Before we look at the mantras for the planet candra, it may be useful and necessary to learn something about ‘vedic interpretation’. (In the following I am writing about ṛgveda only even though the plural form is used; in regard to the other vedas also there are difficulties to more or less extent.)
Learned people who specialize in the learning and interpretation of the vedas, opine that it is a task beset with difficulties. Even yāska, the author of nirukta, refers to differing interpretations of words and passages in the vedas. This goes to show that right from such ancient times, eliciting the correct meaning which was intended to be conveyed by the composers of the veda, had become a difficult job. yāska also criticizes people who learn the vedas merely by rote without any understanding of their meaning. Thus, while on the one hand we, today, can take credit for the efforts of the Brahmins for preserving the vedas with even their intonations intact, through the system of oral transmission, for millennia, on the other, we have to accept gross failure because this ‘intact transmission’ was mostly through the creation of ‘memorizing robots’ and hardly any emphasis or effort was put into passing on the vedic interpretation. It is relevant to note, in this connection, that even today we give more importance to “pārāyaṇa” (reading) than to “adhyayana” (learning), be it veda, bhāgavata, rāmāyaṇa, or anything else. Mostly the ‘learning’ efforts today are also confined to cultivating the ability to read aloud uninterrupted, from the book.
yāska’s nirukta is the oldest available ‘guide’ to understand the meaning of veda; it lists hundreds of words as those with obscure meaning. Hence even as early as yāska’s time, the continuity in transmission of the correct meaning of the vedas had been lost, it would appear.
In this context it may be relevant to note the probable antiquity (not yet accepted by the scholarly world); following is an extract from my post in another thread (Origin of rigveda):
“In any discussion of the hoary past of the vedic people or avestans, we should also take into account the excavations at Nemrut Dag, Goebekli tepe, Nevali Cori, etc., in Turkey and the find of a statue of a Head with a sikha, in the remains from those excavations. This would show that some culture or civilization very similar to the brahmanic one flourished in Anatolia even much before (c.7500 BCE) the generally assumed date of the vedas of 2000 BCE. Also, it is interesting to note that, as per experts, the Nevali Cori people deliberately covered the area with soil, perhaps to preserve it for posterity! It was not destroyed or abandoned as in IVC.
It looks to me, therefore, that the seeds of the vedic tradition must have begun in very early periods around Anatolia regions and spread to the Mitanni and Hittite kingdoms, as evidenced by the Kikkuli horse-training documents. From there it could have spread eastwards to the present day Iran/Afghanistan where, most probably, one set of people started giving more attention to image or totem worship while the orthodox group stuck to the old fire worship steadfastly. This became a point of conflict and the totem-worshippers spread further east to the Punjab, may be by osmosis. One reason for our ancestors holding the view that the vedas are "anAdi" and "apourushEya" might be the fact that they had some hazy ideas about the dim past but were not able to have any clear picture about those times or areas, IMO. So, just as children's stories start with the phrase, "Once long ago, in a certain country..." they said this was beginningless (we don't know when it started) and not man-made (we don't know who composed these or how these were composed).
This totem worship hypothesis can be found in the book, "The Hymns of Atharvan Zarathustra" by Shri Jatindra Mohan Chatterji, M.A. and published by the Parsi Zoroastrian Association, Calcutta, 1967.”
Further, from ancient times, people have been trying to interpret the vedas according to their point of view, thus creating different branches/systems/schools of vedic interpretation:
1. yājñika – This school gives the ritualistic interpretation,
2. aitihāsika – Gives the traditional or historical implications.
3. nairukta – The etymological aspects are the main focus of this school.
4. parivrājaka – The mystic interpretation of Vedas.
5. vaiyākaraṇa – Grammatical aspects.
6. naidāna – Juridical aspects.
yāska refers to one kautsa whose opinions, as gleaned from yāska’s work, seems to have been that the Vedas contain no meaning at all and are, therefore, worthless. From this one can see that the doubt about the importance or even relevance of the Vedas is as old as the Vedas themselves, perhaps! It is also quite likely, though there is no evidence to prove it, that such doubts, which must have been held by a limited few in the beginning, came to be expressed by increasing numbers, from which the ājīvikā sect arose - a sect of naked, wandering ascetics, who decried the vedas and rituals – founded by makkhali gosala, who was a rival to both mahāvīra and buddha in their lifetime. (gosala is also mentioned as one of the teachers of Buddha.) The lokāyata of cārvāka might owe its origin to such earlier opinions.
In addition to all the dimensions given above, there are also vedic verses which are like riddles. A good example is the under-noted one:
[FONT="]चत्वारि शृङ्गात्रयो अस्यपादा[/FONT]
[FONT="]द्वेशीर्षे सप्तहस्तासो अस्य[/FONT]
[FONT="]त्रिधा बद्धो वृषभोरोरवीति[/FONT]
[FONT="]महो देवो मर्त्यँ आविवॆश[/FONT][FONT="]--[/FONT][FONT="]ऋग्वेद ४. ५८. ०३[/FONT]
[FONT="]சத்வாரி[/FONT][FONT="]ச்ருங்கா[/FONT][FONT="]த்ரயோ[/FONT][FONT="]அஸ்ய[/FONT][FONT="]பாதா[/FONT]
[FONT="]த்வே[/FONT][FONT="]சீர்ஷே[/FONT][FONT="]ஸப்தஹஸ்தாஸோ[/FONT][FONT="]அஸ்ய[/FONT]
[FONT="]த்ரிதா[/FONT][FONT="]பத்தோ[/FONT][FONT="]வ்ருஷபோ[/FONT][FONT="]ரோரவீதி[/FONT]
[FONT="]மஹோ[/FONT][FONT="]தேவோ[/FONT][FONT="]மர்த்யக்[/FONT][FONT="]~[/FONT][FONT="]ம்[/FONT][FONT="]ஆவிவேச[/FONT][FONT="] --[/FONT][FONT="]ரிக்வேதம்[/FONT][FONT="]௪[/FONT][FONT="]. [/FONT][FONT="]௫௮[/FONT][FONT="]. 0[/FONT][FONT="]௩[/FONT]
catvāri śṛṅgātrayo asyapādā
dveśīrṣe saptahastāso asya
tridhā baddho vṛṣabhororavīti
maho devo martyam̐ āviveśa --ṛgveda 4. 58. 03
The ritualistic meaning, following sāyaṇa’s commentary is as follows:
Agni, the great power pervading yajña, who has the four Vedas as heads, three legs in the form of the three ‘savanas’ (libations in yajñas in the morning, noon and evening), two heads, viz., the havis (food) & prāvargya (a ceremony introductory to the soma sacrifice - at which fresh milk is poured into a heated vessel called mahāvīra or gharma, or into boiling ghee – or the large earthenware pot used in the prāvargya ceremony), the seven chandas beginning with gāyatrī, and who is ‘bound’ by mantras, brāhmaṇas and kalpas, thrice, has entered into the humans.
(This interpretation suffers from a serious logical error, IMO, because the ṝṣi could not have visualized the division of the entire vedic corpus into four distinct vedas.)
Other schools (of vedic interpretation) have also made their own deductions but it still remains a riddle!
