Mundaka Upanishad : Chapter 1: Section 2 : 2.
06/03/2019
Chapter 1: Section 2.2.
Mantram : 1.
"Mantreshu karmani kavayo yany apasyams tani tretayam bahudha santatani."
Treta means the three Vedas. In the three Vedas—Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda—we will find every mantra is a potential for action. The Mimamsa Shastra is very vigorous in the affirmation of mantras being just instruments in the performance of external sacrifice. Knowledge is the medium for action. After we know something, we do something. We do not merely know something and keep quiet.
So shodhana, or incentive for action, is the potential of every mantra. This is the Mimamsa Shastra, and we are mentioning it in this particular verse. Therefore, the three Vedas are incentives for the performance of further action in the form of ritual and yajna. Treta means three Vedas, and it also means the Treta Yuga.
There are four yugas: Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga. We are in Kali Yuga, the last of the yugas.
Eka eva pura vedah pranavah sarva-vangmayah (S.B. 9.14.48).
In the Krita Yuga there was no Veda, no yajna or sacrifice, no worship, no governmental system, no ruler, no necessity for law and order, etc. It is called the hamsa condition—pure Eternity living on Earth, the Golden Age, the millennium come, as some religions tell us. The Treta Yuga was a descent in the moral order of creation; and then yajnas started, and also the Vedas.
Otherwise Om, or Pranava, alone was the Veda. The three Vedas were not there. Hence, we can take this word ‘treta’ to mean both things: either the commencement of yajnas in the Treta Yuga, or it may mean the three Vedas being the incentive for the performance of yajnas.
Tany acaratha : Please do it.
The Mimamsa tells us : Please do this.
Niyatam : Regularly perform these yajnas.
Satyakamah : If you want the fruit of your good deeds in the form of heavenly experiences, if you want Indra’s glory and to rejoice in heaven, here it is. Come, perform yajnas by the recitation of mantras of the three Vedas.
To be continued ..
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