GRITSAMADA BHARGAVA SUKTA 8 As if to replenish³ him chant now the chariots of Fire and his yokings, Fire the lavish and glorious Godhead. He brings his perfect leading to the man who has given; he is invulnerable and wears out with wounds the foe. Fair is the front of him fed with the offerings. He is voiced in his glory and beauty at dusk and dawn in our homes. Never impaired is the law of his working. ³ Or, as one seeking for plenitude Page – 97 He shines rich with diverse lustres like the heavens of the Sun1 in his illumining splendour, shines wide with

kata vaishwamitra SUKTA 17 He is kindled and blazes out according to the first and supreme laws and is united with the Rays, he in whom are all desirable things. Fire with his tresses of flame and his raiment of light, the purifier, perfect in sacrifice, for sacrifice to the gods. O Fire, as thou hast accomplished in sacrifice thy priesthood for the earth, awaking to knowledge, O knower of the births, as thou hast accomplished it for heaven¹ so with this oblation do sacrifice to the gods, carry yet further beyond the sacrifice with the human being today. Three are thy

BHARGA PRAGATHA sukta 60 Page – 352 Come, O Fire, with thy fires, we choose thee as the Priest of the call, may the ladles extended, full of the offering anoint thee, strongest for sacrifice when thou sittest on the sacrificial seat. For, towards thee, O Son of force, O Angiras, the ladles move in the rite of the path; we seek the child of Energy with his hair of light, the supreme fire in the sacrifices. O Fire, thou art the seer and the ordainer, the Priest of the call, the purifier to whom must be given sacrifice, rapturous, strong for sacrifice, one to be p

JAMADAGNI BHARGAVA OR RAMA JAMADAGNYA sukta 110 High-kindled today in the house of the human being, thou doest sacrifice a god to the gods, O knower of all things born; bring them to us as one who has knowledge, O friendly Light; for thou art the messenger, the seer, the thinker. O son of the body, revealing the paths of our journeyings to the Truth make them sweet with the Wine of Delight, O thou with thy high tongue of flame; enriching with our thoughts Page – 424 the mantras and the sacrifice set our pilgrim-sacrifice in the gods.

PAYU BHARADWAJA sukta 87 I set ablaze Fire of the plenitude, the slayer of the Rakshasas, I approach him as a friend and the widest house of refuge;1 the Fire has been kindled and grows intense by the workings of the will, may he protect us from the doer of hurt, by the day and by the night. ¹ Or, a widest peace; Page – 415 O knower of all things born, high-kindled, iron-tusked, touch with thy ray the demon-sorcerers; do violence to him with thy tongue of flame, the gods who kill,¹ the eaters of flesh, putting them off from us shut them into thy mouth.

VISHWAMANAS VAIYASHWA sukta 23 Pray the Fire as he fronts you, worship with sacrifice the knower of all things born. Fire with his driving smoke and his unseizable light, — fire who is like the string of speeding chariots to a competitor in the race; O all-seeing universal mind, laud him with the word. Those on whom he presses, possessor of the word of illumination and seizes on their impulsions and their satisfactions, by their approach to knowledge the Fire finds the Treasure.

UPASTUTA VARSHTIHAVYA sukta 115 Marvellous is the power to upbear of this young, this infant god, for he goes not to his two mothers to drink their milk, even though one without teats of plenty brought him to birth then as now, from the first he did his carrying, performing his mighty embassy. Fire, verily, is established, a giver and mighty doer of works, he clings to the trees with his blazing tusks achieving the pilgrim-sacrifice with his besieging tongue of flame, he is like a snorting bull, master in his pasturage. He is to

The Vamadeva Hymns to Agni INTRODUCTION THE interpretation of the Rig-veda is perhaps the most difficult and disputed question with which the scholarship of today has to deal. This difficulty and dispute are not the creation of present-day criticism; it has existed in different forms since very early times. To what is this incertitude due? Partly, no doubt, it arises from the archaic character of a language in which many of the words were obsolete when ancient Indian scholars tried to systematise the traditional learning about the Veda, and especially the great number of different meanings of which the old Sanskrit words are capable. But there is anot

MANDALA FIVE THE ATRIS BUDHA AND GAVISHTHIRA SUKTA 1 Fire is awake by the kindling of the peoples, he fronts the dawn that comes to him like a fostering milch-cow; like the mighty ones casting upward their branching his lustres spread towards heaven. The Priest of the call is awake for sacrifice to the gods. Fire with his right thinking has stood up high ablaze. The red-glowing mass of him is seen: a great god has been delivered out of the darkness. When he put out the long cord of his troop, Fire in his purity reveals all

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE HYMNS TO THE MYSTIC FIRE, containing translations of hymns to Agni from Mandalas 1, 2 and 6 of the Rig-veda, was first published in 1946 with a Foreword by Sri Aurobindo. An enlarged edition of HYMNS TO THE MYSTIC FIRE was issued in 1952 and contained the following additional material: 1) Revised translations of the “Hymns of the Atrisˮ which had appeared originally in the Arya and subsequently had been published in ON THE VEDA. 2) Translations of other hymns to Agni which had hitherto remained unpublished. A few of these had been found in Sri Aurobindoʼs earlier manuscripts and included as they had stood. Barring some