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5. The Priest of the call of the pilgrim-rite with his many-hued chariot, in the brilliant ray of intuition of sacrifice on sacrifice, Fire the guest of man who takes to himself the half of each god in might and glory.

6. Putting on robes, putting on forms, Fire in the navel-centre of the earth is born a ruddy flame, in the seat of Revelation. O King, as the Priest set in front sacrifice to the gods.

7. Ever, O Fire, thou hast stretched out earth and heaven, as their son thou hast built up thy father and mother: O ever young, journey towards the gods who desire thee; then bring them to us, O forceful Flame!

sukta 2

1. Satisfy the desire of the gods, O thou ever young, do sacrifice here, a knower of its order and its times, O master of the order and time of things; with those who are divine priests of the order of the work thou, O Fire, art the strongest for sacrifice.

^¹ In the exoteric sense, “ṛtuˮ seems to mean the rites of the sacrifice.

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2. Thou comest to menʼs invocation, thou comest to the purification, thou art the thinker, the giver of the riches, the possessor of the Truth: may we make the offerings with svāhā; may Fire, availing, do the sacrifice, a god to the gods.

3. We have come to the path of the gods, may we have power to tread it, to drive forward along that road. The Fire is the knower, let him do sacrifice; he verily is the Priest of the call, he makes effective the pilgrim-sacrifices and the order of our works.

4. Whatever we may impair of the laws of your workings, O gods, we in our ignorance maiming your workings who know, all that may the Fire who is a knower make full by that order in time with which he makes effective the gods.

5. What in thee sacrifice mortals in the ignorance of their minds, poor in discernment, cannot think out, that the Fire knows, the Priest of the call, the finder of the right-will, strongest of sacrificants and does the sacrifice to the gods in the order and times of the truth.

6. The father brought thee to birth, the force of all pilgrim-sacrifices, the many-hued ray of intuition; so do thou win for us by sacrifice in the line of the planes with their god-

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heads, their desirable and opulent universal forces.

7. Thou whom heaven and earth, thou whom the waters, thou whom the form-maker, creator of perfect births, have brought into being; O Fire, luminously along the path of the journey of the Fathers, knowing it beforehand, high-kindled blaze.

sukta 3

1. He is seen high-kindled, the master ruling all, the traveller, the terrible, he who creates perfectly right understanding, awake to knowledge he shines wide with a vast lustre; driving the ruddy bright cow he comes to the dark one.

2. When he overspread with his body the black night and the dappled dawn bringing to birth the young maiden born from the great Father, pillaring the high-lifted light of the sun, the traveller shines out with the riches^¹ of heaven.

3. He has come closely companioning her, happy with her happy, a lover he follows behind his sister; Fire spreading out with his lights full of conscious knowledge overlays her beauty with his ruddy shining hues.

^¹ Or, the shining ones

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4. His movements flaming send forth as if vast callings of Fire the beneficent comrade in the march of this mighty and adorable flame, the vast and beautiful his radiances blazing have waked to knowledge.

5. His blazings as he shines stream like sounds of bright heaven in its vastness; with his greatest, most splendid and opulent lights at play he travels to heaven.

6. His strengths are those of a thunderbolt seen in the hurling, they neigh aloud in their teams; he, the traveller, most divine, shines wide-pervading with his ancient ruddy chanting fires.

7. So carry for us, so take thy seat, the mighty traveller of the young earth and heaven. Fire the swift and vehement with his swift and vehement horses, — so mayst thou come to us here.

sukta 4

1. To thee I sacrifice, to thee I send forth my thought so that thou mayst manifest thyself adorable at our call; thou art

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like a fountain in the desert to longing men, O ancient king, O Fire.

2. O ever-young flame, towards thee men move, like herds that go to a warm pen; thou art the messenger of gods and mortals, thou movest between them vast through the luminous world.

3. The mother bears thee like an infant child clinging cherishingly to thee, increasing thee to be a conqueror; headlong down over the dry land he goes rejoicing, he is fain to go like an animal let loose.

4. O thou who art conscious and free from ignorance, ignorant are we and we know not thy greatness, thou only knowest. Covert he lies, he ranges devouring with his tongue of flame, he licks the young earth and is the master of her creatures.

5. Anywhere he is born new in eternal wombs; he stands in the forest hoary-old with smoke for his banner: a bull unbathed he journeys to the waters and mortals who are conscious lead him on his way.

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6. Two robbers abandoning their bodies, rangers of the forest, have planted him in his place with ten cords. This is thy new thinking, O Fire, yoke thyself to it with thy illumining limbs like a chariot.

7. Thine is this wisdom-word, O knower of all things born, and this prostration, this utterance is thine; may it have ever the power to make thee grow. Guard all that are off­spring of our begetting, guard undeviatingly our bodies.

sukta 5

1. One sole ocean holding all the riches, born in manifold births from our heart it sees all; there cleaves to the teat in the lap of the two secret ones in the midst of the fountain-source the hidden seat of the being.

2. The stallions inhabiting a common abode, the great stallions have met with the mares. The seers guard the seat of the Truth, they hold in the secrecy the supreme Names.

3. The two mothers in whom is the Truth, in whom is the mage-wisdom, formed him and brought to birth like an infant child, they have put him firm in his place and make him grow.

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Men found in him the navel-centre of all that is moving and stable and they weave by the mind the weft of the seer.

4. Him well-born the routes of the Truth and its ancient impulsions close companion for the plenitude. Heaven and earth give lodging to him whose dwelling is above them^¹ they make him grow by the lights and foods of their sweetnesses.

5. Desiring the seven shining sisters, the knower bore on high their sweetnesses that he might have vision; he who was born from of old laboured within in the mid-world, he wished for and found the covering of the all-fostering sun.

6. The seers fashioned the seven goals,^² towards one of them alone goes the narrow and difficult road. A pillar of the supreme being in its abode, he stands at the starting-out of the ways, in the upholding laws.

7. He is the being and non-being in the supreme ether, in the birth of the Understanding in the lap of the indivisible mother. Fire comes to us as the first-born of the Truth, he is the Bull and milch-Cow in the original existence.

^¹ Or, as their inhabitant, ^² Or, the seven frontiers,

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sukta 6

1. This is he in whose peace,^¹ and in his approach to it grows by his guardings the worshipper of the Fire, who encompasses all and is spread everywhere luminous with the largest lights of the wise.^²

2. Fire, who shines perpetual, possessor of the Truth, luminous with divine lights, he who follows out the works of a comrade for his comrades like a courser running straight to his goal.

3. He who has power for every advent of godhead, who has power for the outbreak of the dawn and is the life of all, Fire in whom our thinkings are cast as offerings, his chariot goes unhurt and he supports all his strengths.

4. Increasing by his strengths, rejoicing in his illuminations he goes a swift galloper towards the gods; he is the rapturous Priest of the call, strong to sacrifice with his tongue of flame, inseparable from the gods the Fire sheds on them his light.

^¹ Or, house of refuge, ² Or, with his largest lights for the wise.

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5. Him fashion for you with your words and your obeisances as if Indra quivering at the dawn-ray, him whom illumined sages voice with their thoughts, the knower of all things born, the overpowering Flame.

6. Thou in whom all the Riches meet together in the plenitude like horses by their gallopings in their speed towards the goal, the protections most desired by Indra to us make close, O Fire.

7. Now, indeed, taking thy seat in thy greatness, O Fire, in thy very birth thou hast become the one to whom we must call; the gods walked by the ray of thy intuition, then they grew and were the first and supreme helpers.

sukta 7

1. Found for us felicity of earth and heaven and universal life that we may worship thee with sacrifice, O god; O doer of works, may we keep close to thy perceptions of knowledge; guard us, O god, with thy wide utterances.

2. For thee these thoughts are born, O Fire, towards thee they voice our achievement of riches with its horses of power and

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herds of light when the mortal upheld by his thoughts following thee attains to thy enjoyment, O Fire, perfectly born, O shining One.

3. I think of the Fire as my father, my ally, my brother, ever my comrade; I serve the, force of vast Fire, his bright and worshipped force of the Sun in heaven.

4. O Fire, effective in us are thy thoughts and conquerors of our aims: he whom thou deliverest, thou the eternal Priest of the call in the house, who art that driver of the red horses, possessed of the Truth, possessor of the much store of riches, may happiness be his through the shining days.

5. The Fire founded by the heavens^¹ as our friend and the means for our works, the ancient Priest of the pilgrim-rites, the lover men brought into being by the strength of their two arms and seated within as the Priest of the call in beings.

6. Thyself sacrifice in heaven to the gods, for what shall man immature in thought and unconscious of the knowledge do of thy work ? Even as thou didst sacrifice in the order and times of the Truth, a god to the gods, O perfectly born Fire, so sacrifice to thy body.

^¹ Or, with his lights

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7. O Fire, become our guardian and protector, become the creator of our growth and of our growth the upholder, O mighty One, give to us what we shall give as offerings to the gods, and unfailing our bodies deliver.

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