Ved Darshan- 107

This epiphany continues with a description of the ascetics’ attire or its lack as if of wind and dust beyond the mundane time-space matrix.

munayo vātaraśanāḥ piśaṅgā vasate malā | vātasyānu dhrājiṃ yanti yad devāso avikṣata ||

Rig Veda 10.136.2

Munayo the munis/ ascetics/ seers vātaraśanāḥ (this word has multiple meanings one being sons of Vātaraśana or a certain class of Gods that perform the Shraddha the word also implies Vayu -air or more precisely a girdle of air as if the ascetics are clothed in a girdle of air- which was later seen as being naked) piśaṅgā the colour of garments of ascetics – made of tree-bark ( red/ brown/ ochre or tawny• colour ) vasate worn wearing malā rags

vātasyānu wind like they subsequently dhrājiṃ rush as if a gust like yanti they travel/ go yad whence/ if devāso god like form avikṣata they enter/ penetrate or settle into

Sayana in his Bhasya says the seers or through their penance become Gods. To paraphrase, the epiphany describes beings that are either ascetics or sons of Gods that partake the worship of pitrs (ancestors) ; ochre and tawny in their radiance though wearing the ochre/ tawny yellow brown vestments of barks or described as wearing the dirt of the earth as their garments. The wind girdled description encapsulating the lightness and non-attachment of their beings that are not trammelled by any external markers, clothes or upadhis and do not exist as they-selves but as authentic beings sans ego sans identities as beings-in-others. Their being elemental to the extent that earth and wind enumerating them places them outside the realm of predication of meaning. They follow the course of the wind, when they have assumed the power/ vision or state of gods or perhaps gods have entered into their vision—or they have penetrated the divine. (contd.)  / DAILY WORLD /

(The writer is a 1993-batch IRS officer who is presently posted in Punjab.)