A Vedic Conception of the Poet

Kavi is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heaven–kavih kavitwa divi rupam asajat. ¹Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? Heaven–Dyaus–has a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind² –the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, didhaya Manisha,³a faultless understanding, suwedha. ³He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power, Tashta, ³the maker of perfect forms, surupa kritnum. ⁴All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty. ⁵ Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving ⁶; the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.⁷ But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formations of a vaster knowledge.⁸ The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.⁹ F or the substance, the material on which the poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.¹⁰ The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation–the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.¹¹ The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.

The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower–the Seer of the Truth, kavayah satyadrashtarah. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.¹² A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his, ninyam, prachetas; his is the eye of the Sun, surya chakshuh.¹³He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.¹⁴ In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer, but Doer; he is knower as well as creator, it He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, nrichaksha¹⁵; he is the Seer-Will, kavikratuh, ¹⁶He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-luminousness.¹⁷ The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, surya satyasava, satyaya satyaprasavaya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator, savita, he is alsothe builder or fashioner, tashta, and he is the organiser, vedha, of the Truth¹⁸, As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,¹⁹ the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right²⁰; it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice. ²¹ He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward²²; he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond²³ –into the world of felicity.

Indeed delight is the third and the supremely intimate element of the poetic personality. Dear and delightful is the poet, dear and delightful his works, priya, priyani. His hand is dripping with sweetness, kavir hi madhuhastyah.²⁴The Poet-God shines in his pristine beauty and is showering delight.²⁵ He is filled with utter ecstasy so that he may rise to the very source of the luminous Energy.²⁶ Pure is the Divine Joy and it enters and purifies all forms as it moves to the seat of the Immortals.²⁷ Indeed this sparkling Delight is the Poet-Seer and it is that that brings forth the creative word, the utterance of Indra.²⁸

The solar vision of the Poet encompasses in its might the wide Earth and Heaven, fuses them in supreme Delight in the womb of the Truth. ²⁹ The Earth is lifted up and given in

marriage to Heaven in the home of the Truth, for the creation and expression of the Truth in its varied beauty, charu chitram.

The Poet creates forms of beauty in Heaven; but these forms are not made out of the void. It is the Earth that is raised to Heaven and transmuted into divine truth-forms. The union of Earth and Heaven is the source of the Joy, the Ananda that the Poet unseals and distributes. Heaven and Earth join and meet in the world of Delight; between them they press out Soma, the drink of the gods.

The Mind and the Body are held together by means of the Life, the mid-world. The Divine Mind by raising the body consciousness into itself gathers up too, by that act, the delight of life and releases the fountain of immortal Bliss. That is the work and achievement of the gods as poets.

"Where then is the birth of the Poets?Ask it of the Masters. The Poets have seized and mastered the. Mind, they have the perfect working and they fashion the Heaven.

"On this Earth they hold everywhere in themselves all the secrets. They make Earth and Heaven move together, so that they may realise their heroic strength. They measure them with their rhythmic measurings, they hold in their controlled grasp the vast and great twins, and unite them and establish between them the mid-world of Delight for the perfect poise."³⁰

All the gods are poets–their forms are perfect, surupa, sudrisha, their Names full of beauty, charu devasya nama.³¹This means also that the gods embody the different powers that constitute the poetic consciousness. Agni is the Seer-Will, the creative vision of the Poet–the luminous energy born of an experience by identity with the Truth. Indra is the Idea-Form, the architectonic conception of the work or achievement. Mitra and Varuna are the large harmony, the vast cadence and sweep of movement. The Aswins, the Divine Riders, represent the intense zest of well-yoked Life-Energy. Soma is Rasa, Ananda, the Supreme Bliss and Delight.

The Vedic Poet is doubtless the poet of Life, the architect of Divinity in man, of Heaven upon earth. But what is true of Life is fundamentally true of Art too–at least true of the Art as it was conceived by the ancient seers and as it found expression at their hands.³²

1Rig Veda, X. 124.7.

2 "The Secret of the Veda" by Sri Aurobindo.

3 RigVeda, III. 38. 1.

4 RigVeda, I.4.1.

5 Mahat tad vah kavayas charu nama yad va deva bhavatha viswa indre–III. 54.17.

6 kaves chit tantum manasa viyantah-X. 5. 3.

7 kavir hota yajati manmasadhanah-I. 151. 7.

8 kavir na ninyam vidathani sadhan-IV. 16. 3.

9 hiranyapecasa kavi gambhirachetasa-VIII. 8. 2.

10 ritasya padam kavayo nipanti guha namani dadhire parani-X: 5. 2.

11 kavir girbhih kavyena kavih san-IX.96. 17.

12 abhividus kavih san-I. 71.10; kavim ketum-VII. 6. 2.

13 IX. 10. 8-9.

14 kavir viprena vavridhe—VIII. 44. 12.

15 III. 54. 6.

16 I. 1.5

17 swatavasah kavayah suryatwachah-VII. 59. U.

18 kavayah santi vedhasah-V. 52. 13.

19 adha nu dharmani gman-III. 38. 2.

20 kavi ritasya patmabhih–VIII. 8. 23.

21 kavi yajnasya vitanoti pantham–Taittiriya Samhita, III. 55. 3.

22 atyo na vaji sudhuro jihanah…..abhi priyani–R V. III. 38. 1.

23 rijra vajam na gadhyam yuyushan kavir…..paryaya bhushat-IV. 16.11.

24 V. 5. 2.

25 sobhate vrisha kavir yonavadhi priyah–IX. 25. 2.

26 a pavaswa manditama pavitram dharaya kave, arkasya yonim asadam IX. 25. 6.

27 viswa rupanyavisan punano yati haryatah, yatramritasa asate–IX. 25. 4.

28 arusho janayan girah somah pavata ayushak, indran gachhan kavikratuh–IX. 25. 5.

29 kavir nrichaksha abhishim achashta ritasya yona vidhrite madanti–III. 54.6.

30 inota prichcha janima kavinam

manodhritah sukritas takshata dyam …..

ni shim id atra guhya dadhana

uta kshatraya rodasi samanjan

sam matrabhir mamire yemururvi

antarmahi samrite dhayase dhuh–III. 38. 2-3.

31 I. 24.1.

32 The Vedic term Kavi means literally ‘a seer,’ ‘one who, has the vision,’ as the word ‘poet’ means etymologically ‘a doer,’ ‘a creator.’ I have combined the two senses to equate the terms and bring out the meaning involved in their more current acceptation.