Sat-Purusha and Adya-Shakti

AB Keith in his long introduction to the Taittiriya Sanhita belonging to the Veda of the Black Yajus School mentions that it, like the Shatapatha Brahmana, identifies Agni with Death which “leads to the suggestion that the sacrificer as Agni, as time, is death and as the sacrificer dies he becomes immortal, for death is his own self.” But it is doubtful whether this is strictly a Vedic concept. Agni as a Vedic god has his own status and standing in the pantheon of these ancients. As tapas-energy in evolution carrying it forward, he has almost a fixed role which he plays variously. He is described, and also extolled, as the seer-will, the messenger of the gods, the Bull with four horns, the Male, the great Aryan, the house-lord, the Lord of the Worlds, the knower of the births, the priest of sacrifice, the immortal in the mortals leading them and protecting them on the path of heaven. As a will in the material world it is he who shapes and moulds forms and brings concreteness to things ethereal. Agni is the creative principle or power of immortality in Matter. Identification with him is the certain and the effective means of attaining the permancnce and beatitude of deathlessness, but not presently in the embodied material form; his form has not yet evolved to that stage. “Agni manifests divine potentialities in a death-besieged body; Agni brings them to effective actuality and perfection. He creates in us the luminous forms of the Immortals.” Agni is indeed the presiding deity here, and he is also the divinity that grows in the physical universe making it grow in his own growth. We cannot therefore identify him with Death who is but the power of disintegration. We cannot conceive the opposite, the builder and the destroyer being one person. Time as Kala Purusha is again that agent of dissolution; it is he who destroys the order of the worlds, maybe for the purposes of its renewal but not by its own agency. True, Death is known to be the son of Vivasvan, the Sun-god, and in him does the Dharma abide, and by it does he protect or guard immoertality. “Surya the Lord of Light is born as the guardian of the divine Law and the Yama-power.” This is the positive aspect of Yama in the creation; therefore, he is also known as the Ordainer of the Worlds. On the other hand, Death as a dark power in the material creation leads it to its entire dissolution in the Void of the Unmanifest. Sacrificer’s death cannot then take him to immortality; it would rather be his complete disappearance into the gloom of a darkness where no ray of light or hope can ever reach. Into the sunless worlds of the Isha would he sink, beyond redemption. There no sacrifice is performed and therefore in doom would he lie for ever, in the negative state of immortality. But the sacrificer as Agni identifying himself with the Sun-god shall tread the upward path progressing into knowledge and stepping into a blissful luminous living. The seers follow this path of the gods, the path that has been paved by sacrifice and made safe for treading. On this path of sacrifice Savitri herself sees the supreme Reality as Maha Purusha standing behind this figure of Death, behind the dark Terrible. He abandoning his fourfold divinity, by making a sacrifice of his supreme Person, took on that shape in the Void. Only then from that sacrifice did progress become possible. It was that shape in the Void which confronted Savitri as she was claiming back from him Satyavan’s soul. This dual aspect can also be discerned from the Yama as we have been given by Vyasa in his tale.

The Vedic Hymn of Creation is the most sublime laud of Sacrifice of the Divine Purusha. He at the beginning of existence volunteered to disappear from himself in order to give birth to creation. He wished to know himself through it. Thus the Vedas were born and the four austerities and the great rhythms were set into movement. In the darkness that was engulfed by darkness he moved as the Demiurge and soon the gods found the means to build up the existent. The Divine Purusha by accepting Darkness grew superconscient in many forms. He expressed himself multifoldly in the material and the supramental universe. Soon then on the path of progress he set himself, progress in the sense of a new creation, of manifestation of the Unmanifest.

In the Brahminic tradition Prajapati is the Lord of Sacrifice. It was in building up the body of this Begetter of Creatures that the creative act of sacrifice was performed long ago. By it shall he propagate, propagate himself, shall become variously divine. That from the Supreme’s dismemberment the divine body be built, were kindled the fires of the sacrifice, and were raised the chants, and the oblations poured. The sacrificer by sacrificing himself created innumerable sacrifices. The Five Yajnas born of the Maha-Yajna maintain a fulfilling relationship, a mutually enriching harmony in different parts of this vast creation. If in Brahma-Yajna the supreme deity is invoked by chanting the Riks of the Vedas, by Manushya-Yajna the sacrificers grow by helping each other. The devas take of the offerings of the sacrifice and to its performer grant boons in full measure. Even the departed spirits and the beings of vital worlds get their share in this daily sacrifice. The Law of Sacrifice proves not only to be ubiquitous in the universality of its application; but it is also inexorable. That was the way the Grecian gods were subject to the Law of Ananke. All is established in the great Sacrifice and, indeed, all these sacrifices have been extended, as the Gita says, “in the mouth of the Brahman.” The Five Yajnas of the Gita are: Dravya-Yajna, Tapa-Yajna, Yoga-Yajna, Swadhyaya-Yajna, and Jnana-Yajna. This understanding of Yajna the Teacher imparted long ago in prehistory, in the antiquity of the gods, at the beginning of the transcendent Time, to Vivasvan the Sun-god, the father of Yama, and it is that he reasserted on the battlefield. That, then, is really the seed-action in the creation.

Sacrifice is the noblest dharma. The social and spiritual order, even the occult, is founded in it; the universal harmony, and the concordance, grow and flourish in those mighty flames. As much as the Seers and the Rishis cherish it as do the heavenly gods themselves, those who are the guardians of the Truth that is obscured in the night here.  When Savitri got the soul of Satyavan back from Yama, the Dharmaraja, he blessed her by granting to Satyavan a life of four-hundred years for performing the holy Yajnas, the Fire-Sacrifices in the conduct of the glorious dharma in which the creatures grow to plenitude. Even today every household engaged in sacrifice echoes and re-echoes that famous chant of Rishis Dhirgatamasa for the fulfilment of life in the Worthy Act. In a “deep and mystic style” he proclaims (Rig Veda, I:164:50):

By sacrifices the gods worship the Sacrifice which is the foremost of the dharma. Such a law of fundamental importance must have had its origin in the person of the Supreme himself, in the all-potentiality of the transcendent to bring forth the secret or hidden possibility of a world-movement in the rhythms of the Truth.

The Gita enjoins us to be engaged in works and make them a sacrificial offering to the Lord of Nature in whom they get purified for growth and progress. The quenchless flame, Agni Pavaka as the purifier of action, is the leader of the march through the terrestrial ways, leading them heavenward. Already luminous it yet becomes luminous, divya panthah. Even as it grows it becomes more and more bright and golden:

With sacrifice the Lord of creatures of old created creatures and said, By this shall you bring forth (fruits or offerings), let this be your milker of desires.

Foster by this the gods and let the gods foster you; fostering each other, you shall attain to the supreme good.

Fostered by sacrifice the gods shall give you desired enjoyments; who enjoys their given enjoyments and has not given to them, he is a thief.

The good who eat what is left from the sacrifice, are released from all sin; but evil are they who enjoy sin who cook (the food) for their own sake.

From food creatures come into being, from rain is the birth of food, from sacrifice comes into being the rain, sacrifice is born of work

Work know to be born of Brahman, Brahman is born of the Immutable; therefore is the all-pervading Brahman established in the sacrifice.

In the most esoteric sense, and in the grand yet powerfully dense incantatory verse, the Gita asserts: (IV:24)

Brahman is the giving, Brahman is the food-offering, by Brahman it is offered into the Brahman-fire, Brahman is that which is to be attained by samadhi in Brahman-action.

While commenting on this verse Sri Aurobindo writes as follows: “The universal energy into which the action is poured is the Divine; the consecrated energy of the giving is the Divine; whatever is offered is only some form of the Divine; the giver of the offering is the Divine himself in man; the action, the work, the sacrifice is itself the Divine in movement, in activity; the goal to be reached by sacrifice is the Divine.”

When the Yogagni, the fire of concentrated will, is kindled and when it mounts to heaven a new transformation takes place in the person and soul of the aspirant. The darkness of Nature is left behind and thought and feeling and the physical activities become suddenly spirit-charged; occult invisible domains of light and force open out. The deathless Flame aspires to reach “the Being’s absolutes.” (Savitri, p. 279)

In a veiled Nature’s hallowed secrecies

It burns for ever on the altar of Mind,

Its priests the souls of dedicated gods,

Humanity its house of sacrifice.

But who is this Yajna-Purusha, Yajneshwara of the Puranas, the Fire of the Yogins, the Tapas of the doers of austerities, the God of worship of the ritualists, the sacramental divinity of the religious, the bringer of the heavenly riches to the terrestrial creatures, the leader of the Aryans, the fulfiller of the purpose of the Supreme in the cosmos, in whom the wheels of Time move like great rhythms of happiness and joy and ever they expand into the Future claiming its felicitous abundances? Is he the alchemist in the cave experimenting with the baser materials to transmute them into the luminous self of his own gold? the physicist feeding the atomic faggots to set ablaze the cosmic conflagration in the very womb of Matter? the occultist who by his magic spell shall build the body of God with the nerve-centres of his own person? “Serene as the Antarctic silence,” who is it that burns in Hegel on his death-bed? in the non-violent march of the “naked fakir”? or the Blitzkrieg of the Titan? Is he the same Purusha strident like a fire and roaring in the loudness of a colossus of might? When was this Yajna-Purusha born and where does he abide? If he is in the night, do the stars send their distant signals to guide him on the right path, or throw their little energising brightnesses into his flames? if in the day, do the suns pour their radiances to kindle his leaping greatnesses beyond the domains of the knowledge of the truth? If he is the Breath sublime, does he survive in abysses of the inconscient Horror? Is his burning smouldered by the black Demon or is he accosted by Kumbhanda, the goblin, or is he slain by Vritra, the terrible Enemy? Is it not true that the potency of the Yajna is exploited even by the Asuras to battle against the gods? Did not Indrajit, the son of the demon king Ravan, hide himself in a secret cave and initiate the fearsome sacrifice to obtain weapons and get a swift-wheeled war-chariot to fight against Lakshmana, the younger brother of the Avatar Rama? And knowing the efficacy of the ghastly Yajna, was it not that in time it was thwarted and that the victory decisively turned in favour of the Incarnate?

But then of this Yajna-Purusha what is the truth of truth, satyasya satyam? If Yajna on the physical plane is a celebrated fact, a cherished institution, an ever-living and ever-nourishing reality, if it is enduring here in spite of the travails of time, it must have had its origin, had its first birth, in some imperishable world in the sky above. If it is splendid like the gods, if not more splendid than them, surely then it must be beyond the reach of Death. The Yajna-Purusha has to be someone greater than Agni or Prajapati or Brahma. His dwelling has to in the infinity of the Transcendent. As a matter of fact, he himself is the Transcendent turned towards creation. If Savitri is the incarnation of the most excellent executive power of the Divine, and if it is in her House of Meditation that she sees the sacrifice being performed, then it must certainly be some immediate or closest aspect of the Supreme himself who has become the Yajna-Purusha. Indeed, if not he who else can perform this Maha-Yajna in her heart which itself is the House of Flame?

To restate: the Yajna-Purusha is the transcendent Supreme himself, the Supreme in the poise of a great creative Action. In the language of the Puranas he is the creator Brahma and it was out of his Will or samkalpa that the creation ensued; out of his Tapas-Yajna or the force of concentration were the worlds born. The metaphysico-spiritual sense emerges clearly in Sri Aurobindo’s analysis when he discusses the very first verse of the Rig Veda. What is Yajna in Himself?—asks he and sets forth to answer as follows. “Yajna is Being, Awareness and Bliss; He is Sat with Chit and Ananda, because Chit and Ananda are inevitable in Sat. When in his Being, Awareness and Bliss He conceals Guna or quality, He is nirguņa sat, impersonal being with Awareness and Bliss either gathered up in Himself and passive, they nivŗtta, He also nivŗtta or working as a detached activity in His impersonal existence, they pravŗtta, He nivŗtta. Then He should not be called Yajna, because He is then aware of himself as the Watcher and not as the Lord of activity. But when in His being, He manifests Guna or quality He is saguņa sat, personal being. Even then He may be nivŗtta, not related to His active awareness and bliss except as a Watcher of its detached activity; but He may also by His Shakti enter into their activity and possess and inform His universe (praviśya, adhişthita), He pravŗtta, they pravŗtta. It is then that He knows Himself as the Lord and is properly called Yajna. Not only is He called Yajna, but all action is called Yajna, and Yoga, by which alone the process of any action is possible, is also called Yajna… This Yajna, who is the Saguna Sat, does not do works Himself, (that is by Sat), but He works in Himself, in Sat by His power of Chit,—by His Awareness… When Chit that is Power begins to work, then She manifests Herself as kinetic force, Tapas, and makes it the basis of all activity.”

The Yajna-Purusha is therefore Sachchidananda Himself in His world-creative Action, the Sat-Purusha in His own Person setting forth the World-Force in a dynamic movement of Manifestation. If this Action is the Yajna, then the Sat-Purusha is the Yajaman and the World-Force His Grihapatni, Yajamanin, the Consort participating in the Sacrifice. Yoga-Shakti acting in the Will of Ishwara is the Yajna in the Transcendent; but as World-Creatrix when she rules over the quiescent Being, Prakriti mightier than Purusha, he subject to her action, then the Yajna in the terrestrial process assumes an altogether different character. It is this terrestrial Yajna that has to be lifted up, with the help of the gods, to its original pristine glory and grandeur. In the wake of the Sacrifice of the Purusha, sung by the Vedic Rishis, she as the Adya Shakti has actually made a greater sacrifice by coming down to this creation that it may grow in pure being, awareness, and joy; she gave up her royalty of transcendence and chose to be here because it is in the folds of inconscience that she must search or discover her lost beloved. In that search “…she has consented to put upon herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” In the Epic’s passage

Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.

The great World-Mother by her sacrifice

Has made her soul the body of our state;

Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness

Divinity’s lapse from its own splendours wove

The many-patterned ground of all we are.

The incarnation of Adya Shakti in the human body to do the transformative Yoga of the Supreme in the earth-consciousness forelights a certitude of its success.

This Adya Shakti takes birth in this mortality and accepts the name of Savitri. She is “the patroness of magic priestcraft, Brahmanhood” and is, as Heinrich Zimmer rightly says, “the female counterpart and divine energy, Shakti, of Savitar-Brahma, the Creator of the world; she is the all-moving, all-inspiring divine principle of creation.” Consort of Brahma in the Transcendent if she is known as Gayatri, here as Satyavan’s beloved she becomes Savitri. But when the philosopher fails to recognise her incarnate in the person of Savitri, “the human princess, daughter of King Asvapati, who, according to the legend, rescued her husband, Prince Satyavan, from the domain of King Death,” then this Adya Shakti’s direct participation in the world-processes gets diminished if not denied in the great cosmic reckoning. In actuality, however, without that participation world-transformation would be impossible. She has been here since the beginning of the earth in one form or another. It is she who has moulded all the major events in the history of consciousness taking the evolutionary march towards God-fulfilment in this material creation. The human Savitri, on entering her House of Meditation, witnesses the divine reality of her own self, that reality vaster and mightier than Death whom she is presently confronting as the dark terrible Shadow. Savitri now merges her will with the will of the transcendent Power who is ever ablaze in the depth of her soul, in the jewel-bright cave of her heart. That Adya Shakti herself is Savitri’s soul, luminous in the Yajna of the Divine.

In the deepest sense, therefore, the occult Fire that burns in the central hearth in Savitri’s House of Meditation is the eternal Yajna itself, the Yajna being performed by the Sat-Purusha as the house-lord with his mate Adya Shakti seated along with him in the great Action of upholding the Creation that the Transcendent may dwell in it with its full threefold beatitude. Although a small Yajna is constantly being performed in the heart of each one of us, this Yajna of Savitri is unique in its triple dimension of the Supreme. If her Yajna is to dissolve Ignorance and Death, that in the evolutionary manifestation divinity may inhabit this house of Matter, ours is to grow in that sun-bright splendour of divinity itself. Hers is the transcendental Yajna, ours the individual. In the flaming spirit of her Yajna are kindled all these thousand Yajnas of our souls. “She is the Sun from which we kindle all our suns.” Such is the possibility that the Divine as Death has now opened out in this earthly existence. such is the majesty of the Yajna that is constantly going on in Savitri’s House of Meditation.