Dhi (Hindu thought)

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Dhī (Sanskrit: धी) is a Sanskrit word meaning 'understanding', 'reflection', 'religious thought', 'mind', 'design', 'intelligence', 'opinion', 'meditation', 'imagination', 'notion', and 'intellect'.[1] This word is directly connected with the word Vāc (Sanskrit: वाच), meaning Speech, derived from Vac (Sanskrit: वच) meaning, 'to speak'. Dhi is the voiced Vāc or 'Speech', it is the thought-mind or intellect. Dhi also means 'to hold' or 'to place', and indicates the activity of the intellect.[2]

Overview

The natural meaning of Dhi is 'Thought' which corresponds to the Sanskrit word Buddhi which means 'the activity of mind', 'thought', 'understanding' and 'intelligence'.[3] Vedic Sanskrit employs two words Dhi and Brahman for prayerful or meditative contemplation in which context Dhi means 'visionary insight', 'intense thought and reflection', and the word Brahman is derived from the root brh, meaning 'to grow', 'to expand'.[4]

Asteya ('honesty'), Shaucha ('purity'), Indriya-nigrah ('control of senses'), Dhi ('reasoning'), Vidya ('knowledge and learning'), Satya ('truthfulness') and Akrodha ('control of anger').[5]

Application

Dhi, the prefix of Dhimahi and Dhiyo occurring in the

Rig VedaIII.62.10) refers to 'understanding', and its cognate word Buddhi means 'reasoning faculty of the mind', which understanding must be transcended to experience the Ultimate Reality.[6] The word, Dhira, meaning 'calm', denotes the seeker whose intellect is saturated in knowledge which word is the combination of Dhi meaning 'intellect' and ra meaning 'fire' or 'wisdom'.[7]
The Non-Atman i.e. the
Anatman, which is by its nature disagreeable, is the object of the function of Dhi (=buddhi) which reveals the joy (ananda), the nature of the individual consciousness.[8]
Citta refers to the 'thinking principle' and includes 'pranic life forces', to Manas ('mind' or 'sense consciousness'), Ahamkara ('egoity') and Buddhi ('intuitive intelligence'), and Vritti refers to the waves of thought and emotion that ceaselessly arise and Nirodha refers to 'neutralization', 'cessation' or 'control'.[9] The root budh and its derivatives appear in the Vedas in the sense of 'kindling' or 'awakening', the word buddhi appears for the first time in Samkhyayana Brahmana Upanishad. Dhi is derived from dhriti and its cognate didhiti, it also refers to flash of intuition which is beyond all purely sensuous perception.[10] The mental organs are manas ('mind') and hrd ('heart'), and the mental faculties are citta ('thought'), dhi ('mental vision') and kratu ('mental power'). Manas is said to perform the processes indicated by the verbal roots 'cit-, dhi- and man-; dhi requires kratu in actualizing visions.[11]

Connection with Vāc

Dhi refers to 'vision' or 'inspiration which is the exceptional faculty of acquiring a sudden knowledge of transcendent truth or reality', 'the inner light of visionary insight'.

Rig Veda links language not only to thought (manas) but also to vision (dhi), a word from which comes Dhyana meaning 'meditation'.[13]
In the
Sarasvati, the Goddess of Speech, is invoked to grant the gift of Dhi, inspired thought, and thought is linked with Vāc; Sarasvati is also known as the river of inspired thought,[14]

The

Rig Veda X.114.8).[15]

Role of Vāc

The Inspired thought (dhi) that precedes utterance though connected with speech undergoes some modifications while being transformed into speech; the

Rig Veda X.114.8). Vāc is dependent on breath or air; and the Aitareya Brahmana (IV.42.1) states Brahman vai vāk, Vāc is the mother of the Vedas and the Vedas themselves (Shatapatha Brahmana (6.5.3.4).[16]
The Vedas are a form of the ritual and cosmological Vāc (speech). Vāc is presented as consort of
Rta), the mother of the Vedas (vedanam mata), the navel of immortality (Amrita) and therefore Vedas themselves are infinite (Ananta), immortal (amrta) and imperishable (akshita). The Jaiminiya Upanishad tells us that Aum or Om, the essence of all essences, is Vāc.[17] On the human plane the mind precedes speech, and on the cosmic plane Prajapati precedes vāc as the Lord of Thought and Speech, who brings forth vāc to unite with vāc to manifest creation.[18]
Vāc was probably the language commonly spoken by the Vedic people as the language of men.

For the purpose of invoking

Rig Veda
I.12.11) prays:

स नः सत्वान आ भर गायत्रेन नवीयसा |
रयिं वीरवतिमिषम् ||

"May Agni accept the words of praise (adoration) set in newer hymns composed in Gayatri metre and devoutly sung (chanted), (May Agni) accept the oblations made in it (in the prescribed manner) of the offerings rightly earned and belonging to the performers of rites." And, Rishi Ayasya (Rig Veda IX.46.2) praying thus-

परिष्कृतास इन्दवो योषेव पित्र्यावती |
वायुं सोमा असृक्षत ||

informs us that having acquired the knowledge of the highest the learned people (easily) unravel the deeply hidden meaning of the most subtle kind. This means, that each experience of ours is a re-discovery of ourselves, and that in order to really re-discover ourselves so as to understand our true nature we have to firstly awaken our mind, then make the mind speak loudly enough to be heard because

Yajus associated with Brahman. Speech is Sama; it cannot reveal itself for it is as formless as the air on which it rides; it rides upon the streams of air constituting the wind, and words once uttered do not return to the speaker.[21]

Satyakama Jabala acquired the spirit of truthfulness from his mother, and Sanat Kumara taught Narada that Truth has to be sought for realization – "when one indeed understands Truth in its reality one speaks the truth".[23]

While describing the rituals associated with the Ashvamedha yajna, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad we are told that the neighing of the horse, representing the cosmos, is Vāc.[24]

Claim for primacy

A sage of the

Rig Veda (Ch.Up.I.1.2) but the essence of Samaveda, which is the essence of the Rig Veda, is Udgitha which is Aum. He declares that all speech is interwoven on the symbol Aum, in the same manner as the leaves of a tree are woven together on a stalk (Ch.Up.II.23.3). Speech is the fuel of fire which is man (Ch.Up.V.7.1). Mind consists of 'food', the Prana consists of 'water' and speech consists of 'fire' (Ch.Up.VI.6.5). Narada is told by Sanat Kumara that all this is but a name by which one knows, even then speech is greater than name because if there is no speech neither righteousness nor unrighteousness would be known, but surely the mind is greater than speech for mind is the entire world (Ch.Up.VII.2 & 3) establishing the claim of the mind (dhi) for primacy over speech (vāc).[25]

References

  1. ^ "Sanskrit Dictionary". Spokensanskrit.de.
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  21. ^ Ravinder Kumar Soni. The Illumination of Knowledge. GBD Books. pp. 47, 77, 62, 87, 93.
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  23. ^ Ravinder Kumar Soni. In Search of True Happiness. Soni Parivar. p. 14.
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  25. ^ R.D.Ranade (1926). A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. pp. 83, 214, 245.