Lexicon of Rig Veda

Lexicon

of Rig Veda

Three concepts and three their images are closely related: Waters – Rivers – Oceans. Waters is an impersonal figure for Nature, Prakriti, objectifying double principle of Existence-Consciousness (sat-cit), therefore Waters contain in themselves all knowledge and force of Consciousness, deathless infinite Existence and, life-giving, give this existence and consciousness to all that is from highest Sachchidananda to material universe.

Rivers are the streams of Waters, Waters in their movement, an image symbolizing the movement, the mode of activity of existence-consciousness. As there are seven worlds, so there are seven rivers carrying seven laws of work, vrata-s, the laws of the functioning of consciousness and of the world objectifying this consciousness.

Veda speaks about three regions of the worlds measured by three steps of Vishnu, and also about three times by seven rivers, 10.75.1,– i.e. about rivers that flow through each region, Heaven, the mid-world and Earth. In the worlds of Heaven, Waters carry immortality and healing, 1.23.19. “In the waters inside are all healings,” 1.23.20, they carry supramental knowledge: “our cows drink in those divine waters,” 1.23.18; Waters that give hearing the Truth, 3.1.11. However, in the worlds of the Earth, the “four upper rivers of the honey Ocean” (1.62.6) are locked in a rock of our mental consciousness and must be liberated.