Rishayah: the Seers of Ancient India

RISHAYAH
THE SEERS OF ANCIENT INDIA

It is said that Bharata is what she is because of the Rishis. Therefore, the culture of India is often called as the culture of the Rishis. The Rishi tradition in India seems to be a stream perennially flowing to enrich the mind and imagination of her common people. So, in India the Rishis have been rightly valuated as supreme. Living a true life was to be learnt from the Rishis.

In a true sense, Rishi is the one through whom the secret words of the Vedas were revealed. The Rishi is the one who had the inner sight to see the Mantra. Sri Aurobind says that a Rishi “sees or discovers an inner truth and puts it into self-effective language - the Mantra.” [The Future Poetry, SABCL, Vol. 9, P. 517]

He is not the individual composer of the hymns but the seer of an eternal truth and an impersonal knowledge. He also hears. He possesses a supernatural faculty of hearing. To his inner audience the divine word came vibrating out of the Infinite. So he is called the hearer of Truth. He is the possessor of great spiritual and occult knowledge, the complete inner knowledge. The Rishis “were seers as well as sages, they were men of vision who saw things in their meditation in images, often symbolic images, which might precede an experience and put it in a concrete form.” So it was possible for the Rishis “to see at once the inner experience and in image its symbolic happenings.” [The Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Vol. 11, P. 12]

It must not be understood that all those who lived in the Vedic age were Rishis, or all the Rishis and common people of that time had attained an all round prosperity – spiritual and material. Rather it has to be understood thus: The Rishis, the seers of the Mantra, devoted to a life of Spirit, discovered a certain line of development beyond the range of sensory perception by means of their strength of self-discipline and achieved a many-sided inner progress. Whatever they achieved by their tapasya they then cast into a veiled language which they called ‘Mantra.

These Rishis of Vedic period were of two types: those who perceived the Mantras directly by the power of their tapas and the others who were incapable of direct perception but had an intense aspiration to go deep into the Mantras perceived by the superior Rishis. Later the sense of the term Rishi got expanded and we come across several types of Rishis mentioned in our Shastras: Shrutarshi, Kandarshi, Taparshi, Satyarshi, Devarshi, Saptarshi, Brahmarshi, Maharshi, Paramarshi, Rajarshi, Janarshi etc. The role of the Rishis as seers is prominent in the Vedic literature, while their role as teachers is emphasized in the epics and Puranas. In the epics we find mention about various categories of these Rishis: the Rishis who were householders, Rishis who never thought of women, Rishis who were hermit dwellers, Rishis who were continuous wanderers, Rishis engaged in priestly duties, Rishis constantly engaged in imparting sacred knowledge to the disciples, Rishis engaged in imparting the tactics of using arms, Rishis who were constantly engaged in tapas etc. When we look at the lives of these Rishis we find that majority of the Rishis were householders. They lived in their hermitages with their families, chanted Vedic hymns, imparted sacred knowledge to the disciples, practiced tapas, performed daily rituals and other sacrifices.

Initially there were seven Rishis: Bhrigu, Vishvamitra, Gautama, Atri, Bharadvaja, Vashishtha and Angiras. These seven Rishis, being the founders of the seven great ancestral lineages, were the progenitors of the entire mankind.

It was by the power of tapas and by living a true life that one was attaining the state of Rishihood. Control over senses, strong will-power, straightforwardness, fearlessness, helping mind, truthfulness, celibacy, forgiveness, love, compassion, hospitality were the main attributes of the Rishis. At the same time they also had some shortcomings. We know from many stories that the Rishis were not free from jealousy, temptation, falsehood, timidity, rigidity, cruelty, retaliation, anger and cursing. But it has to be remembered that the Rishis had enough power to overcome all these shortcomings in a moment. They had the power to curse as well as to grant boons. They had the power of spells, power of divine vision, omniscience, prophecy etc. In this way they were possessors of many powers. And most of the time they used these powers for doing good to the world. They were never destructive by nature, but had the power even to destroy all and to recreate all that was destroyed.

Mainly isolated places in the hilly areas, banks of the rivers, sea coasts, forest regions were the places of the habitation of the Rishis. The purpose of the Rishis in marriage was solely to procreate children and not to satisfy their carnal desires. The girls who married the Rishis also led the life of abstinence.

The Rishis devoted maximum time of their life to self-study, composition of various literary works, imparting knowledge to the disciples, propagating knowledge to the masses and doing tapas for the good of the world.