Browsing the Internet, I came across multiple threads discussing “Vedic Astronomy,” claiming that “Rig Veda describes Sun Orbit and attraction of planets.” Several stanzas of Rig Veda (10.22.14, 10.149.1, 1.164.13, 1.35.9) are usually quoted to support this claim. I would like to demonstrate that the “translation” of the Rig Veda hymn 1.35.9 which is repeated and re-posted across various sites and blogs:

“The sun moves in its own orbit but holding earth and other heavenly bodies in a manner that they do not collide with each other through force of attraction.”

is false and misleading.

I have just finished studying this hymn and can recite most of it by heart so I was stunned by this “translation” which has nothing to do with the original Vedic text. If you have the desire, patience and a bit of spare time I intend to demonstrate why it is a falsification and a hoax.

The stanza 1.35.9 is important because it is an essential part of the upanayana ceremony (for Vaishya). The exact text of this stanza (with accents) is as follows:

हिर॑ण्यपाणिः सवि॒ता विच॑र्षणिरु॒भे द्यावा॑पृथि॒वी अ॒न्तरी॑यते 

अपामी॑वां॒ बाध॑ते॒ वेति॒ सूर्य॑म॒भि कृ॒ष्णेन॒ रज॑सा॒ द्यामृ॑णोति

in the  IAST transliteration:

híraṇyapāṇiḥ savitā́ vícarṣaṇir ubhé dyā́vāpr̥thivī́ antár īyate 

ápā́mīvām bā́dhate véti sū́ryam abhí kr̥ṣṇéna rájasā dyā́m r̥ṇoti 

Padapatha (with joining sandhi [H1]  and accents removed) transliteration is:

hiraṇya-pāṇiḥ ǀ savitā ǀ vi-carṣaṇiḥ ǀ ubhe ǀ dyāvāpṛthivī ǀ antaḥ ǀ īyate ǀ

apa ǀ amīvām ǀ bādhate ǀ veti ǀ sūryam ǀ abhi ǀ kṛṣṇena ǀ rajasā ǀ dyām ǀ ṛṇoti ǁ

Now we come to the most important part of translating these two lines. Some of Indian readers may exclaim at this point “Never read translations of Vedas by Western scholars! They make mistakes because in Sanskrit a single word has multiple meaning” so I invite you to join the quest and follow the translation procedure step by step.

First of all, we need to separate the two processes “translation” and “interpretation”.

The translator’s goal is to faithfully capture the essence of the original text, ensuring that the translated version maintains the same grammatical structure and literal meaning as the source. It involves a meticulous process of understanding the grammar, syntax, and nuances of both the source language and the target language. In our case this task can be quite challenging because we are dealing with ancient texts like the Rig Veda, which was originally composed in a language known as “Vedic,” separated from our times by at least 3500 years.

Interpretation involves the analysis and explanation of the meaning behind the text. While translation focuses on conveying the literal meaning, interpretation aims to uncover the underlying messages, symbolism, and cultural significance within a given piece of work.

Now to our translation of 1.35.9.

Since Russian in many ways preserves the ancient Indo-European and Vedic grammar (having similar declension and conjugation patterns), we shall analyse the text using the method of questioning used in teaching Russian grammar at school.

The first important step is to determine the Actor or the Subject of the sentence. It is not always easy in some stanzas but, fortunately, in our case it is straightforward. We ask the question WHO? The obvious answer is savitā. By its ending –ā we deduce that this is Nominative case, singular, masculine from the nominal base savitṛ-. The base ending tṛ- tells us that it is an agent noun or ‘performer/doer’ . Taking this ending off we get the base savi– and further taking off the linking vowel we arrive to the bare root sau-/sav-. By applying backwards the vṛddhi  phonetic rule we come to the elementary verbal root sū-. It is one of the most fundamental Vedic roots meaning ‘to set in motion, urge, impel, vivify, create, produce’. This root makes such important words as sūrya ‘the Sun’, sūnu m. ‘a son, child, offspring’ and many others.

Putting it all together as savitṛ- we confidently establish the meaning as ‘one who sets in motion, urges, impels, vivifies, creates, produces’. This agrees well with the character of the Sun or a solar deity.

The next question is WHAT savitā? There are two adjectives coordinated with savitā in Nominative case, singular, masculine (case ending –ḥ) describing his qualities: hiraṇya-pāṇiḥ and vi-carṣaṇiḥ.

The first one is a compound with the first component hiraṇya– ‘gold; golden, made of gold’ and the second is pāṇi– ‘hand’ (originally *palni related to Gk. παλάμη; Lat. palma; Angl.Sax. folm). The compound is thus confidently translated as ‘golden-handed’.

The next word vi-carṣaṇiḥ is somewhat more challenging. Taking off the case ending we get the base ví-carṣaṇi-, removing the prefix vi- we obtain the adjective carṣaṇi– deriving from the verbal root kṛṣ- with the central meaning ‘to drag, pull; make furrows, plough’ (the initial c is a palatalised k). Following the ancient Indian grammarian Yāska this word is to be translated as ‘ploughing, cultivating’ meaning more broadly ‘busy doing something, active’. Notably, this word sounds in tune with the verb vi-car- with the cardinal meaning ‘move swiftly, rove , ramble about or through, traverse’ giving an additional feeling of swift motion. The allusion to ploughing and being busy may give a clue why this stanza was specifically chosen for Vaishya in upanayana ceremony. Furthermore, in Vedic there is a plural noun carṣaṇi ‘cultivators (opposed to nomads)’, men, people, race’ meaning the five peoples (páñca carṣaṇī́ḥ ‘five peoples’ in RV 5.86.2). There is yet another possible explanation. Rig Veda has been passed orally for many generations before it was written down. Although the priests did their best to transfer it on as precisely as possible we cannot exclude chances of mispronunciation or mistake. There is a verb cakṣ– ‘to see, to observe’ and its prefixed form vicakṣ– ‘to see distinctly, view’. Perhaps we should read this problematic word as vi-cakṣaṇiḥ meaning ‘seeing, observing’. This agrees with the character of Savitṛ- as ‘overseeing all living creatures’.

We can now translate the Actor/Subject hiraṇya-pāṇiḥ ǀ savitā ǀ vi-carṣaṇiḥ as ‘golden-handed, busily acting Savitr’ also keeping in mind the intricate (and probably intentional) association of vi-carṣaṇiḥ with swiftness and also with ‘cultivators (opposed to nomads)’, men, people, race’.

Next comes the question WHAT DOES HE DO? To answer it we need to look for all verbs in the stanza. We easily identify four verbs īyate, bā́dhate, véti and ṛṇoti. They all have Present Tense, 3 person, singular (he/she/it) endings -te/-ti so we are sure that they all relate to savitā. Let us go though them one by one.

(1) īyate is the intensive form of the verb i- ‘to go quickly or repeatedly, to come, wander, run, spread, get about ‘. This matches the character of Savitr/Sun.

(2) bādhate is a form of the root bādh– with the Vedic meaning ‘to press, force, drive away, repel, remove’.

(3) veti is a form of the root vī– ‘to set in motion, arouse, excite, impel; to go, approach’.

(4) ṛṇoti is a form of the root ṛ- ‘to go, move, rise, tend upwards; to go towards, meet with, fall upon or into, reach, obtain’.

Combining the answers to the questions WHO? and DOING WHAT? we form the back-bone structure of our translation:

golden-handed, busily acting (or overseeing?) Savitr (1) goes quickly, traverses (somewhere), (2) drives away/repels (something), (3) sets in motion, arouses, impels (something), (4) rises, goes (upon or towards something or somewhere).

We only need to fill in the missing bits by asking secondary questions.

  1. GOES WHERE? ubhe ǀ dyāvāpṛthivī ǀ antaḥ where ubhe is an Accusative dual form of ubha both (compare Russian oba, obe ‘both’); dyāvāpṛthivī is a “dvanda” compound made of words dyāvā ‘heaven’ + pṛthivī ‘the earth or wide world’ also Accusative dual; final word antaḥ/antar means ‘between’. The answer is ‘going/traversing between both heaven and earth’.
  2. REPELLS WHAT? apa ǀ amīvām where apa is ‘away, off’ and amīvām is an Accusative plural form of amīva- ‘distress, terror, fright; tormenting spirit, demon; affliction, disease’. The answer is ‘drives away/repels distresses/diseases’.
  3. SETS IN MOTION, AROUSES WHAT? sūryam Accusative of sūrya ‘Surya/Sun’. The answer is ‘sets in motion/arouses Surya/Sun’.
  4. REACHES WHAT? or RISES/ GOES WHERE? abhi ǀ kṛṣṇena ǀ rajasā ǀ dyām where abhi is ‘into, over, upon; to, towards, in the direction of, against, by’; kṛṣṇena is the Instrumental (here expressing Locative) of kṛṣṇa ‘dark, black’, rajasā is Instrumental (expressing Locative) of rajas ‘region (the intermediate sphere of vapour or mist, region of clouds)’ and the Accusative dyām of div, dyu ‘heaven, the sky’. The words kṛṣṇena rajasā are treated grammatically as a pair but they form a single entity meaning ‘dark + (intermediate) region’ so we translate it as a singular. The answer is ‘into/over/upon the dark (intermediate) region of the sky’.

Now we can assemble all the elements and get the whole translation (still in need of polishing):

Golden-handed, busily acting (or overseeing?) Savitr goes/traverses quickly/repeatedly between both heaven and earth, (he) wards off/repels distresses/diseases, (he) incites/arouses Surya/Sun, (he) reaches/rises/goes towards the sky/heaven over/upon/towards the dark-intermediate-region.

Lets us now compare our raw translation with that of Sri Aurobindo

The golden-handed all-seeing Savitri  is moved between both Heaven and Earth ; {he} drives away grief, carries the Sun , goes by the dark Mid-world  to Heaven .

As you can see both texts are similar in sense. The one by Sri Aurobindo is more concise but the key-words have references to the dictionary providing additional details which reflect his vision and interpretative of the Vedas. The obvious difference, however, is the translation of the obscure word vi-carṣaṇiḥ. According to Mayrhofer “The existence of an adjective carṣaṇiḥ “mobile, active, active” [….] is entirely doubtful” he only accepts the meaning ‘people, race. tribe’. There is a very similarly sounding adjective  vicakṣaṇa ‘conspicuous, visible, bright, radiant, splendid; clear-sighted (lit. and fig.), sagacious, clever, wise’ from the verb vi-cakṣ ‘to see distinctly, view, look at, perceive, regard’. Its present tense, 3 person sing. form is vi-caṣṭe ‘(he) sees distinctly, views, looks at’ so, apparently, in the Sri Aurobindo’s translation this word was understood in this sense because Savitr in other stanza is described as overseeing all creatures (RV 1.35.2 “ā́ devó yāti bhúvanāni páśyan” ‘drives god Savitr overseeing living creatures’). There is no way we can translate this word exactly and it has to be interpreted in some way. So, for example, in the Russian translation by Elizarenkova this passage is interpreted as “Golden-armed Savitar, ruler of the human race.” In Geldner’s German translation this word is translated as “der Ausgezeichnete” ‘magnificent, beautiful’.

Here we come to the crucial point of interpretation. One can interpret this stanza meaning in many ways. If you practice the traditional Hinduism, you will interpret Savitr as one of the deities of the Vedic pantheon, and one of the Adityas, i.e., offspring of the Vedic deity Aditi. If you share the ideas of Dayanand Saraswati you will view Savitr as another word for “sun” and as one of the manifestations of The Supreme Lord. In either case, your understanding/interpretation may be different, but this does not mean that you may freely alter the grammar, syntax, and other fundamental elements of the literal translation. Therefore, the cosmic “translation” from which we started our discussion is totally false and misleading.

I hope that you enjoyed the voyage to the awesome world of Rig Veda. Please feel free to comment or ask questions.

 [H1]fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the change of sounds due to neighbouring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words.