SOMAHUTI BHARGAVA

SUKTA 4

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1. I call to you the Fire with his strong delights and his splendours of light, Fire who strips all sin from us, the guest of the peoples. He becomes like a supporting friend, he becomes the God who knows all things born in the man with whom are the Gods.¹

2. The Bhrigus worshipping in the session of the Waters set him a twofold Light in the peoples of Man. May he master all planes prevailing vastly. Fire the traveller of the Gods with his rapid horses.

3. As men who would settle in a home bring into it a beloved friend, the Gods have set the Fire in these human peoples. Let him illumine the desire of the billowing nights, let him be one full of discerning mind in the house for the giver of sacrifice.

4. Delightful is his growth as if oneʼs own increase, rapturous is his vision as he gallops burning on his way. He darts about his tongue mid the growths of the forest and tosses his mane like a chariot courser.

5. When my thoughts enjoying him chant his mightiness, he shapes hue of kind as if to our desire. He awakes to knowledge in men that have the ecstasy by the rich diversity of his

¹Or, in all from men to the Gods.

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light; old and outworn he grows young again and again.

6. Like one who thirsts he lifts his light on the forests; his roar is like the cry of waters on their path, he neighs like a chariot war-horse. Black is his trail, burning his heat; he is full of rapture and awakes to knowledge: he is like Father Heaven smiling with his starry spaces.

7. He starts on his journey to bum through all wide earth and moves like a beast that wanders at will and has no keeper; Fire with his blazing light and his black affliction assails the dry trunks with his heat as if he tasted the vastness.

8. Now in our mindʼs return on thy former safe-guarding, our thought has been spoken in the third session of the knowledge. O Fire, give us the treasure with its children; give us a vast and opulent plenitude where the heroes assemble.

9. To the luminous Wise Ones and to him who voices thee, O Fire, be the founder of their growth and expansion, that the Gritsamadas strong with the strength of the Heroes and overcoming the hostile forces may conquer the higher worlds by thy force and take delight of ¹ the secret inner spaces.

¹ Or, win

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SUKTA 5

1. A conscious Priest of the call is born to us; a father is born to his fathers for their safeguard. May we avail to achieve by sacrifice the wealth that is for the victor,¹ and to rein the Horse of swiftness.

2. The seven rays are extended in this leader of sacrifice; there is a divine eighth that carries with it the human. The Priest of the purification takes possession of ² That All.

3. When a man has firmly established this Fire, he echoes the Words of knowledge and comes to³ That: for he embraces all seer-wisdoms as the rim surrounds a wheel.

4. Pure, the Priest of the annunciation is born along with the pure will. The man who knows the laws of his workings that are steadfast for ever, climbs them one by one like branches.

5. The milch-cows come to and cleave to the hue of Light ⁴ of this Priest of the lustration, the Sisters who have gone once

¹ Or, the wealth that has to be conquered, ² Or, travels to (reaches)

³ Or, and comes to know ⁴ Or, the hue of kind

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and again to that Supreme over the three.¹

6. When the sister of the Mother comes to him bringing the yield of the Light, the Priest of the pilgrim-sacrifice rejoices in her advent as a field of barley revels in the rain.

7. Himself for his own confirming let the Priest of the rite create the Priest; let us take joy of the laud and the sacrifice, for then it is complete,² what we have given.³

8. Even as one who has the knowledge let him work out the rite for all the lords of the sacrifice. On thee, O Fire, is this sacrifice that we have made.

SUKTA 6

1. O Fire, mayst thou rejoice in the fuel I bring thee, rejoice in my session of sacrifice. Deeply lend ear to my words.

2. O Fire, who art brought to perfect birth. Child of Energy,

¹ The fourth world, Turiyam above the three, so called in the Rig-veda, turīyam svid.

² Or, for then it is complete, we have moved (on the way),

³ Or, let us take full joy of the laud and the sacrifice; for we have given.

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Impeller of the Horse, we would worship thee with this oblation, we would worship thee with this Word well-spoken.

3. We would wait with our Words on thy joy in the Word; O Treasure-giver, we would wait on the seeker of the Treasure. Let us serve thee, all whose desire is thy service.

4. O Wealth-Lord, Wealth-giver, awake, a seer and a Master of Treasures; put away from us the things that are hostile.

5. For us, O Fire, the Rain of Heaven around us; for us, O Fire, the wealth immovable ;¹ for us, O Fire, the impulsions that bring their thousands!

6. O Messenger, O youngest Power, come at our word for him who aspires to thee and craves for thy safeguard; arrive, O Priest of the call, strong for sacrifice.

7. O Fire, O seer, thou movest within having knowledge of both the Births ;² thou art like a messenger from a friendly people.³

¹ Or, free from all littleness; ² Or, as one who has knowledge between both Births;

³ Or, like a friendly universal messenger.

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8. Come with thy knowledge, O Conscious Fire, and fill us; perform the unbroken order of the sacrifice. Take thy seat on the sacred grass of our altar.

SUKTA 7

1. O Fire, O Youngest Power! Fire of the Bringers, Prince of the Treasure, bring to us a wealth, the best, made all of light and packed with our many desires.

2. Let not the Force that wars against us master the God and the mortal;¹ carry us beyond that hostile power.

3. And so by thee may we plunge and pass beyond all hostile forces as through streams of rushing water.

4. O cleansing Fire, thou art pure and adorable; vast is the beauty of thy light fed with the clarities.

¹ Or, against us, God and mortal, overmaster us;

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5. O Fire of the Bringers, thou art called by¹ our bulls and our heifers and by our eight-footed Kine.²

6. This is the eater of the Tree for whom is poured the running butter of the Light; this is the Desirable, the ancient, the Priest of the call, the Wonderful, the son of Force.

¹ Or, fed with

² Or, by our bulls and by our barren and pregnant kine. Aṣtāpadī literally eight-footed.

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