The Vedic Yajna

The debate between Savitri and the formidable Death opposing each other is moving to a greater pitch with nuances of timbre and association, moving up to higher and higher levels; it could continue interminably. Logic-chopping could be an endless pleasure. And yet it seems that Savitri was not going to get back Satyavan from Death; winning the soul back would not happen on the strength of the extensive arguments she was going to put forward. In fact the long wordy duel would appear almost a kind of metaphysical disputation, and hence of no avail to her. Even seen from an occult point of view, the clash of forces behind the premises was not going to bring to Savitri the imperative of victory. She is quite aware of all that; howsoever convincing a long-winding confrontation it be, it cannot produce for her a gainful result. No armoury of dialectic is powerful enough to bring the issue to a decisive conclusion, of the dead returning back to us.

 

Exchanges of these kind are hardly of much consequence when life-force of the spirit is absent; rather listless and abstract, they have no grappling strength in them to resolve the matters that are occult in nature. Such an argumentation for the sake of its own pleasure can therefore be least absorbing to Savitri; she cannot indulge in it. For her it is an extremely serious issue and she cannot forget the basic cause of her pursuit. If such a contest should fail, if the clash of occult forces should prove to be inadequate and hence indecisive, she will have to find some other way to cut her way through. For her it is the question of life and death itself, and she cannot afford the luxury of this vain or futile exercise. It is so for Death too. It is a serious challenge for him, questioning the very foundations on which the laws of the world are established, upon which his very existence depends; if they are to be disputed or if they are to fail, everything would come down with a crash. Yama as the Ordainer of the World would prove himself to be the Destroyer of the Order.

 

Therefore, while they are adducing reasons for their convictions and are arguing with each other, simultaneously great universal forces also get released with each word they utter. The occult dimensions get deepened in this dire debate. As they rise higher and higher in the respective contentions, to higher pitch, there is a corresponding sharpening of the basic issue involved in this creation itself. It is a clash, an impingement of might upon might; strong enemies are in battle-array and the whole atmosphere is charged with their action-thoughts. A superior power coming from the sky has to meet a stronger might surging from the abyss below.

 

In that great struggle Savitri is not yet certain of her success. True, the percussions of her words travel far on the membrane of infinite space, touching the very edge of the dark universe, even making indentation into it. Wave after white wave spreads engulfing in its folds the sable realms of Time and Fate and Death, and yet its abysses seem to deepen into some bottomless Nothingness. In the twilight zone there is a hope of the Morn, of the breaking of the Dawn of the Ideal; but what Savitri notices is the thinning and disappearance of her thoughts and words and visions, as though

 

All utterance, all mood must there become

An enduring tissue sewn by mind

To make a gossamer robe of beautiful change.

 

Something sweet and gladdening has no doubt touched the nether pit, has entered into the soul of gloom and grief; yet in that early mist and haze all the bright hues of her dream-imaginations get faded, as if tricked by some melancholy’s magic. What remains of that ethereality and ideality is

 

A floating veil visions in her front,

A trailing robe of dreams behind her feet.

 

How can she then get Satyavan back? A higher power ought to supervene if she is to win. It ought to be now only his concern, a concern which indeed was always its. Savitri might have been successful in putting Death on the defensive. But that is not enough. After all, she was an intruder in his domain and she would not succeed in her attempts. She had the gains of her first victory, but hardly would they satisfy her real demand. The inadequacy of her present effort can be removed only by invoking a superior might-and-wisdom, her effort complemented only by going to the source of all-existence wherefrom success flows with the surety of a down-flowing stream. Savitri resorts to her “silent will”; she does not speak now, and the conscient force retires within. She steps into her Meditation’s House. She knows it is there alone that the firm truth of her soul dwells. Not by argument and counter-argument but by silence, by gathering in that House the needed force shall she march towards victory.

 

Savitri’s entering into her House of Meditation is reminiscent of a similar situation, though at a somewhat different point of the narrative, in the Savitri-episode as we have in Vyasa’s narrative. The day of Satyavan’s death has arrived. Savitri has successfully completed the difficult three-night vow of fasting and standing at one single place throughout, trīrātra vrata. On the fated day, well before the sunrise, she gets ready and lights a bright fire and makes sacrificial offerings to the gods. She then goes to her parents-in-law and pays them respects. Afterwards, she goes to the various hermitages and gives her worshipful obeisanes to the Rishis. They all bless her with auspicious words dear to a young devout wife, pativratā. Savitri, accomplished in the Yoga of Meditation, dhyānayogaparāyaņā, at once steps within, in her House of Meditation, and wills the blessings of the great Truth-Seers to come true.

 

Savitri was a Yogini of exceptional merit and had advanced greatly on the occult-spiritual path to draw strength directly from the origin whence the words charged with mantric power come. By repeating in her heart of hearts the benediction-words of the accomplished sages and saying ‘Be it just so!” she fixes the force of those utterances in the dynamic depth of her consciousness.

 

Presently, in her encounter with Death she seeks in her silent will strength to vanquish the enemy. She must first get out of the gleaming haze and see in the clear flame, ever-burning in her heart, the face of the World-Force who alone will show her the way and lead her and give her the essential victory. Then, to adapt Yeats, at the stroke of midnight God shall win. It shall happen in the dim forest not at the midnight but at the mid-day hour; it shall happen at noon, on glowing cupola of the eternal day.

 

And what do we see in the Meditation’s House of Savitri? The soul’s firm truth:

 

Imperishable, a tongue of sacrifice,

It flamed unquenched upon the central hearth

Where burns for the high house-lord and his mate

The homestead’s sentinel and witness fire

From which the altars of the gods are lit.

 

Immediately everything reverses. Savitri, following Yama, the spirit of Satyavan ahead of them both, becomes inwardly the leader of the march. The procession moves on, but now her will compels from behind the mighty god. Savitri can go to the end of things and recover from the hollow gulfs the soul of her lover. By the power of Dhyana Yoga, and of the sacrifice performed in the House of Meditation, she recognises the real nature of the problem with an altogether different perspective. The dire immense Subconscient thrown by Time into the Past comes alive in the form of a dark granite rock guarded by Death, the Subconscient that obstructs the path of the high Advent. Her meditation must prepare itself to negotiate with it and dissolve it. She is face to face with an Adversary who carries the burden of all history in his person, in his shadow-figure; it is he who is now standing in her way. Savitri has actually touched the core of the ancient Agony that resides in the heart of the Earth in its long and arduous travail of evolution. It is certain that a turning point has arrived and hence a might envisaging a decisive action must now take charge of the unfolding event. Something that was never attempted must be attempted. There is the fundamental imperative behind it. If transformation of the earthly nature is possible and if it has to happen, then Savitri’s love must triumph by conquering Death. A sign “iridescent with the glory of the Unseen” must blaze in the inner sky to guide her. The occult Horror must disappear. The issue posed by the “ancient disputants”—Earth and Love and Doom—is now in full focus for Savitri to tackle it. The power with which she was until now acting, is inadequate to measure up to the demands of the hollow Gulf; that Gulf devours in its insatiable hunger whatever is yet not truly divine in its full Plenitude. In a certain sense, therefore, the negative role of this antagonistic presence is to assure that nothing but the best and the most worthy of the Supreme comes into operation in the dynamism of this creation. No wonder the debate availed very little, in the nature of lesser boons only. What Savitri had with her so far that Death could easily counter and dismiss. Death yet remains secure and has nothing to lose; the soul of Satyavan is still with him. A mightier power must therefore come into play and deal with the difficulty. Savitri must perform a yogic act. She has to do Yoga in the occult Void and hold in her person the strength of the transcendental Yogini.

 

A flaming warrior from the eternal peaks

Empowered to force the door denied and closed,

 

must conquer the absoluteness with which the clutches of the ever-hollowing Inconscience personified by Death have held the world. The bounds of consciousness and Time have to be overpassed in order to reach the infinity of the Eternal and the All-conscient. The moment for the flaming warrior to receive that power to force the door open is at hand; Savitri must prepare herself for that. Otherwise she will still prove to be a barren woman in spite of the gifts of the sons and daughters granted to her by Death; they will still turn out to be the children of Death perpetuating in a more permanent way the rule of the Dark. But Savitri, by entering into the House of Meditation, by fixing herself there and summoning the higher power, must act in another way; the action of the incarnate Force should get directed towards one single goal—the abolition of all that resists the supreme Law of Love in this creation.

 

In the heart of Savitri, in the inner chamber of her House, the holy Yajna, the sacrifice that brings in the power of God for the fulfilment of works is constantly being performed by the secret deity abiding within. That verily is the truth of Savitri’s soul. That truth now ought to grow brighter and become stronger by drawing energies from the leaping flames of sacrifice. It is by sacrifice that the Supreme created the universe and it is by sacrifice that the creatures, and the gods too, grow in the rich-golden plenitude of Light and Love and Joy of the most auspicious immortality. Seeker of the riches, the Rishis “meditate the all-achieving laud of the divine” and call the touching Fire for help and succour in their spiritual endeavour; they invoke the Master of Sacrifice, they invite “to birth the immortal in mortals, the divine who brings in the divinity.” Indeed, the all-pervading Brahma, who is the giver of all fruit, is himself established in the great sacrifice. All flows from sacrifice. Savitri well-versed in the lore of tradition and an expert in the Yoga of Meditation enters into the deep cavern of her secret soul; kindling her silent will, she gets in touch with that divinity who is the source and fount of all action. “A house was there all made of flame and light” and what she observes in that house is the house-lord, Yajaman, with his mate, Yajamanin, engaged in sacrifice. That shall give her the needed strength to deal with Death in the dire moment of life.

 

In that large and luminous House of Meditation the hearth is ablaze with the rich and intense Yogic Fire, and the determined truth of Savitri’s soul is flaming bright, quenchless and imperishable. The fire that is burning ceaselessly witnesses all action, and gives to the sacrificer the needed protection even in the face of death. Not only protection which Savitri does not really need, but the winning strength to achieve the final result is what the Yajna is meant for. The Yajaman seated there with the Yajamanin or Grihapatni is offering Hutis to Agni. The Purohits have arranged the sacrifice in the right order and the Ritwiks are chanting the sacred Riks. The tongues of flame leap high up to kindle even the altars of the gods, the gods who shall come there as guardians for the aspirant. Presently the invocation is to the fire who is watching everything and who shall stand with Savitri in the moment of her dangerous rendezvous with the dark formidable Adversary. Armed with that might she shall chase him and follow him through the “enchanted dimness”.

 

“Agni is a mighty benefactor of his worshippers. With a thousand eyes he watches over the man who offers him oblations; but consumes his worshippers’ enemies like dry bushes, and strikes down the malevolent like a tree destroyed by lightning. All blessings issue from him as branches from a tree.” That is how AA Macdonell describes the action of the “mighty benefactor” who, when his worshipper is in difficulty, when the Dread and the Darkness surround him and hurt him, gives them protection. Rishi after Rishi has hymned Agni not only to complete his felicities but also to get this god’s protection in every respect. Thus, for example, Kanwa Ghaur (Rig Veda, I:36:15):

 

Protect us, O Agni, from the Rakshasa, protect us from the harm of the undelighting, protect us from him who assails and him who would slay us, O Vast of lustres, O mighty and young.

 

Or Kata Vaishwamitra (Rig Veda, IV:18:2):

 

Wholly consume our inner foe, consume the self-expression of the enemy who would war against us, O lord of the riches, consume, conscious in knowledge, the powers of ignorance; let them range wide thy ageless marching fires.

 

Or Virupa Angirasa (Rig Veda, VIII:43:62):

 

Smiting away the foes and things that hurt, burning the Rakshasas, on every side, O Fire, shine out with thy keen flame.

 

Savitri has entered into her House of Meditation;  there the “homestead’s sentinel and witness fire” is constantly burning. There for the welfare of the creatures and of the entire creation the Vedic-Brahminic rites are ever in progress. The great Ahavaniya Fire, located in the East and in the form of a square, is receiving the holocaust; to its West, eight paces farther away, the cooking of the offerings is in progress in the Grahapatya Fire which is in the shape of a circle; the Anvaharyapachana Fire at its South, and hence also known as Dakshinagni, in the form of a half moon, as added to the Grahapatya Fire to speed up the cooking of the sacrificial food, the Havis; the Sabhya and Avasathya to the North and North-East of the Ahavaniya Fire, respectively, complete the ceremonial Fire-Altar. The construction of the Fire-Altar itself was an elaborate process extending over a period of one year. Located in a prominent place of the whole sacrificial area, it was built in five strata of bricks, 10,800 bricks in all with the lowest having 1950. The Altar looks like a great Bird, the Golden Hawk, in its flight high up in the upper skies. The Hotri has taken charge the of the entire ceremony; the Ritwik is inviting and summoning the gods to attend the sacrifice; the Potri or the Purohit has assumed the responsibility of the right conduct and sequence of the offerings; the Adhvaryu is standing in front of the sacrificer, the Yajaman, the paterfamilias, and is guiding him and helping him in the details of the eternal cosmic Yajna. The Chief Priest assisted by these four, each one of them in turn assisted by three, is the Master of the mighty Ceremony. The Hotris chanting the hymns of the Rig Veda; the Udgatra in his melodious voice is doing the Saman recitation of the Riks; the Adhwaryu is busy with the material arrangements of the Sacrifice; the Brahman takes care of this holy Action by supervising everything assiduously. The Fire is bright-lit, the flames leaping to heaven; indeed, “only with an offering in the well-kindled Fire, Samiddha Homa, can the oblations be successful and fulfilling, Samŗddha.” The Sacrifice itself becomes the only determining Act. Destiny is created or moulded by it; the decrees of Fate are fixed or altered by it in a decisive way. Although it is a Vedic rite it is loaded with occult significance bearing far-reaching consequences to regulate the steps of Time for achieving the desired result.

 

The birth of Rama, the Avatar himself who had come to change the course of events and reshape the destiny of mankind, was a result of the boon which his father king Dasharatha of the Ikshwaku line had received after performing the Ashwamedha, the Horse Sacrifice, conducted by no less a person than the celebrated Rishi Rishyshringa himself. The bricks of the altar had been prepared by following the strictest measures as prescribed by the treatises; the priests well-versed in the sacrificial architecture erected the altar, chanting all the while the appropriate hymns; the sacrificial fire to be worshipped by the Yajaman was placed ceremoniously by the expert Brahmins; the fire in its form and shape looked like Garuda, the divine Eagle himself, with his wings and tail distended; the majestic Bird was with the wings of gold.

 

According to the Bhagavata Purana it is Lord Vishnu himself who represents all the sacrifices in his person; he is the Lord of Sacrifice, Yajneshwara. The seven sacrifices—Agnistoma, Atyagnistoma, Uktha, Sodashi, Vajapeya, Atiratra, and Aptoryama—are the seven parts of his body. In him are present all the Mantras, and the Deities worshipped by the devotees reside in him, and the materials used for the sacrifice are found in his being. Indeed, all the activities originate in him and he is the sacrificial Act itself. When he as the divine Boar traced the lost Earth and brought it out from the depths of the fathomless Ocean, all the Gods and the great Rishis sang his lauds and hailed his heroic sacrifice. In him is founded the sacrifice by which grows the creation.

 

But in Savitri’s House of Meditation, who are the officiating priests seated at the high-built altar? And who is engaged in the Yajna and what does he intend to achieve from it?  Who is the Yajaman and who the Grihapatni, the executive participator in the holy Action? To whom are the well-prepared oblations being offered? When was this altar completed and who lighted the flame, and tended it, and kept that flame ever-burning? Are seasons the bricks used in its construction, so that completion may come in the cycles of Time? wherefrom was the fuel procured? how was it gathered? was it Agni himself who, as soon as he was born, measured out the extent and the shape of the sacrifice? Is he not a “god to the gods,” the leader who goes in front of the gods? The very first verse of the Veda extols him as the chief priest and one who is the divine Ritwik, summoning the gods for the sacrifice (Rig Veda, I:1:1):

 

I adore the Flame, the vicar, the divine Ritwik of the Sacrifice, the summoner who most founds the ecstasy.

 

We may therefore say that Agni is the Grihapati, the Lord of the House, and he is also the Vishapati, the Lord of the Worlds, and he is the Destroyer of every Evil too, all the three at the same time. With seven tongues he consumes the sevenfold food. But then who is the Yajamanin, the Grihapatni, the Spouse of Agni, Agnayi, seated to his left and offering with him the oblations, the Havis? Indeed, she is Aditi herself, under the name of Swaha born as Daksha’s daughter in the manifestation, a bright and youthful bride in rich golden-red attire, she who is participating in the Yajna and fulfilling the Act in this creation. They inseparably together, one in his two aspects, are engaged in promoting the cosmic march towards the divinity; thus are they all the while performing the Good.

 

In Savitri’s House of Mediation Agni is the blazing will, and Swaha is the power and fiery force, they together drawing energies from the great Tapas of the Supreme himself. He is the “conscious force or Will instinct with knowledge which pervades the world and is behind all its workings.” Savitri steps into that House where her “silent will” joins the Will of the Divine. Such is the nature of the Vedic Yajna going on in her heart. In it is efficacy of the Transcendent bearing his Will in this creation.