Ebook: Word As Revelation, Names of God

There are two opposing views about language, both advanced by distinguished thinkers. One view holds that language is external to objects and thoughts; the other view regards it as fundamental to them. In what sense or senses are these views true? Can they be reconciled?
Language has not merely expressed man's fears; it also expressed his sense of mystery. Again and again, man has sung of Gods and Divine Life and his idea of the Good and the Beautiful in sublime speech. This sublime speech, these inspired words, he has treasured as his veritable heritage, his Vedas. But in the passage of time, man’s thought-habits and speech -mores change and the inspired words become difficult to understand. Can a study of language help us to recapture the meanings of older scriptures? Can this help us understand the deeper life of man, his vision of the Gods and the Good? Can this study throw some light on religious consciousness in general and the cherished old scriptures in particular? For example – can we understand the mentality of the seers of the Vedas- humanity’s oldest extant scripture- by studying their language? Or can we understand the import of their language by entering into the state of their mind?
The book studies human speech in its relation to man’s deeper psyche and religious consciousness. It adds a new dimension to the science of Semantics by showing how physical meanings of a word become sensuous meanings, become concepts and ideas, become names of the powers of the psyche, become Names of Gods, depending upon organ of the mind- indriya, manas, buddhi,- which is using the word also on the level of purity- bhumi- of the organ connected.
Next, by applying this method of unlocking the highest and most secret meanings of words, it adds a new chapter to Vedic Exegesis.
Thirdly, refuting that Vedic Gods represent the attempt of the primitive human mind, through Nature’s symbols and objects, towards for unitary principle, it asserts that the truth of Self can be expressed equally well in polytheistic as well as monotheistic terms, and that One God or Many Gods are opposed only on the mental plane while they meet in the unity of the Spirit.
Fourthly, it invites us to extend this new approach to promote an understanding of several existing religions and many classical religions of the past- of Egypt, Iran, Greece and Rome. Such a study should help modern Europeans to have a better understanding of their old Gods as also the Gods of the Africans and American Indians.
Finally, though briefly, the book offers a practical advice. A meditation on the Names and Attributes of Gods has a transforming power not only for the individual but also for his physical, social and cultural environment. As an individual’s consciousness is purified and raised by meditation on the names of Gods, he becomes increasingly aware of the inertias and impurities around himself and is actuated towards achieving a spiritually meaningful environment.



“The writer is not merely a scholar in linguistics. He is a mystic too and gives a rational explanation of the four levels of speech- para, pasyanti, madhyama and vaikhari and their location in the consciousness of mind. He points out that in all religions and occult traditions the names of Gods are held to be secret. He cites the Rig Veda several passages to this effect. The outer meaning of a name is for the profane: the real import is revealed only to him who is purifies by tapas (vide Yaska). Meditation on the Name is the means to realize this essential meaning after a series of different meaning are successively revealed.
“The chapters on the names of Gods in the Vedas are superbly illustrated and demonstrate the deeper logic of calling the different Gods by the same Name and the same Gods by different names. Each Name of God is a gate opening into the kingdom of Glory. Incidentally, Sri Ram Swarup explains the failure of many Indologists to enter into the secret of the Name because of their alien mentality which could not enter into the spirit of the Rishis who openly speak of the highest empyrean both as the home of the Gods and the birth-place of the hymns creating the name. He gives in simple words the technique of nama-japa which lands the participant in the lap of Him whose sound-body is the Name that is meditated upon. ‘Each name is creative mantra; when meditated upon it becomes a power, the creative Word, the saving Word.’ ”
- ¬M.P. Pandit, in The Hindu