MANDALA SIX

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BHARADWAJA BARHASPATYA

SUKTA 1

1. O potent Fire, thou wert the first thinker of this thought and the Priest of the call. O Male, thou hast created everywhere around thee a force invulnerable to overpower every force.

2. And now strong for sacrifice, thou hast taken thy session in the seat of aspiration, one aspired to, a flamen of the call, an imparter of the impulse. Men, building the godheads, have grown conscious of thee, the chief and first, and followed to a mighty treasure.

3. In thee awake, they followed after the Treasure as in the wake of one who walks on a path with many possessions, in the wake of the vast glowing-visioned embodied Fire that casts its light always and for ever.

4. Travellers with surrender to the plane of the godhead, seekers of inspired knowledge, they won an inviolate inspiration, they held the sacrificial Names and had delight in thy happy vision.

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5. The peoples increase thee on the earth; both kinds of riches of men increase thee. O Fire, our pilot through the battle, thou art the deliverer of whom we must know, ever a father and mother, to human beings.

6. Dear and servable is this Fire in men; a rapturous Priest of the call has taken up his session, strong for sacrifice. Pressing the knee may we come to thee with obeisance of surrender when thou flamest alight in the house.

7. O Fire, we desire thee, the god to whom must rise our cry, we the right thinkers, the seekers of bliss, the builders of the godheads. O Fire, shining with light thou leadest men through the vast luminous world of heaven.

8. To the seer, the Master of creatures who rules over the eternal generations of peoples, the Smiter, the Bull of those that see, the mover to the journey beyond who drives us, the purifying Flame, the Power in the sacrifice. Fire the Regent of the Treasures!

9. O Fire, the mortal has done his sacrifice and achieved his labour who has worked out the gift of the oblation with the

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fuel of thy flame and wholly learned the way of the offering by his prostrations of surrender; he lives in thy guard and holds in himself all desirable

things.

10. O Fire, O son of Force, may we offer to thy greatness that which is great, worshipping thee with the obeisance and the fuel and the offering, the altar and the word and the utterance. For we would work and strive in thy happy right thinking, O Fire.

11. O thou who art filled with inspiration and a passer of barriers, O thou who has extended earth and heaven by the wideness of thy light and thy inspired discoveries of knowledge, shine wider yet in us with thy large and solid and opulent amassings, O Fire.

12. O Prince of Riches, fix always in us that in which are the Gods, settle here many herds for the begotten son. In us may there be the happy things of true inspiration and the multitude of the large impulsions from which evil is far.

13. O King, O Fire, let me enjoy by thee and thy princehood of the riches many riches in many ways; for, O Fire of many blessings, there are many treasures for thy worshipper in thee, the King.

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SUKTA 2

1. O Fire, thou travellest like a friend to the glory where is our home. O wide-seeing Prince of the Treasure, thou nurturest our inspiration and our growth.

2. Men who see aspire to thee with the word and the sacrifice. To thee comes the all-seeing Horse that crosses the mid-world, the Horse that no wolf tears.

3. The Men of Heaven with a single joy set thee alight to be the eye of intuition of the sacrifice when this human being, this seeker of bliss, casts his offering in the pilgrim-rite.

4. The mortal should grow in riches who achieves the work by the Thought for thee, the great giver; he is in the keeping of the Vast Heaven and crosses beyond the hostile powers and their evil.

5. O Fire, when mortal man arrives by the fuel of thy flame to the way of the oblation and the sharpening of thy intensities, he increases his branching house, his house of the hundred of life.

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6. The smoke from thy blaze journeys and in heaven is outstretched brilliant-white. O purifying Fire, thou shinest with a flame like the light of the sun.

7. Now art thou here in men, one to be aspired to and a beloved guest; for thou art like one delightful and adorable in the city and as if our son and a traveller of the triple world.

8. O Fire, thou art driven by the will in our gated house like a horse apt for our work; thou art by thy nature like a far-spreading mansion and like a galloper of winding ways and a little child.

9. O Fire, thou art like a beast in thy pasture and devourest even the unfallen things; the lustres of thy blaze tear to pieces the woodlands, O ageless Flame.

10. O Fire, thou comest a Priest of the call into the house of men that do the Rite of the Path. Make us complete in the treasure, O Master of men! O Angiras flame-seer, rejoice in our oblation.

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11. O Fire, O friendly Light, O Godhead, turn to the Godheads, mayst thou speak for us the true thought of Earth and Heaven; move to the peace and the happy abode and the men of Heaven. Let us pass beyond the foe and the sin and the stumbling; let us pass beyond these things, pass in thy keeping through them safe.

SUKTA 3

1. The mortal who longs for the Godhead shall take up his home with thee, O Fire, he is born into the Truth and a guardian of the Truth and comes to thy wide Light, — he in whom thou being Varuna takest with Mitra a common delight and thou guardest that mortal, O God, by thy casting away from him of evil.

2. He has sacrificed with sacrifices, he has achieved his labour by his works, he has given to the Fire whose boons grew ever in opulence. And so there befalls him not the turning away of the Glorious Ones; evil comes not to him nor the insolence of the adversary.

3. Faultless is thy seeing like the sunʼs; terrible marches thy thought when blazing with light thou neighest aloud like a

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force of battle. This Fire was born in the pleasant woodland and is a rapturous dweller somewhere in the night.

4. Fiery-sharp is his march and great his body, — he is like a horse that eats and champs with his mouth: he casts his tongue like an axe to every side, like a smelter he melts the log that he burns.

5. He sets like an archer his shaft for the shooting, he sharpens his powers of light like an edge of steel. He is the traveller of the night with rich rapid movements; he has thighs of swift motion and is like a bird that settles on a tree.

6. This friendly Light is like a singer of the word and clothes himself with the Rays, he rhapsodises with his flame. This is the shining One who journeys by night and by day to the Gods, the shining Immortal who journeys through the day to the Gods.

7. The cry of him is like the voice of ordaining Heaven;¹ he is the shining Bull that bellows aloud in the growths of the forest. He goes with his light and his race and his running and fills Earth and Heaven with his riches; they are like wives happy in their spouse.

¹ Or, the cry of him in his worship of sacrifice is like the voice of Heaven;

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8. He flashes like the lightning with his own proper strength, his own founding and helpful illuminations. As if heavenʼs craftsman he has fashioned the army of the Life-Gods and lightens ablaze in his exultant speed.

SUKTA 4

1. O Son of Force, O Priest of the call, even as always in manʼs forming of the godhead thou sacrificest with his sacrifices, sacrifice so for us to the Gods today, O Fire, an equal power to equal powers, one who desires to the Gods who desire.

2. He is wide in his light like a seer of the Day; he is the one we must know and founds an adorable joy. In him is universal life, he is the Immortal in mortals; he is the Waker in the Dawn, our Guest, the Godhead who knows all births that are.

3. The heavens seem to praise his giant might; he is robed in lustre and brilliant like the Sun. Ageless the purifying Fire moves abroad and cuts down even the ancient things of the Devourer.¹

¹ Or, the enjoyer.

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4. O Son, thou art the speaker, thy food is thy seat; Fire from his very birth has made his food the field of his race. O Strength-getter, found strength in us! Thou conquerest like a king and thy, dwelling is within, there where there comes not any render.

5. He eats his food and sharpens his sword of defence; he is like the Life-God a master of kingdoms and passes beyond the nights. O Fire, may we pierce through the foe, O thou who breakest like a galloping steed all that battle against thy appointings, hurting around thee our hurters as they fall upon us.

6. O Fire, thou art like the Sun with thy splendid illuminations and hast wide extended Earth and Heaven with thy light. Smeared with lustre,¹ rich in brilliance he shepherds away the darkness and like a son of the desire of the Gods rushes onward in his march.

7. We have chosen thee most rapturous with the flaming lights of thy illuminations; O Fire, hear for us that which is great. O Godhead of Fire, the most strong Gods fill thee like Indra with might and like the Life-God with riches.

¹ Or, anointed with light,

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8. O Fire, thou journeyest happily to the treasures by paths where the wolf rends not, and carriest us beyond all evils. These high things thou givest to the luminous wise; thou lavishest the bliss on him who voices thee with the word. May we revel in rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 5

1. I call to you by my thoughts, Fire, the youngest of the gods in whose words is no bale, the Youth, the Son of Force. He is a mind of the knowledge free from all that hurts; his gifts are many and he journeys to the riches where all boons are.

2. O Priest of the call. Priest with thy many flame-forces,¹ in the night and in the light the Lords of sacrifice cast on thee their treasures. As in earth are founded all the worlds, they founded all happinesses in the purifying Fire.

3. Thou art the Ancient of Days and hast taken thy seat in these peoples and becomest by the will their charioteer of desirable things. O Conscient, O thou who knowest all births that are, thou walkest wide for thy worshipper in unbroken order to the Treasures.

¹ Or, forms of flame,

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4. O Fire, O friendly Light, O most burning Power, the enemy who is hidden and would destroy us, the enemy who is within us and would conquer, leap fiery-forceful with thy affliction of flame and consume him with thy male and ageless fires.

5. When man gives to thee with the sacrifice and the fuel and with his spoken words and his chants of illumination, he becomes, O Immortal, O Son of Force, a mind of knowledge among mortals and shines with the riches and inspiration and light.

6. Missioned create that swiftly, O Fire. Force is thine, resist with thy force our confronters. When revealed by thy lights, thou art formulated by our words, rejoice in the far-sounding thought of thy adorer.

7. O Fire, may we possess in thy guard that high desire, — possess, O Lord of the treasures, that Treasure and its heroes, possess replenishing thee thy plenitude, possess, O ageless Fire, thy ageless light.

SUKTA 6

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1. Man turns with a new sacrifice to the Son of Force when he desires the Way and the guard. He arrives in his journeyings to the heavenly Priest of the call, the Priest shining with light, but black is his march through the forests he tears.

2. He grows white and thunderous, he stands in a luminous world; he is most young with his imperishable clamouring fires. This is he that makes pure and is full of his multitudes and, even as he devours, goes after the things that are many, the things that are wide.

3. O Fire, thy lights range wind-impelled on every side, pure as thou art pure. Many things they violate and break in their rashness and enjoy the forests of their pleasure, heavenly lights, seers of the ninefold-ray.

4. O Fire of the burning purities, pure and flaming-bright are these thy horses that loosed to the gallop raze the earth. Then wide is thy wandering and its light shines far as it drives them up to the dappled Motherʼs heights.

5. Then the tongue of the Bull leaps constantly like the thunder-bolt loosed of the God who fights for the herds of the Light. The destruction of Fire is like the charge of a hero; he is terrible and irresistible, he hews the forests asunder.

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6. Thou hast spread out the earthly speed-ranges by thy light and the violence of thy mighty scourge. Repel by thy forceful powers all dangerous things; turn to conquer those who would conquer us, shatter our confronters.

7. O rich in thy brilliances. Fire with thy manifold luminous mights, rivet to us the rich and various treasure, most richly diverse, that awakens us to knowledge and founds our expanding growth. O delightful God, to him who voices thee with delightful words the vast delightful wealth and its many hero-keepers!

SUKTA 7

1. Head of heaven and traveller of the earth a universal Power was born to us in the Truth, a Guest of men, a seer and absolute King; the Gods brought to birth universal Fire and made him in the mouth a vessel of the oblation.

2. All they together came to him, a navel knot of sacrifice, a house of riches, a mighty point of call in the battle. Charioteer of the Works of the way, eye of intuition of the sacrifice, the Gods brought to birth the universal Godhead.

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3. O Fire, from thee is born the Seer, the Horse and of thee are the Heroes whose might overcomes the adversary. O King, O universal Power, found in us the desirable treasures.

4. O Immortal, all the Gods come together to thee in thy birth as to a new-born child. O universal Power, they travelled to immortality by the works of thy will when thou leapedst alight from the Father and Mother.

5. O Fire, universal Godhead, none could do violence to the laws of thy mighty workings because even in thy birth in the lap of the Father and the Mother thou hast discovered the light of intuition of the Days in manifested things.¹

6. The heights of heaven were measured into form by the eye of this universal Force, they were shaped by the intuition of the Immortal. All the worlds are upon his head; the seven far-flowing rivers climbed from him like branches.

7. The Universal mighty of will measured into form the kingdom of middle space; a Seer, he shaped the luminous planes of Heaven. He has spread around us all these worlds; he is the guardian of immortality and its indomitable defender.

¹ Or, in all sorts of knowledge.

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SUKTA 8

1. Now have I spoken aloud the force of the brilliant Male who fills the world, the discoveries of knowledge of the god who knows all things that are. A new and pure and beautiful thought is streaming like sacramental wine to Fire, the universal Godhead.

2. Fire is the guardian of the laws of all workings and he kept safe the laws of his action and motion even in the moment of his birth in the supreme ether. The Universal mighty of will measured into shape the middle world and touched heaven with his greatness.

3. The Wonderful, the Friend propped up earth and heaven and made the darkness a disappearing thing by the Light. He rolled out the two minds like skins; the Universal assumed every masculine might.

4. The Great Ones seized him in the lap of the waters and the Peoples came to the King with whom is the illumining Word. Messenger of the luminous Sun, Life that expands in the Mother brought Fire the universal Godhead from the supreme Beyond.

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5. Found for those who from age to age speak the word that is new, the word that is a discovery of knowledge, O Fire, their glorious treasure; but cut him in twain who is a voice of evil, cast him low by thy force of light like a tree with the thunderbolt, imperishable¹ king.

6. O Fire, uphold in our masters of the treasure their indestructible² hero-force and unbending might of battle. O universal Fire, may we by thy safe keepings conquer the plenitude of the hundreds and the plenitude of the thousands.

7. O our impeller,³ holder of the triple session, shield our luminous seers with thy indomitable guardian fires. Keep safe, O Fire, the army of those who have given, O Universal, hearing our hymn to thee deliver to its forward march.

SUKTA 9

1. A day that is black and a day that is argent bright, two worlds revolve in their different paths by forces that we must know. Fire, the universal Godhead, like a king that comes to birth has thrust the Darknesses down by the Light.

¹ Or, ageless ² Or, imaging ³ Or, O doer of sacrifice,

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2. I know not the woof, I know not the warp, nor what is this web that they weave moving to and fro in the field of their motion and labour. There are secrets that must be told and of someone the son speaks them here, one highest beyond through his father lower than he.

3. He knows the warp, he knows the woof, he tells in their time the things that must be spoken. This is the guardian of immortality who wakes to the knowledge of these things; walking here below he is one highest beyond who sees through another.

4. This is the pristine Priest of the call, behold him! this is the immortal Light in mortals. This is he that is born and grows with a body and is the Immortal seated and steadfast for ever.

5. An immortal Light set inward for seeing, a swiftest mind within in men that walk on the way. All the Gods with a single mind, a common intuition, move aright in their divergent paths towards the one Will.

6. My ears range wide to hear and wide my eyes to see, wide this Light that is set in the heart; wide walks my mind and I

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set my thought afar; something there is that I shall speak; something that now I shall think.

7. All the gods were in awe of thee when thou stoodest in the darkness and bowed down before thee, O Fire. May the Universal Godhead keep us that we may be safe, may the Immortal keep us that we may be safe.

SUKTA 10

1. When the pilgrim-rite moves on its way, set in your front the divine ecstatic Fire, place him in front by your words, the Flame of the good riddance:¹ he is the Knower of all things born; his light shines wide and he shall make easy for us the progressions of the sacrifice.

2. O Fire, kindled by manʼs fires, Priest of the call who comest with thy light, Priest of the many flame-armies, hearken to the anthem our thoughts strain out pure to the godhead like pure clarified butter,² even as Mamata chanted to him her paeon.

¹ The word suvṛkti corresponds to the katharsis of the Greek mystics — the clearance, riddance or rejection of all perilous and impure stuff from the consciousness. It is Agni Pavaka, the purifying Fire who brings to us this riddance or purification, “suvriktiˮ.

² Here we have the clue to the symbol of the “clarified butterˮ in the sacrifice; like the others it is used in its double meaning, “clarified butterˮ or, as we may say, “the light-offeringˮ.

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3. He among mortals is fed on inspiration, the illumined who gives with his word to the Fire, the seer whom the Fire of the brilliant illuminations settles by his luminous safeguardings in the conquest of the Pen where are the herds of the Light.

4. Fire of the blackened trail in his very birth has filled wide earth and heaven with his far-seeing light. Now has Fire that makes pure been seen by his bright flame even through much darkness of the billowing Night.

5. Found, O Fire, for us and the masters of plenty by thy safeguardings packed with the plenitudes a treasure of richly brilliant kinds; for these are they who surpass all others in their opulence and inspiration and hero-mights.

6. O Fire, yearn to the sacrifice that the bringer of the offering casts to thee; found the rapture. Hold firm in the Bharadwajas the perfect purification; guard them in their seizing of the riches of the quest.

7. Scatter all hostile things, increase the revealing Word. May we revel in the rapture, strong with strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

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SUKTA 11

1. Missioned and strong to sacrifice, offer the sacrifice, Priest of the call; O Fire, put away from us as if by the applied force of the Life-gods all that opposes. Turn in their paths towards our offering Mitra and Varuna and the twin Lords of the journey and Earth and Heaven.

2. To us thou art our priest of the invocation, harmless and perfect in ecstasy; thou art the god within in mortals that makes the discoveries of knowledge; thou art the carrier with the burning mouth, with the purifying flame of oblation. O Fire, worship with sacrifice thy own body.

3. In thee the understanding is full of riches and it desires the gods, the divine births, that the word may be spoken and the sacrifice done, when the singer, the sage, wisest of the Angirasas chants his honey-rhythm in the rite.

4. He has leaped into radiance and is wise of heart and wide of light; O Fire, sacrifice to the largeness of Earth and Heaven. All the five peoples lavish the oblation with obeisance of surrender and anoint as the living being Fire the

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bringer of their satisfactions.

5. When the sacred grass has been plucked with prostration of surrender to the Fire, when the ladle of the purification full of the light-offering has been set to its labour, when the home has been reached in the house of Earth and the sacrifice lodged like an eye in the sun, —

6. O Son of Force, O Fire, kindling with the gods thy fires, Priest of the call, Priest with thy many flame-armies, dispense to us the Treasures; shining with light let us charge beyond the sin and the struggle.

SUKTA 12

1. In the midmost of the gated house Fire, the Priest of the call, the King of the sacred seat and the whip of swiftness, to sacrifice to Earth and Heaven! This is the Son of Force in whom is the Truth; he stretches out from afar with his light like the sun.

2. When a man sacrifices in thee, O King, O Lord of sacrifice, when he does well his works in the wise and understanding Fire like Heaven in its all-forming labour, triple thy session;

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thy speed is as if of a deliverer, when thou comest to give the sacrifice whose offerings are manʼs human fullnesses.

3. A splendour in the forest, most brilliant-forceful is the speed of his journeying; he is like a whip on the path and ever he grows and blazes. He is like a smelter who does hurt to none; he is the Immortal who wakes of himself to knowledge: he cannot be turned from his way mid the growths of the earth.

4. Fire, the knower of all things born, is hymned by our paeans in the house as if in one that walks on the way. He feeds on the Tree and conquers by our will like a war-horse; this shining Bull is adored by us with sacrifice like a father.

5. And now his splendours chant aloud and he hews with ease and walks along the wideness of the earth. He is rapid in his race and in a moment is loosed speeding to the gallop: he is like a thief that runs; his light is seen beyond the desert places.

6. O War-Horse, us from the bondage deliver, kindling, O Fire, with all thy fires; for thou travellest to the Riches and scatterest the forces of affliction and sorrow. May we revel in the rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

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