Talk:Ekam Sat

‘Ekam Sat’ is the popular shortened reference to the celebrated Ṛca 1.164.46, which is known for its proclamation of a unitary universal truth. The mantra is -

indraM mitraM varuNaM agnimAhuHu (1)

atho divyaH sa suparNo garutmAn (2)
ekam sadviprA bahudhA vadanti (3)

agniM yamaM mAtarisvAnamAhuHu (4)

Sri RL Kashyap’s translates it as -

They have called him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni (1)

He is the divine, five-winged Garutman (2)
Sages call the one being in many ways (3)

They speak of Indra, Yama and Matarisvan (4)

While the meaning does not have much of ambiguity, multiple interpretations are given to adopt this mantra as a message of pluralism, acceptance of multiple paths to truth etc. The grammar of this mantra is unambiguous and does not lead to many variations. The primary variations are listed below.

Many Names vs Many Ways

The mention of names like Indra and Mitra leads to a theological interpretation of the mantra, that “God is one but has many names with which seers call Him”. However this is incorrect for multiple reasons -

  1. The notion of a single supreme God is not compatible with the RV Samhita itself. 
  2. ‘ekam sat’ does not mean ‘one God’ literally or metaphorically. 
  3. ‘bahudhA’ clearly indicates the many ways in which the One is being spoken of, and not different names of the One 

Although, name itself is not really concrete in traditions. There are hardly proper nouns, most 'names' are qualitative/verbal descriptions. Devatas are said to love being called indirectly with several different references and names -

  1. Devatas have several different names indicative of their infinite aspects and attributes alluded to by their nAmAvaLis 
  2. They are ‘paroksha priyA’ - devatas like being referred to in many indirect ways indicative of their allegories and qualities 

In this sense, the interpretation of mantra as "many names" of One Supreme Divinity is justified, however this sense of naming is viable only when ‘what is being named’ is understood. Thus a proper understanding of the concept of names in the Vedic sense only affirms that these ‘names’ are only indirect references to the One and not names in the commonsense notion of what a name is. Thus ‘One God given many names’ is clearly a misinterpretation of the mantra.

Truth vs True

‘Ekam sat’ literally means ‘One existent’. Truth or satyam is a derivative of true or existent – both in linguistic and philosophical sense ‘truth’ is ‘truth’ because it is about the ‘true’. More specifically truth is truth because it belongs to the ‘truly existent’. This is the sense in which satyam comes from sat. Thus there is a significant conceptual difference between ‘existent’ and ‘truth’ at the fundamental level, the plane at which a mantra could be interpreted. The word ‘sat’ is not a shortened version of ‘satyam’, it is the origin from which the latter derives.

An illustration of the traditional meaning of ‘sat’ is the word 'satkArya', an argument in metaphysics which is named so because it asserts the eternal existence of the causal principle of creation. Best illustration is sat of sat-chit-ananda which is translated as pure existence. Thus the word 'sat' is more akin to 'existential' (and True by that virtue), and ‘Ekam sat’ means the one principle or essence of existence, more clearly the ‘one which is substratum of all existence’. It means neither ‘One true’ nor ‘One truth’ nor ‘One God’

The meaning of 'sat' leads us to the different vidyas of Upanishads, each of which asserts one of the various cosmic principles like light, sky, sound as the true nature of the essence of the universe and lays down the path to realizing the absolute nature of the world. Thus this mantra is not mere acknowledgement of multiplicity of divinity, but shows how the notion of samhita as theological and vedanta as philosophical is not entirely true. This mantra is essentially an assertion of the convergence of those diverse vidyas. One is left wondering whether this samhita portion is a summary of the diversity of Upanishadic vidyas or whether Upanishads are the summary of Samhita.

Anthropomorphism

There is a valid question against the above analysis - ‘what is wrong with an anthropomorphic interpretation of the mantra’? The veda-purANa-Agama literature has several themes of macranthropy, and thus interpreting the mantra in terms of divine-persons and their names cannot be called wrong. However, such anthropomorphic representation can only be accepted when it is consistent with the imagery and semantics of Vedic mantra SAstra. If ‘Ekam Sat’ is interpreted as the cosmic being or the single True-existence of the universe, it is an internally consistent interpretation. Gender becomes a part of imagery, hence only metaphorically significant. However the different devatas cannot be different names of the one cosmic being for they are all simultaneous truths of the universe. This proposition can be valid only when each devata is a reference to the same cosmic being, and not merely a part or aspect or subordinated being. Which is why the notion of ‘substratum of existence’ is important to understand even for an anthropomorphic interpretation.