Sarasvat and Brigit (7)
Water, Fire and Illumination continued
In the story of Boand and the well of Nechtan we learn that only Nechtan and his three cup-bearers are able to look upon the waters without their eyes bursting, suggesting that there was a blinding quality to the water which we may associate with light from the sun. There are many connections between eyes and the sun. In two of the Irish and Welsh octopartite man texts (as well the Hindu Great Forest Upanishad), the eye is the part of man that is of the sun and the Irish word súil, 'eye' is cognate with Latin sol, 'sun'.
There is often a correlation between blindness and
'insight' in Irish thought, seen also in the Norse myth of Odin
sacrificing his eye so that he loses some of his ability to see
outwardly in order to have access to a deeper wisdom by drinking of
Mimir's well.
Illumination, therefore, comes from water, the
illuminating and energising power of the sun with its fiery light in
a sense impregnating the waters with its essence.
In many early religions the sun was seen as the
all-knowing 'eye' of the heavens, the eye of the omniscient god.
Hymns in the Rig Veda to the All-Maker Vishvakarman refer to
him as the Father of the Eye, in other words the creator of the sun,
and describe him as wise of heart, the lord of sacred speech, swift
as thought, the one to whom all other creatures come to ask questions. (32)
Oghma of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, the divine patron of poetry and
eloquence is referred to as Oghma Grianainech, Oghma Sun Face,
as well as Oghma Cermait, Honey-Mouthed. Even in the Scottish
Gaelic folk hymns of the Carmina Gadelica, the sun is referred to as
the 'eye of the great God'. The idea seems to be that the all-knowing
eye of the god, the sun, sends its beams into the waters which then
become a source of wisdom and knowledge.
The poet is able to access this insight from water as a passage from The Colloquy of the Two Sages (Imacallam in dá Thuarad) shows us. It tells of Néde finding out about the death of his father when he goes to the seashore 'For the poets deemed that on the brink of the water it was always a place of revelation of (poetic) science.'
There are some parallels in Vedic thought. The Rig Veda, Hymn 10, 177, 1, says "Into the interior of the ocean do the seers see; the masters seek the path of the rays of light." (33)
Another hymn to Mitra-Varuna, the Givers of Rain (V, 63), describes their knowledge as the Sun, the Light which they hide in heaven with the clouds and the rain. The hymn asks for the gods to send rain, which, by implication, must then impart the knowledge it contains to the earthly waters where it gathers.
In Sri Aurobindo's translation of the Hymns to the Sacred Fire, the Fire, Agni, is thrice-born, once of heaven, once of earth and once of the waters:
3. He of the god-mind kindled thee in the Ocean, within the Waters, he of the divine vision kindled thee, O Fire, in the teat of heaven; the mighty ones made thee to grow where thou stoodest in the third kingdom, in the lap of the waters.
This sacred Fire is able to grant the sacrificer or priest inspired wisdom so that it rises and breaks forth from him, being born by speech into the world, in a manner which may remind us of Brigit and the upward movement of fire associated with her name.
O Fire, bestow on him his share in the things of inspired knowledge, in word upon word as it is spoken: he becomes dear to the sun, dear to Fire; upward he breaks with what is born in him, upward with the things that are to be born.
Sukta 46 talks of the fire of knowledge:
Fire carries with his tongue the illumination of wisdom, he carries in his consciousness earth's discoveries of knowledge; him men hold the illuminating and purifying rapturous Priest of the call most strong for sacrifice.
Fire, the king in the Waters, is able to bring human thought into the world:
An exalter of glories, a holder of the riches, a manifester of thinking mind, a guardian of the wine of delight, a shining One, the son of force, the king in the Waters, he grows luminous as he burns up in the front of the dawns. (34)
The Great Forest Upanishad also mentions that when a man dies his breath goes into the wind but his speech goes into fire . (35)
The Breath of the Universe
Wind is another element that relates to poetry and inspiration, (another contradictory variable, or reflections of a greater unity, depending on your perspective). Ideas about this may be seen at the level of language. Old Irish fáth, fáith, "prophecy", Welsh gwawd "song, praise, poetry", Lat vates, as well as Vedic api-vatati "blows"; "inspires" come from Indo-European *wâtu- (inspired utterance) from the root *wet- "to blow, inspire, arouse spiritually" giving an Indo-European metaphor connecting "poetic art" with "blowing, breath, wind" and with the idea of 'in-spiration'. There is also the Old Irish word aí "poetic art" which has a Celtic cognate in Welsh, awen "poetic inspiration", to which awel "breeze" is also related. The root is also that of OIr fa/th, Lat uates, Ved. api-vatati (36).
We know from the medieval Irish and Welsh texts relating to the octopartite man who is made from various substances of the universe, that his breath was made of the wind and a similar idea is found in the Vedic hymn about the giant Purusha, the cosmic sacrifice, whose breath becomes the wind. According to the later Great Forest Upanishad, at death a man's breath returns to the wind and Vac, the goddess of Speech, describes herself as "one who blows like the wind" in the hymn quoted earlier. So there is a cosmic connection between breath and poetry, almost as if poetry, spoken on the breath, is an emanation of the universe, for it is conveyed by the wind of which the breath is part. Perhaps the energetic force emanating from the mouths of the Irish poets may be seen as wind as well as fire, although we should note that fire is enabled by the oxygen of air, and wind energises it.
The elements appearing in the story already mentioned of the poet Carroll O' Daly may be played with to illustrate the concepts surrounding their connections with poetry. Here the folk imagination has described wisdom and poetic art descending in the form of a strange cloud, blown, perhaps, on the wind. The texts of octopartite man state that the mind of man is made from the clouds so there is a correlation here in that this cloud ultimately has the ability to affect and improve the mind of Carroll. (In Hindu tradition the mind is associated with the moon. Since the cloud image is connected with the idea of changeability in the Celtic texts, the moon image may be drawing on something similar.)
Next Carroll sees a fire in the rushes where the cloud appeared - the fire symbolising the fire of inspiration and knowledge - and finally the cow eats the rushes and transforms this cosmic substance into a liquid which, when drunk by Carroll, gives him access to flowing inspiration.
Speech and Truth
As others have noted, Hinduism and its rich literature
is able to shed light on the apparent mysteries of other religions.
The Vedic literature in particular seems to speak to us of a time
when humankind's relationship with the natural world - the elements
and forces, the flora and fauna - was fresher, more immediate and
more respectful than in our own day. It also shows us a time much
nearer to the beginnings of human civilisation when the particular
skills and abilities of homo sapiens were being recognised and
celebrated. Lines such as the following put us in touch with our
earliest history and with the magical possibilities of speech:
"When, O Brihaspati, men first sent forth the earliest
utterances of speech, giving names to things, then was disclosed a
jewel treasured within them, most excellent and pure" . (37)
Speech not only enabled us to communicate, it gave us
access to the external world and the things in that world. It was a
common belief in many ancient and primal cultures that the naming of
something gave one power over it, this belief may have come about
because by speaking a name we are able to conjure up a mental picture
of the person, deity or thing so named and communicate it to others.
It is not surprising, therefore, that a deity's name was seen as
equal to the deity herself.
