VEDAVYAS - THE VERSATILE GENIUS

Vyasa – The Versatile Genius
- Sw. Chinmayananda

Vyasa is a great poet-philosopher and has become an institution representing the Hindu heritage. No scriptural study or Vedic chanting has ever begun without prostrations unto this greatest of seers. If we must attribute Hinduism to any single individual there is none else to whom we can most appropriately attribute its present existence and past glories except to Veda Vyasa.
It is believed that Vyasa was born as the son of a Brahmin rishi and fisherwoman. The story need not be taken as a literally historical incident, but it may be considered symbolically significant. The father, the Brahmin, represents sattwa, the creative wisdom born out of a life of study and contemplation, while the fisherwoman represents a daring adventurousness with which she has to sail forth day by day in her frail craft into the deep sea, where she captures the unseen food and hauls it to the shore, where dwellers can easily get their nourishment at their own door steps. Similarly, on the shore of Vedic knowledge, Vyasa sailed out to gather the best that it contained, and bring us the nutritive essence of Hinduism. In short, Vyasa was not merely a man of realization but was also one who had the spirit of adventure to serve his generation throughout his life. He was a revivalist who contributed the maximum to the Hindu Renaissance of that critical era. In fact, he was the most daring religious revolutionary that ever appeared on the horizon of Hindu cultural history.
Vyasa was one of the sages who had a vast vision of the past and the great imagination to see the future both of which he brought forth in order to tackle the problems of decadence in his immediate present. Had he declared these re-statements of Truth as his own original ideas, it would have been difficult for him to persuade his generation to follow them. It is the character of the Hindus that they will not readily accept a new idea or ideal unless those new idea have the sanction of antiquity and the authority of the ancient rishies.
The versatile genius of Vyasa never left anything that he touched without raising it to the most sublime heights of perfection through his rare capacity of composing incomparable poetry and unique diction. Creating innovations both in thought and form, he was a brilliant philosopher, a man of consummate wisdom, and a genius in worldly knowledge. At one time in the place, another time at the battle field, at still another time in Badrinath, and again among the snow peaks of Himalayas, Sri Vyasa is the embodiment of what is best in the Hindu tradition. Yet, Vyasa’s philosophical thought is not sectarian or creedal. It is not a philosophy only for Hindus. It is universal in its application and is addressed to all mankind.