Part One   Chapter IV   The Foundations of the Psychological Theory   A HYPOTHESIS of the sense of Veda must always proceed, to be sure and sound, from a basis that clearly emerges in the language of the Veda itself. Even if the bulk of its substance be an arrangement of symbols and figures, the sense of which has to be discovered, yet there should be clear indications in the explicit language of the hymns which will guide us to that sense. Otherwise, the symbols being themselves ambiguous, we shall be in danger of manufacturing a system out of our own imaginations and preferences instead of dis

Chapter  X Chapter  X   The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers   THE three Riks of the third hymn of Madhuchchhandas in which Saraswati has been invoked, run as follows, in the Sanskrit:   Pāvakā naḥ sarasvatī vājebhir vājinīvatī; yajñam vaṣtu dhiyāvasuḥ. Codayitrī sūnṛtānām, cetantī sumatīnām; yajñam dadhe sarasvatī. Maho arṇaḥ sarasvatī, pra cetayati ketunā; dhiyo viśvā vi rājati.   The sense of the first two verses is clear enough when we know Saraswati to be that power of the Truth which we call inspiration.

The Fourth Hymn to Mitra-Varuna   THE LORDS OF THE JOURNEY   [The Rishi invokes the two great increasers of the truth in our being to lead us in our journey to the plenitudes, to the vastness of our true existence which they conquer for us out of the narrow limits of our present ignorant and imperfect mentality.]     1. He who has awakened to the knowledge, becomes perfect in will; let him speak for us among the gods: Varuna of the vision and Mitra take delight in his words.     2. They are the Kings most glorious in light and most far in their hearing;1 they are the masters of b

Chapter  XI Chapter  XI   The Seven Rivers   THE Veda speaks constantly of the waters or the rivers, especially of the divine waters, āpo devīḥ or āpo divyāḥ, and occasionally of the waters which carry in them the light of the luminous solar world or the light of the Sun, svarvatīr apaḥ. The passage of the waters effected by the gods or by man with the aid of the gods is a constant symbol. The three great conquests to which the human being aspires, which the gods are in constant battle with the Vritras and Panis to give to man are the herds, the waters and the Sun or the solar world

The Seventeenth Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF ENLARGEMENT AND ULTIMATE ASPIRATION   [A state arrives in which man goes beyond the mere subtlety and fineness of the intelligence and reaches to a rich and manifold largeness of soul. Even then though he has now the wide law of his being which is our right foundation, he needs a force greater than his to lead him; for largeness and multiplicity of soul-force and knowledge are not enough, there must be the divine truth in thought, word and act. For we have to attain beyond the enlarged mental being to the beatitude of a state beyond mind. Agni has the light and the forc

VIII   Vayu, the Master of the Life Energies   Rig Veda IV.48       1. Do thou manifest the sacrificial energies that are unmanifested, even as a revealer of felicity and doer of the work; O Vayu, come in thy car of happy light to the drinking of the Soma wine.     2. Put away from thee all denials of expression and with thy steeds of the yoking, with Indra for thy charioteer come, O Vayu, in thy car of happy light to the drinking of the Soma wine.       3. The two that, dark, yet hold all substances, shall observe thee in their labour, they in w

Hymns to Agni   Agni, the Divine Will-Force   THE NAME of this flaming godhead, Agni, derives from a root whose quality of significance is a pre-eminent force or intensity whether in state, action, sensation or movement; but the qualities of this essential significance vary. It means a burning brightness, whence its use for fire; it means movement and especially a curving or serpentine movement; it means strength and force, beauty and splendour, leading and pre-eminence; it developed also certain emotional values which have perished in Sanskrit, but remain in Greek, angry passion on one side, on the other delight and love. The Vedic deity Ag

Note on the Texts     Note on the Texts   In August 1914, Sri Aurobindo began to publish The Secret of the Veda in the first issue of the philosophical review Arya. This series was accompanied by a related one, Selected Hymns. Selected Hymns was followed a year later by Hymns of the Atris. These works, written and published in monthly instalments between 1914 and 1917, form Parts One to Three of the present volume. Besides Selected Hymns and Hymns of the Atris, other Vedic translations appeared in the Arya at various times between 1915 and 1920. They were usually introduced when a page or two had to b

III   Indra and the Thought-Forces   Rig Veda I.171       1. To you I come with this obeisance, by the perfect Word I seek right mentality from the swift in the passage. Take delight, O Maruts, in the things of knowledge, lay aside your wrath, unyoke your steeds.     2. Lo, the hymn of your affirmation, O Maruts; it is fraught with my obeisance, it was framed by the heart, it was established by the mind, O ye gods. Approach these my words and embrace them with the mind; for of submission1 are you the increasers.     3. Affirmed let the Maruts be beni

The Twenty-Seventh Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE STRENGTH AND ILLUMINATION   [The Rishi under the figure of the demigod, Traivrishna Tryaruna Trasadasyu, and the seer Ashwamedha, symbolises the fulfilment in the human mentality of the illumination of the God-Mind Indra, and the power of the God-Will, Agni, in the vitality. The Mind-Soul, destroyer of the demons, awakened to knowledge as the human-born Indra, has given to the seer his two cows of light that draw his wain, his two shining horses that draw his chariot and the ten times twelve cows of the dawn of knowledge. He has assented to and confirmed the desire with which