Purusha Sukta

Purusha suktam (Sanskrit पुरुषसूक्तम्) is an interpolated hymn added

to 10.90 of the Rigveda at a later period.[1] It is dedicated to the
Purusha, the "Cosmic Being".[2]

It is also found in the Shukla Yajurveda Samhita 31.1-16 and Atharva

Veda Samhita 19.6.[3][4]

Slightly different versions of the Sukta appear in different Vedas,[5]

one version of the suktam has 16 verses, 15 in the anuṣṭubh meter,
and the final one in the triṣṭubh meter. Another version of the Sukta
consists of 24 verses with the first 18 mantras designated as the Purva-
narayana and the later portion termed as the Uttara-narayana
probably in honour of Rishi Narayana.

Scholars state that verses of Purusha Sukta are later interpolations to

the Rigveda.[1] One of the reasons given is that it is the only hymn in The first two verses of the
all the Vedas that mentions the four varnas by name - although the Purusha sukta, with Sayana's
word "varṇa" itself is not mentioned in the hymn.[1][6][7] commentary. Page of Max
Müller's Rig-Veda-sanhita, the
Contents Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans
(reprint, London 1974).

The Purusha Sukta gives a description of the spiritual unity of the

universe. It presents the nature of Purusha, or the cosmic being, as both immanent in the manifested world
and yet transcendent to it.[8] From this being, the Sukta holds, the original creative will (identified with
Viswakarma, Hiranyagarbha or Prajapati) proceeds which causes the projection of the universe in space
and time.[9] The Purusha Sukta, in the seventh verse, hints at the organic connectedness of the various
classes of society.

Purusha

The Purusha is defined in verses 2 to 5 of the Sukta. He is described as a being who pervades everything
conscious and unconscious universally. He is poetically depicted as a being with thousand heads, eyes and
legs, enveloping not just the earth, but the entire universe from all sides and transcending it by ten fingers
length - or transcending in all 10 dimensions. All manifestations, in past, present and future, is held to be the
Purusha alone.[10] It is also proclaimed that he transcends his creation. The immanence of the Purusha in
manifestation and yet his transcendence of it is similar to the viewpoint held by panentheists. Finally, his
glory is held to be even greater than the portrayal in this Sukta.

Creation
Verses 5-15 hold the creation of the Rig Veda. Creation is described to have started with the origination of
Virat, or the astral body from the Purusha. In Virat, omnipresent intelligence manifests itself which causes
the appearance of diversity. In the verses following, it is held that Purusha through a sacrifice of himself,
brings forth the avian, forest-dwelling, and domestic animals, the three Vedas, the meters (of the mantras).
Then follows a verse that states that from his mouth, arms, thighs, and feet the four varnas (categories) are
born. This four varna-related verse is controversial and is believed by many scholars, such as Max Müller,
to be a corruption and a medieval or modern era insertion into the text.[1][6]

After the verse, the Sukta states that the moon takes birth from the Purusha's mind and the sun from his
eyes. Indra and Agni descend from his mouth and from his vital breath, air is born. The firmament comes
from his navel, the heavens from his head, the earth from his feet and quarters of space from his ears.[8]
Through this creation, underlying unity of human, cosmic and divine realities is espoused, for all are seen
arising out of same original reality, the Purusha.[11]

Yajna

The Purusha Sukta holds that the world is created by and out of a Yajna or exchange of the Purusha. All
forms of existence are held to be grounded in this primordial yajna. In the seventeenth verse, the concept of
Yajna itself is held to have arisen out of this original sacrifice. In the final verses, yajna is extolled as the
primordial energy ground for all existence.[12]

Context
The Sukta gives an expression to immanence of radical unity in diversity and is therefore, seen as the
foundation of the Vaishnava thought, Bhedabheda school of philosophy and Bhagavata theology.[13]

The concept of the Purusha is from the Samkhya Philosophy which is traced to the Indus Valley period
(OVOP). It seems to be an interpolation into the Rigveda since it is out of character with the other hymns
dedicated to nature gods.[14]

The Purusha Sukta is repeated with some variations in the Atharva Veda (19.6). Sections of it also occur in
the Panchavimsha Brahmana, Vajasaneyi Samhita and the Taittiriya Aranyaka.[15] Among Puranic texts,
the Sukta has been elaborated in the Bhagavata Purana (2.5.35 to 2.6.1-29) and in the Mahabharata
(Mokshadharma Parva 351 and 352).

The Purusha Sukta is mirrored directly in the ancient Zoroastrian texts, found in the Avesta Yasna and the
Pahlavi Denkard. There, it is said that the body of man is in the likeness of the four estates, with priesthood
at the head, warriorship in the hands, husbandry in the belly, and artisanship at the foot.

Authenticity
Many 19th and early 20th century scholars questioned as to when parts or all of Purusha Sukta were
composed, and whether some of these verses were present in the ancient version of Rigveda. They suggest
it was interpolated in post-Vedic era[16] and is a relatively modern origin of Purusha Sukta.[1][6]
 As compared with by far the largest part of the hymns of the Rigveda, the Purusha Sukta has
every character of modernness both in its diction and ideas. I have already observed that the
hymns which we find in this collection (Purusha Sukta) are of very different periods.

— John Muir, [17]

That the Purusha Sukta, considered as a hymn of the Rigveda, is among the latest portions of
that collection, is clearly perceptible from its contents.

— Albrecht Weber, [18]

That remarkable hymn (the Purusha Sukta) is in language, metre, and style, very different from
the rest of the prayers with which it is associated. It has a decidedly more modern tone, and
must have been composed after the Sanskrit language had been refined.

— Henry Thomas Colebrooke, [19]

There can be little doubt, for instance, that the 90th hymn of the 10th book (Purusha Sukta) is
modern both in its character and in its diction. (...) It mentions the three seasons in the order of
the Vasanta, spring; Grishma, summer; and Sarad, autumn; it contains the only passage in the
Rigveda where the four castes are enumerated. The evidence of language for the modern date
of this composition is equally strong. Grishma, for instance, the name for the hot season, does
not occur in any other hymn of the Rigveda; and Vasanta also does not belong to the earliest
vocabulary of the Vedic poets.

— Max Müller, [20]

B. V. Kamesvara Aiyar, another 19th-century scholar, on the other hand, disputed this idea:[10]

The language of this hymn is particularly sweet, rhythmical and polished and this has led to its
being regarded as the product of a later age when the capabilities of the language had been
developed. But the polish may be due to the artistic skill of the particular author, to the nature
of the subject and to several other causes than mere posteriority in time. We might as well say
that Chaucer must have lived centuries after Gower, because the language of the former is so
refined and that of the latter, so rugged. We must at the same time confess that we are unable to
discover any distinct linguistic peculiarity in the hymn which will stamp it as of a later origin.

Scholarship on this and other Vedic topics has moved on decisively since the end of the twentieth century,
especially since the major publications of Brereton & Jamison and many others, and views such as the
above are nowadays of interest only as part of the history of indology, and not as contributions to
contemporary scholarship.

Modern scholarship

The verses about social estates in the Purusha Sukta are considered to belong to the latest layer of the
Rigveda by scholars such as V. Nagarajan, Jamison and Brereton. V. Nagarajan believes that it was an
"interpolation" to give "divine sanction" to an unequal division in society that was in existence at the time
of its composition. He states "The Vedic Hymns had been composed before the Varna scheme was
implemented. The Vedic society was not organized on the basis of varnas. The Purusha Sukta might have
been a later interpolation to secure Vedic sanction for that scheme".[1] Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton,
a professor of Sanskrit and Religious studies, state, "there is no evidence in the Rigveda for an elaborate,
much-subdivided and overarching caste system", and "the varna system seems to be embryonic in the
Rigveda and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality".[21]

See also
Śrī Sūkta
Historical Vedic religion
List of suktas and stutis
Nasadiya Sukta (Hymn of Creation)
Agganna Sutta — a Buddhist critique
Varna (Hinduism) and Caste system in India

Notes
1. David Keane (2016). Caste-based Discrimination in International Human Rights Law (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=yRntCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA26). Routledge. p. 26.
ISBN 9781317169512.
2. Rao, SK Ramachandra. Purusha Sukta - Its meaning, translation, transliteration and
commentary.
3. Griffith, R.T.H. (1899) The Texts of the White Yajurveda. Benares: E.J. Lazarus & Co., pp
260-262
4. Griffith, R.T.H. (1917) The Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, Vol. II (2nd edn).  Benares: E.J.
Lazarus & Co., pp 262-265
5. Purusha Sukta (in Sanskrit). Melkote: Sanskrit Sanshodhan Sansad. 2 October 2011.
6. Raghwan (2009), Discovering the Rigveda A Bracing text for our Times, ISBN 978-
8178357782, pp 77-88
7. "Rgveda" (http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/1_sanskr/1_veda/1_sam/1_rv/rvh1-10u.ht
m). gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de. Retrieved 2018-10-29.
8. The Purusha sukta in Daily Invocations (http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/invoc/in_pura.h
tml) by Swami Krishnananda
9. Krishnananda, Swami. A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India.
Divine Life Society, p. 19
10. Aiyar, B.V. Kamesvara (1898). The Purusha Sukta (https://archive.org/details/purushasukta0
0unkngoog). G.A. Natesan, Madras.
11. Koller, The Indian Way 2006, p. 44.
12. Koller, The Indian Way 2006, pp. 45–47.
13. Haberman, David L. River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern
India (https://books.google.com/books?id=63uDsPPr48gC&dq=purusha+sukta+vedanta&pg
=PA34). University of California Press; 1 edition (September 10, 2006). P. 34.
ISBN 0520247906.
14. S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Vol.  1.
15. Visvanathan, Cosmology and Critique 2011, p. 148.
16. Nagarajan, V (1994). Origins of Hindu social system. South Asia Books. pp. 16, 121.
ISBN 978-81-7192-017-4.
17. J. Muir (1868), Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History of the People of India - their
religion and institutions (https://books.google.com/books?id=HRYAAAAAYAAJ) at Google
Books, 2nd Edition, pp 12
18. Albert Friedrich Weber, Indische Studien, herausg. von (https://books.google.com/books?id=
Bi8JAAAAQAAJ) at Google Books, Volume 10, pp 1-9 with footnotes (in German); For a
translation, see page 14 of Original Sanskrit Texts (https://books.google.com/books?id=HRY
AAAAAYAAJ) at Google Books
19. Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays (https://archive.org/stream/miscellaneouses00unkngoog
#page/n324/mode/2up) Volume 1, WH Allen & Co, London, see footnote at page 309
20. Müller (1859), A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (https://archive.org/stream/historyofanc
ient00mluoft#page/570/mode/2up), Williams & Norgate, London, pp 570-571
21. Jamison, Stephanie; et al. (2014). The Rigveda : The Earliest Religious Poetry of India.
Oxford University Press. pp. 57–58. ISBN 978-0-19-937018-4.

Sources

Koller, John M. (2006), The Indian Way: An Introduction to the Philosophies & Religions of
India (2nd ed.), Pearson Education, ISBN 0131455788
Visvanathan, Meera (2011), "Cosmology and Critique: Charting a History of the Purusha
Sukta" (https://books.google.com/books?id=TGzbPNdtJGsC&pg=PR5), in Roy, Kumkum
(ed.), Insights and Interventions: Essays in Honour of Uma Chakravarti, Delhi: Primus
Books, pp. 143–168, ISBN 978-93-80607-22-1
Rosen, Steven (2006), Essential Hinduism (https://books.google.com/books?id=WuVG8PxK
q_0C), Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0275990060

Further reading
Coomaraswamy, Ananda, Rigveda 10.90.1: aty atiṣṭhad daśāṅgulám, Journal of the
American Oriental Society, vol. 66, no. 2 (1946), 145-161.
Deo, Shankarrao (Member of India's Constituent Assembly and co-author of the Constitution
of India), Upanishadateel daha goshti OR Ten stories from the Upanishads, Continental
Publication, Pune, India, (1988), 41-46.
Swami Amritananda's translation of Sri Rudram and Purushasuktam,, Ramakrishna Mission,
Chennai.
Patrice Lajoye, "Puruṣa", Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée / New Comparative Mythologie, 1,
2013: http://nouvellemythologiecomparee.hautetfort.com/archive/2013/02/03/patrice-lajoye-
purusha.html
Purusha Sookta commentary by Dr. Bannanje Govindacharya.

External links
Translation by Ralph Griffith (https://web.archive.org/web/20100330153527/http://sacred-text
s.com/hin/rigveda/rv10090.htm) at Internet Sacred Text Archive
Ramanuja school interpretation. (https://web.archive.org/web/20091129083523/http://www.r
amanuja.org/purusha/sukta-intro.html)

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