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Work #1638 · Early-to-middle

The Secret of the Veda

Sri Aurobindo
1914-16 (Arya serial); 1956 book · English (with Sanskrit citations)
Sanskrit hermeneutical treatise · Integral Yoga / Vedic hermeneutics / Indian philosophical retranslation

Aurobindo's 1956 'Secret of the Veda' — symbolic-philosophical reinterpretation of the Rig Veda against the Sayana / Max Müller readings

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute The Secret of the Veda (Early-to-middle)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Emergent
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Cyclical
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Emergent
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Non-local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Emergent
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Non-local
Observer · Time Instance Multiple
Observer · Space Instance Multiple
Observer · Knowledge Extent Immediate
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Both
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Personal
Observer · Moral Authority Revelation
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Reversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

The Secret of the Veda

1914-1916 serialisation; 1956 posthumous book publication. Aurobindo was 42-44 at original composition.

Space

The Secret of the Veda

Pondicherry, French India — Aurobindo's residence from 1910 until his 1950 death. The Pondicherry community was the institutional context for the Arya monthly publication.

Matter

The Secret of the Veda

Vedic hermeneutical treatise (~500 pages in the Complete Works edition). Form is sustained interpretive essay with extensive engagement with specific Rig Vedic hymns.

Observer

The Secret of the Veda

Early-to-middle Aurobindo. The observer is the philosopher-yogi articulating an alternative to both the orthodox-ritualist and the European-philological readings of the Rig Veda.

Energy

The Secret of the Veda

Hermeneutical-mystical energies. The book combines philological scholarship (Aurobindo read Sanskrit deeply) with the symbolic-spiritual interpretive framework distinctive to his integral-yoga philosophy.

Information

The Secret of the Veda

Single book derived from Arya serial. The discussions of specific gods (Indra, Agni, Soma, Saraswati) and of specific hymns (especially Rig Veda IV.50 — the hymn to Brihaspati that opens the symbolic-cosmological framework) are the central informational material.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

The Secret of the Veda

Foundational Aurobindonian Vedic hermeneutics. Continuously read in the Aurobindonian community and in the broader Hindu-philosophical Vedic interpretation tradition; the symbolic-spiritual reading has been productive in subsequent integral-yoga philosophy but is not the standard scholarly view in Indological-philological scholarship outside the Aurobindonian community.