ARUNA VAITAHAVYA

sukta 91

1. Adored by those who are wakeful, the dweller in the house is kindled in the house aspiring in the seat of revelation, the sacrificant of every offering, one Supreme,^¹ wide of being, wide in light, a perfect friend to the man who seeks his friendship.

2. In his visioned glory he lodges as the guest in every house, as a bird in forest and forest; he disdains not the peoples, universal he dwells in being and being, common to all he dwells in man and man.

3. Thou art discerning in thy judgments, strong of will in thy workings of will, O Fire, an omniscient seer in thy seer-wisdoms; a possessor of riches thou rulest sole over all the riches nourished by earth and by heaven.

4. Thou hast known and reached thy luminous native seat where is the order of the Truth in the plane of revelation; free from stain of evil have come thy perceptions of knowledge like the white brilliances of the dawns,^² like rays of the sun.

^¹ Or, one desirable, ² Or, like the advents of the dawns,

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5. Thy glories like lightnings from a storm cloud break into light of knowledge brilliant like the rays of intuition of the dawns; when loosed on the growths of earths and woods of pleasaunce thou seekest out thyself the food for thy mouth.¹

6. Him the growths of earth held as a child in the womb in whom was the order of the Truth, the Waters become the mothers of that Fire who gave him birth; he is the common child with whom the pleasaunce-woods and the plants of earth are pregnant and they are delivered of him always.

7. Missioned, fanned by the wind when swiftly entering into thy food thou spreadest wide after thy desire, thy ageless hosts, as thou becomest, toil like chariot-warriors far apart.

8. Fire the creator of wisdom, the accomplisher of the discovery of knowledge. Fire the Priest of the call, the all-embracing thinker, him they choose universal in the little offering, him in the great, — not another, O Fire, than thou.

9. The ordainers of the work, they who desire thee, choose thee as Priest of the call in their discoveries of knowledge when

¹Or, heapest food in thy mouth.

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the seekers of the godhead hold thy delight,¹ human beings who have plucked for thee the sacred grass of thy seat and have brought their offerings.

10. O Fire, thine are the call and the offering, thine the purification and the order of the sacrifice, thine the lustration; thou art the fire-bringer for the seeker of the Truth. The annunciation is thine, thou becomest the pilgrim-rite:² thou art the Priest of the Word and the master of the house in our home.

11.*

12. For him these thoughts and utterances go forth from us, these words high and hymns of illumination and these high lauds and meet together seeking the riches for the master of riches, for the knower of all things born, and his desire is towards them.

13. I would speak to the ancient One a laud new to his desire, may he hear us; may it avail to touch his heart deep within like a wife beautifully robed for her lordʼs desire.

¹ Or, set before thee the things of thy delight,

^² Or, thou art the priest of the pilgrim-rite: * Translation not found in MSS.

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14. Fire to whom are loosed and offered our horses, our bulls and oxen and heifers and our rams, to Fire the nectar-drinker who bears on his beak the Soma-wine, to the ordainer of things, I ,beget a thinking full of beauty from my heart.

15. An oblation has been offered into thy mouth, O Fire, as if clarified butter in a ladle, as if Soma-wine in a bowl. Found in us the treasure in which are the heroes and which wins for us the plenitudes, — the treasure excellent¹ and glorious and vast.

¹ Or, high-proclaimed

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