Śruti / The four Vedas / Ṛgveda · 4 of 10
4. The Puruṣa
Ṛgveda (ऋग्वेद)
The Puruṣa Sūkta (पुरुषसूक्त) is Ṛgveda (ऋग्वेद) 10.90. Where the Nāsadīya refuses a closed story, this hymn offers a picture: a person, larger than the earth, from whose offering the world is arranged. The first verse sits above. He covers the earth and still stands beyond it, by ten fingers. The measure is the hymn's way of saying that the person is not contained by what he covers.
One quarter of him is all beings. Three quarters are the immortal in heaven. From that person Virāj is born, and from Virāj the person, in the hymn's own turning. The gods offer the person as the offering. From that offering come the verses, the chants, the meters, the animals, and the orders of the world. The moon is born from his mind, the sun from his eye, Indra and Agni from his mouth, the wind from his breath. The midspace comes from his navel, the sky from his head, the earth from his feet, the directions from his ear.
The same hymn pictures the four varṇa (वर्ण) as arising from that body: the brāhmaṇa from the mouth, the rājanya from the arms, the vaiśya from the thighs, the śūdra from the feet. That is what the hymn says. It is a picture inside a creation hymn. A social rule is what later books did with the picture. This page leaves the picture as a picture. It does not teach it as a law of who may learn, or who may eat, or who may be touched.
The theological weight is the sacrifice. The world is not only made. It is offered. The person who is offered is greater than the world that comes from the offering. Later talk of yajña (यज्ञ), and the upaniṣadic talk of puruṣa (पुरुष), both have this hymn behind them. The Yajurveda sitting takes up what the rite becomes when the formulas, and then the questions, take hold of it.
सहस्रशीर्षा पुरुषः सहस्राक्षः सहस्रपात् ।
स भूमिं विश्वतो वृत्वात्यतिष्ठद्दशाङ्गुलम् ॥ sahasra-śīrṣā puruṣaḥ sahasrākṣaḥ sahasra-pāt |
sa bhūmiṃ viśvato vṛtvāty atiṣṭhad daśāṅgulam ||
The person has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. Having covered the earth on every side, he stood beyond it by ten fingers. This is Ṛgveda (ऋग्वेद) 10.90.1. The hymn is also carried in other Vedas. The rest is told in prose. Its further Sanskrit is not sat here.
| Word | Grammar | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| sahasra-śīrṣā (सहस्रशीर्षा) | bahuvrīhi, nominative singular | Thousand-headed. |
| puruṣaḥ (पुरुषः) | nominative singular | The person. The man. Here, the person who is the world and more than the world. |
| sahasrākṣaḥ (सहस्राक्षः) | bahuvrīhi, nominative singular | Thousand-eyed. |
| sahasra-pāt (सहस्रपात्) | bahuvrīhi, nominative singular | Thousand-footed. |
| saḥ (सः) | nominative singular | He. Heard sa before bhūmim. |
| bhūmim (भूमिम्) | accusative singular | The earth. |
| viśvataḥ (विश्वतः) | indeclinable | On every side. Heard viśvato. |
| vṛtvā (वृत्वा) | gerund of √vṛ (वृ) | Having covered. Heard vṛtvāty with the next word. |
| ati (अति) | indeclinable | Beyond. |
| atiṣṭhat (अतिष्ठत्) | imperfect, third person singular, of √sthā (स्था) | He stood. Heard atiṣṭhad before a voiced sound. |
| daśāṅgulam (दशाङ्गुलम्) | accusative of extent | By ten fingers. A measure of standing beyond what he has covered. |
नेपालीमा
पुरुषसूक्त ऋग्वेद १०.९० हो। पहिलो ऋचा प्रस्तुत गरिएको छ। हजार शिर, हजार आँखा, हजार पाउ भएको पुरुषले पृथ्वी ढाकेर पनि दश औँला पर उभिन्छ। उसको एक चौथाइ सब प्राणी हुन्। तीन चौथाइ स्वर्गको अमृत हो। देवताले उसैलाई यज्ञ बनाए।
त्यही भजनले वर्ण पुरुषको मुख, बाहु, तिघ्रा र पाउबाट उब्जेको चित्र देखाउँछ। त्यो भजनको चित्र हो। पछिका पुस्तकले त्यसलाई सामाजिक नियम बनाए। यो पृष्ठले चित्रलाई चित्रै राख्छ। नियम सिकाउँदैन।
Where it sits
The Gāyatrī is the next sitting, a single verse from the third maṇḍala. The creation hymn is the previous one.