Carlyle (as quoted in Baker’s ‘The Sacred River’) for this. In her opinion, for a symbol to be efficient and legitimate there must be concealment yet revelation. She goes on to explain that “if it is immediately and perfectly understandable, the symbol is superfluous; if it cannot be understood at all or if any arbitrary meaning is imposed upon it, the symbol fails to achieve its purpose.5” Thus inference becomes very important in understanding the symbols. She adds that, “it is simply the process of grouping one’s way from the twilight to the dusky regions, from the more known to the less known. And the process can be endless.”6 The hitherto unspoken and hidden meaning is brought about by using the symbols.
Significance of Symbols
The modus operandi is simple. The phenomenon is transformed into a concept, or an idea by the symbol, the idea, in turn, is depicted into an image and the image captures the thinking faculty of the seeker and stays permanently there. Henceforth, every time he seeks the phenomenon, he has only to recall the symbol. Whether he attains the ultimate goal or not is another question. Dr. Nandkumar states it nicely, “the symbol, it would appear then, is a natural starting point of a journey of discovery and realisation: the starting point, the face set towards the goal, the ardour of the journey, all are somehow implied in the symbol”.7
Let us now see now how Sri Aurobindo views symbols.
For him, symbol is a form on one plane that represents a truth on the other. The following are a few kinds of symbols as enumerated in his Letters on Yoga.
There are conventional symbols handled by ancient rishis taken from the objects around them. Cows represented prized possessions which had to be guarded against theft. Vedic Sanskrit attributes more meaning like ray or light to the word ‘go’. Therefore, they symbolised cows as images of spiritual light. Likewise horses were symbols of power and energy.
There are also life-symbols which are not chosen deliberately but which come naturally and are seen in the day-to-day life. They are closer to nature such as mountains and rivers. There are mental symbols like numbers, letters, words and geometric forms. When activated they too become useful tools. In other words, for Sri Aurobindo a symbol depicts the inward vision or experience of things and is one that is too subtle to be brought on to the intellectual level.
The study of symbols in the Sanatana Dharma could be done in the same order as Sri Aurobindo has done. He being the torch bearer for the revival of Vedic Age, more so in its ancient and eternal spirit which is cast into new forms suitable for modern times, has extensively dwelt in the interpretation of Vedic scriptures and the true meaning of the verses.
In his analysis of the evolution of human society, he found that in the early stages there existed a strong symbolic mentality that governed or at least pervaded its thoughts, customs and institutions. The early stages of the society were more religious also. This was because, as Sri Aurobindo points out, “symbolism and a widespread imaginative or intuitive religious feeling have a natural kinship and especially in earlier or primitive formations they have always gone together.”8 Therefore everything was symbolic.
Symbols in the Vedic Age
It is hardly possible to summarize here the vast analysis that Sri Aurobindo has provided in explaining the symbolic and mystical elements in the vedic period and their co-products of yantric, tantric and mantric symbols in the period immediately after the vedic age. But let us briefly look at some of t he analysis Sri Aurobindo presents.
In his Foreword to the Hymns to Mystic Fire, he does a comparative study of contemporary religious and spiritual thought and goes on to show how RigVeda has sustained its ethos while giving way to changes in the cultural development and civilisation.
With advancement of cultural civilisation, deities of finer and subtler aspects came into play. These puranic deities were given precedence as the functionaries of cosmic maintenance like Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra. But the vedic gods such as Agni, Brihaspati, Varuna were still performing their psychological functions for higher purposes. It would be a digression if we go further into the details of symbols in the form of mantras, yantras and tantras designated to many gods and goddesses, their functions and their purposes.
To capture the key thread of Vedic age it suffices to say that spirituality and the quest for Truth and Knowledge remained the primary motives of our ancient rishis and poet-seers. They became aware of the presence of inner being or the Atman and also that of self- knowledge. Seeking the truth was their greatest aspiration. In order to attain this, the secret powers of the Nature were to be galvanised through intense and strenuous training of the mind, also called as sadhana. In addition, these seers had to acquire and apply occult powers and systemise the entire scheme of things. Sri Aurobindo says, “The Vedic Rishis believed that their Mantras were inspired from higher hidden planes of consciousness and contained this secret knowledge. The words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who was himself a seer or mystic; from others the verses withheld their hidden knowledge.”9 It is obvious that such an effort was out of bound for ordinary human beings.
When such a profound knowledge had to be passed on to the next generation, the seers were to be doubly careful so that the knowledge would not be squandered by men of ordinary thinking. Disciples were chosen and hand-picked for initiation. They were given the same or even extra strenuous training, and were shown the inner meaning of the mantras, mystic and occult symbols. The rishis made it quite impossible for the ordinary mortals to infer such profound meaning so that these powers could not be misused or misrepresented for turning the Truth into falsehood.
As Sri Aurobindo explains, “A veil of symbols was created behind which these mysteries could take shelter, formulas of speech also which could be understood by the initiated but were either not known by others or were taken by them in an outward sense which carefully covered their true meaning and secret.”10
Some Symbolic Words in Rig Veda
As mentioned earlier symbols can be either auditory or visual. R.L. Kashyap, in his Introduction to Rig Veda,”11 classifies symbols in four categories. The first one is that of Devas like Indra, Agni which have divine powers with associated functions. The second one is that of powers of falsehood like Vritra. The third one consists of common nouns like, go, ashwa, adri etc. The fourth one denotes the class of rishis.
Each one of the above classes is attributed with a distinct psychological power behind, which, when duly called for helps the seeker. R.L. Kashyap gives many examples of which we will just take a few here.
Agni: It is the cosmic power of heat and light and the will-power united with Wisdom. Human will-power or Aspiration is also symbolised by the fire.
Indra: Lord of the Divine Mind and Action. He battles the evil forces on behalf of the human.
Vayu: He is the lord of all life energies.
Aswhinis: The Lords of bliss and divine physicians who cure the human body of diseases and makes it fit to receive the Divine.
Mitra: The Lord of Love and Harmony
Varuna: The Lord of infinity and who abhors restrictive thinking
Soorya: The source of supreme Light and Force.
Go: cow; but also a particular form of knowledge.
Ashwa: Horse; source of vital energy
Adr: power of ignorance.
The seekers propitiated through Agni, (also the carrier of human aspirations) all these forces in order to seek and attain the Truth. Such symbols helped them both ritualistically and spiritually to bestow the desired results. In a way it is the force behind the symbol rather than the symbol itself which cater to the needs of the seekers. According to Sri Aurobindo, “[t]heir formulas and ceremonies are overtly, the details of an outward ritual devised for the Panthiestic Nature-Worship which was then the common religion, covertly, the sacred words, the effective symbols of spiritual experience and knowledge and a psychological discipline of self culture which were then the highest achievement of human race.”12
Symbolism of Chaturvarna
Another example of Symbolism, an interesting and equally thought provoking at that, which Sri Aurobindo has taken up is the ‘Chaturvarna’ system of the classification of the society. In the cycle of society, he discusses at length, evolution of the society vis-a-vis human consciousness. To quote him, “This appears (chaturvarna) in Purusha Sukta in Veda, where the four orders are described as having sprung from the body of the creative Deity, from his head, arms, thighs and feet.”13 The creative Deity is the Purusha, the male divine Principle in the universe. The Purusha (the Supreme Being) is described as having a thousand heads, a thousand eyes and a thousand feet. He has enveloped this world from all sides and has (even) transcended it by ten angulas or inches. That is to say, that he is all-pervading one. The appropriate verse in Sanskrit is,
Om sahasra shirsha purushaha
sahasrakshas sahasrapat
sa bhumim vishvato vritva
atyatishthad dhashangulam
The relevant hymns which depict the chaturvarna scenario are the two verses which follow.
yatpurusham vyadadhuhu
kadhita vyakalpayan
mukham kimasya kau bahu
kavuru padavuchayate
(Now some questions are raised by the sages): When the gods decided to (mentally) sacrifice the Viratpurusha (and produce further creation), in how many ways did they do it? What became of his face or mouth? What became of his two arms? What became of His two thighs? What were (the products of) the two feet called?
brahmanosya mukhamasit
bahu rajanyah kritaha
uru tadasya yadvaishyaha
padhyagam shudro ajayata
From His face (or the mouth) came the brahmanas. From His two arms came the rajanya (the kshatriyas). From His two thighs came the vaishyas. From His two feet came the shudras.
According to Sri Aurobindo, this is not merely a piece of imagination just to propitiate the deity in terms of poetry and verses. He saw an inner meaning and hidden truth behind such a proclamation. It was more symbolic because the poet was also a seer who could see in his inner eyes the imagery of the creation of the universe through the Creatrix. Such an image could hint at the higher truth which superseded the mind and its faculties. Therefore if the seers visualised it, it was visualised by their intuitive eyes, in their overmind. They saw the Creatrix as a divine reality and wished to see human society as a replica of the same Divine. They saw four cosmic principles of Wisdom, Power, Harmony and Work which were indispensable for the smooth running of the universe. Hence they employed figurative language to the abstract but essential perception. Wisdom which conceives the order and principle of things, was supposed to arise out of the face f the Divine Purusha, The Power that sanctions, upholds and enforces it, was to be out of the Divine Arms, the Harmony that creates the arrangement of its parts was to be born out the Divine Thighs and lastly the Work that carries out what the rest direct, was to come out of the Divine Feet.
Sri Aurobindo says, “Human society for these seers, an attempt to express in life the cosmic purusha who has expressed himself otherwise in the material and the supraphysical universe”14 Thus the seers and the initiates who held the responsibility of perpetuating and preserving the vast Knowledge were called the Brahmanas, those who held the power centres for the physical protection of the people and the society were known to be Kshatriyas, those who were responsible for feeding the society through production and distribution and its harmonious function were known as Vaisyas and those who served all these for wages and who were responsible for the smooth working of the society were called as shudras. Bhagvat Gita calls this as ‘Guna Karma vibhaga.’
We can describe the practice of symbolism as used by the seers of vedic Age in these words of Sri Aurobindo, “The mystics were and normally are symbolists, they can even see all physical things and happenings as symbols of inner truths and realities, even their outer selves, the outer happenings of their life and all around them. That would make their identification or else an association of the thing and its symbol easy, its habit possible.”15
Symbolism in Poetry
Poetry occupies a special place in Sri Aurobindo’s scheme of things. Poetry for ordinary people serves only as a tool of entertainment, pleasure of the imagination. For many it is also a pastime. But Sri Aurobindo made use of poetry for something very higher than these uses. Poetry was, for him, a means of searching of the soul, seeking of the inner aim and a deeper law. For him the poems were to bring out the Divine Ananda, “….an inverse reflection of joy which the Universal Soul felt in its great release of energy when it rang out into the rhythmic forms.....”16 He saw such profound light and energy radiating from the poems of our ancient Rishis and the poet-seers. Such works had to be written from the realms of illumined mind and above. For this to happen, symbols are very important. As one reads such poems, it becomes difficult to separate the symbols from the poetry itself. Regarding mystic poetry, Sri Aurobindo opines that “the symbol ought to be as much as possible the natural body of the inner truth or vision itself an intimate part of the experience”.17
As an illustration of the role played by symbols in mantric and mystic poetry, let us dwell a little upon certain most important symbols which come alive in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri.
The prime aim of Sri Aurobindo’s avatarhood was to show the earthly mortals the path towards a Divine Life on this earth. He wrote about this exquisitely in his The Life Divine, and also explained this intricately and thoroughly in The Synthesis of Yoga. But the yogi, the poet-seer in him was not satisfied and the culmination was his epic poem Savitri. If The Life Divine is theoretical aspect of Integral Yoga may we call Savitri as a practical a step by step process of ascension to the Earthly Paradise?
The heroic tale of a girl-wife (Savitri) who brings back the life of her husband from the jaws of Death as it were, is taken up by
Sri Aurobindo and he unfolds the story through a succession of images and symbols.
One of the factors that might have impelled him to write this was the words as symbols appearing in Veda. Savitri is the daughter of sun-God. Surya or the Sun represents Light and Knowledge. The feminine gender word also means Mother, a cow and also a ray of light. It is the ray of hope which would eliminate darkness or ignorance. Savitri also has many forms as Surya Savitri and Bhaga Savitri. Surya Savitri has the passive (light) and active (heat) aspects; is the creator and increaser while Bhaga Savitri is receiver and the enjoyer.
She makes the human body fit to be a dwelling for deities like Mitra, Varuna etc, the vedic deities which we have hinted in one of the preceding passages. Not only these deities are the functionaries in the cosmos, they also represent essential aspects of the Divine Being. Sri Aurobindo explains that the struggle between the good and evil takes place at both the levels, viz, the human individual and also at the cosmic level. This cosmic drama, the struggle between the good and the evil which is being enacted ad infinitum is the subject matter of human life.
Once the central character is fixed, the supporting characters fall into their places. Satyavan is the Truth personified who carries the divine soul and descends to earth. He has to be saved from the darkness and ignorance. Dyumatsena, the father and the king is personification of divine mind, which is shining, but which has presently lost vision and has become blind. He too has to be saved. He has to be brought back to his original kingdom of ‘seeing-intelligence’. Ashwapathy, the Father of Savitri, is the lord of Universal energy, as the name itself denotes. He is also beholder of spiritual strength and light. He, by his Tapasya (or sacrifice) towards the Sun-God, the bestower of Light and Knowledge, begets Savitri as his daughter in order to bring about transformation from death to immortality. Death is the symbol of darkness and ignorance. It is to be noted that Yama is never named in the form of death because he is also Dharma. He is the obstructive force, falsehood and limited in knowledge. Ashwapathy’s yoga is again symbolic. The “Book of travellers” takes the reader and a sadhaka on an odyssey of sorts through the higher worlds. When he rises higher and higher up, we are reminded of the twin horse-riders, or the ashwins who symbolise swift movement. That in turn refers to symbol of aspiring soul on the earth. His tremendous yoga culminates into the fruition of begetting the Universal Mother in the form of a daughter. Savitri’s yoga is penetration into the inner countries in search of her soul, a sort of self discovery. She grows in Truth-consciousness and gets the required strength to combat evil forces. Incidentally, it should be mentioned that it also depicts Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s own spiritual experiences.
Then at last, the cosmic drama is enacted in the form of verbal duel between Savitri and Death. The falsehood cannot withstand and is absorbed by the Light. At the end, Savitri redeems Satyavan, the passive but self-luminous Truth. Being Surya Savitri, she helps in creation of diviner human beings, the first pair being Savitri and Satyavan themselves. The Bhaga Savitri removes the hurdles for Ashwapathi and Dyumatsena in the form of progeny of male off-springs and recovery of the lost kingdom.
Savitri‘s work of transformation of ignorant earth nature into earthly paradise begins with the symbol Dawn. The Vedic symbols Night and Dawn are the representations of avidya and vidya respectively. That is, they symbolise Ignorance and Knowledge. Night is inconscient, black and opaque. But in it are also sown the seeds of a new dawn. It impregnates light into the Night as it were. This is a ‘primordial’ condition, described in Rig Veda. With the first ray of light, the night vacates itself to her sister Dawn. Vladimir Iatsenko says about Dawn in these words, “It is the Dawn who creates light, clears up the original darkness, abhava and heals all things distorted by it, restoring the presence of the Divinity in the lower hemisphere”.18
Some Concluding Words
This transformation from darkness to light is more relevant during these times when we are celebrating the festivals of Navaratri and Deepavali in India. The nine nights symbolise the different stages of evolution of consciousness. It is a tradition in South India to exhibit different types of murtis or images of different hues and forms in nine steps for nine days and nights. In colloquial terms it is called Golu, meaning a durbar or a royal hall. The decorated exhibit normally has nine steps each step denoting the progress of a living being towards Divinity. The lowest step contains objects of non living things. The next one depicts those of birds and animals and as the steps ascend, the images also take the forms of human beings, avatars, sages, godheads, gods and goddesses culminating in a kalasha or a kumbha which symbolises the pot of creation. The chit shakti is the one who is worshipped on all these nights. The tenth day is celebrated as Vijaya Dashami, meaning, the victorious day, the conquest of Light over darkness.
I would like to conclude this essay on a personal note. I observed with utmost fascination, in a neighbourhood school the following scene. On the last day of the academic session, the tiny-tots of Kindergarten carried lighted candles in their hands and entered the class room of Class I, a very symbolic way of progressing in one’s life with the light of Knowledge showing the way indeed!
This simple observation confirmed for me that symbols, symbolism, symbolisation and symbology play a very significant role in our scheme of things, and especially from the point of view of Sri Aurobindo. The brief overview presented in this essay is just the tip of an iceberg whereas glaciers still remain there to be trodden upon.
Go Top
Endnotes
- Swami Swahananda (1987). The Hindu Symbology and other Essays, Ch. 1 “Symbolism in Religion.” p. 1
- Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Chennai.
- Ibid., p. 2.
- Handnotes taken during Lectures on Geeta: as told by Dr. Muralidharan, Reiki Grand Master, based in Kolkata.
- The Hindu Symbology and other Essays , Ch. 2, Symbology is All Pevading p. 10
- Prema Nndakumar (1985). A Study of Savitri. p. 314. Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.
- Ibid., pp. 314-15.
- Ibid., p. 315.
- Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, CWSA, vol. 25, p. 7.
- Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, SABCL, Vol. 11, Foreword, p. 5, Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
- Ibid., p. 4.
- http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/kashyap/rigveda/pdf R.L. Kashyap, Introduction to Rig Veda Available at:http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~kashyap/rigveda/rigveda-main.html
- Sri Aurobindo (1997). On the Veda, p. 89, Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
- Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, CWSA, vol. 25, p. 9.
- Ibid., p. 10
- Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, SABCL, Vol. 11, Foreword, p. 12.
- Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, CWSA, vol. 26, p. 12
- Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 9, p. 361, appeared in Invocation no. 26, Savitri Bhavan publication, Auroville.
- Vedic imagery in Savitri, part 2, The Symbol of Dawn, by Vladimir Iatsenko, appeared in Invocation no. 28, Savitri Bhavan publication, Auroville.
Other Works Cited
V. Madhusudan Reddy (1984). Savitri, Epic of the Eternal. Aurodarshan Trust, Hyderabad.
|
