The wakefulness

The wakefulness the Upaniṣads speak of (and the Ṛgveda before them) is a state opposed, not to sleep, but to another kind of wakefulness—inattentive, inert, automatic. Awakening means rousing oneself from that kind of wakefulness, as from a vapid dream. Philosophers have not regarded this swerve within the mind as worthy of consideration, but it became the focus of thought in one place and in one period: in India, in the time between the Veda and the Buddha—and then reverberated unremittingly through all the centuries thereafter.

The first reference, in the Ṛgveda, was clear, blunt: “The gods seek someone who crushes soma; they do not need sleep; tireless, they set off on journeys.” Even if men cannot say what “journeys” the gods endlessly devote themselves to, their duty is clearly indicated: to remain alert and, with their labor, to prepare the intoxicating drug.

But what is the relationship between the Buddha and the Veda? It is a difficult, delicate, and intricate question. However much we may emphasize their opposing positions, there remains a vast, obscure common background on which every contrast is laid out. We can see this background in the name of the Buddha himself, in the verb budh-, “to awaken,” “to pay attention.” The primacy of awakening over every other mental action was not an innovation of the Buddha, who simply offered a version of it that was both radical and by and large destructive of all that had gone before. The concern for awakening and its centrality had always been present in the Vedic texts.

Roberto Classo
Ardor