WRITTEN BY LONDON SWAMINATHAN
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 Date: 24 AUGUST 2019  

British Summer Time uploaded in London – 17-35

Post No. 6928

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Seven in Rig Veda

Seven is the most sacred number for Hindus. Anything holy, they count in seven, whether it is hills, rivers, forests, cities, holy women or holy men to remember (sapta kanya, sapta nadhi, sapta Rishi, sapta mokshapuri, sapta aranya etc). Seven is found in largest number of seals in Indus valley. The Seven Sister seal in the Indus is a famous one. Most of the Hindu temples have Sapt Kanya/ seven women statues in South India. The story of Seven Sisters is there in several parts of the world from Australian aborigines to ancient Greeks.

Mr Dave even identified seven birds in Rig Veda as seven sisters known to Bengalis (Bengalis call these seven birds as seven sisters). Birds in Sanskrit Literature by K.N Dave

Varunan with seven sisters is found in Rik Veda 8-41

Seven rivers of Punjab are mentioned in Rig Veda as Sapta Sindhu.

“Seven to the one-wheeled chariot yoke the Courser ;bearing seven names the single Courser draw it.

Three-naved the wheel is, sound and undecaying, whereon are still resting alhese worlds of being.”- 1-164-2

“The seven who on the seven wheeled car are mounted to have horses, seven in tale, who draw them onward.

Seven sisters utter songs of praise together, in whom the names of the seven cows are treasured.”- 1-164-3

Seven Sisters seal is found in the Indus valley civilisation as well.

The Seven: according to Sayana, the seven solar rays, or seven divisions of the year.

Seven sisters: Probably the seven celestial rivers, which as emblems of fertility may bear the name of cows.

Seven Vedic Metres including Gayatri are mentioned by the poet.

Hymn 1-164

Dirgatamas’ hymn 1-164 is one of the longest hymns the Rig Veda. He talks about various subjects in a coded language with lot of symbolism.

In the hymn, mantra 24 refers to the seven speeches

Mantra 24 points out that this faculty of speech is found only in the human beiges.

Mantra 45 gives information about the divisions of speech. Grammarian Patanjali and others also discussed this in detail.

Hymn 4-58

Patanjali referred to part of this hymn. The four parts of speech are explained here. Patanjali discusses seven cases and the three originating centres of pronunciation.

Hymn 8-59

Some of the most prominent observations of this hymn are as follows:

The ultimate truth is brought forth through the medium of seven-fold speech

These seven folds or divisions of speech are seven sisters of the ultimate truth

Speech protects us through its seven physical and three temporal divisions. And

three chief aspects of speech-behaviour are mental, and intellectual faculties, coupled with the acquired knowledge.

Hymn 10-71

This hymn is most important and is solely devoted to the linguistic observations alone, some of which are as follows:

An initial expression of name is indicative of a wholesome integrated expression of the accumulated ideas in the speaker’s mind. Thus, it originates as a representative of complete statement.

The emotions are desires of the Self are filtered in the mind, from where it takes the shape of words or speech, which is expressed externally with the help of the articulatory forces.

Thus, a word takes its usable form first in one’s mind which is then pronounced from seven places and in different tones.

Speech and language are not only the objects ears and eyes alone; no one can understand it without the help of mind, the sharpness of otherwise of which makes the difference in one’s power of understanding.

With only training and knowledge, we can learn the correct usage of the language and avoid its misuse, generated mostly from our ignorance.

Hymn 10-114

In at least six verses of this hymn, different aspects of linguistic phenomenon have been discussed. In the fourth and fifth verses, the principle of multiple exprepressibility of one and the same truth has been stressed explicitly. The seventh verse declares that the seven fold speech is capable to express all expressible forms.

xxx

Story from Australia:

Seven wandering ancestral heroines of the Dream time, also referred to their aboriginal name KUNGARANKALPA. The complete route of the sisters has been pieced together from stories told about them by different aboriginal clans living along its course. On reaching the southern coast, the seven sisters went in to the sea and then leaped in to the sky. Once in the sky they became the constellation KURIYALA (The Pleiades). Hindus call this six Krithikas. Westerners call this constellation Seven Sisters. This tallies somewhat with Hindu counting One Skanda+looked after by six sisters=seven).

Ancient San Rock paintings in South Africa have seven women as a group.