' ' by Sri Aurobindo Page 1 of 50 XI   The Ribhus, Artisans of Immortality   Rig Veda I.20     1. Lo, the affirmation made for the divine Birth with the breath of the mouth by illumined minds, that gives perfectly the bliss;     2. Even they who fashioned by the mind for Indra his two bright steeds that are yoked by Speech, and they enjoy the sacrifice by their accomplishings of the work.     3. They fashioned for the twin lords of the voyage their happy car of the all-pervading movement, they fashioned the fostering cow that yields the swe

Chapter XIV   The Cow and the Angiras Legend   WE MUST now pursue this image of the Cow which we are using as a key to the sense of the Veda, into the striking Vedic parable or legend of the Angiras Rishis, on the whole the most important of all the Vedic myths. The Vedic hymns, whatever else they may be, are through out an invocation to certain "Aryan" gods, friends and helpers of man, for ends which are held by the singers, —or seers, as they call themselves (kavi, ṛsi, vipra), —to be supremely desirable (vara, varā). These desirable ends, these boons of the gods are summed up in the words rayi, rādhas, which may me

IX   Brihaspati, Power of the Soul   Rig Veda IV.50     l. He who established in his might the extremities of the earth, Brihaspati, in the triple world of our fulfilment, by his cry, on him the pristine sages meditated and, illumined, set him in their front with his tongue of ecstasy.     2. They, O Brihaspati, vibrating with the impulse of their movement, rejoicing in perfected consciousness wove for us abundant, rapid, invincible, wide, the world from which this being was born. That do thou protect, O Brihaspati.

The First Hymn to Mitra-Varuna   THE LORDS OF THE THOUSAND-PILLARED HOME OF TRUTH AND BLISS    [The Rishi hymns the eternal and immutable Truth of which the Truth in mutable things is the veil; that is the goal of the journey of the manifested Sun of divine knowledge; it is the eternal unity of all things that are and the supreme Divine of which the Gods are various forms. Into it unite all the wealth of being and knowledge and power and bliss won by the sacrifice. It is the large vastness of the wide purities of Varuna and of the shining harmonies of Mitra. There, eternally stable, dwell the herds of the divine radiances of k

' ' by Sri Aurobindo Page 1 of 50 The Thirteenth Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF AFFIRMATION OF THE DIVINE WILL   [The Rishi declares the power of the Word affirming the Divine Will who attains to the touch of heaven for man. That Will affirmed in us by the word becomes the priest of our sacrifice and the winner in us of the divine riches and of the energy that conquers. This godhead contains all the others in its being as the nave of a wheel contains the spokes and therefore brings us all the varied wealth of the spiritual felicity.]     1. Chanting the word that illumines we call to thee, chanting the word that i

II   Indra, Giver of Light   Rig Veda I.4     1. The fashioner of perfect forms, like a good yielder for the milker of the Herds, we call for increase from day to day.     2. Come to our Soma-offerings. O Soma-drinker, drink of the Soma-wine; the intoxication of thy rapture gives indeed the Light.     3. Then may we know somewhat of thy uttermost right thinkings. Show not beyond us, come.     4. Come over, question Indra of the clear-seeing mind, the vigorous, the unoverthrown, who to thy comrades has brought the

The Eighteenth Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE LORDS OF THE PLENITUDE   [The Divine Will is invoked to complete the manifestation of the divine powers after the second state of the soul when it has passed beyond the mere physical being and is full of the perfect energy of the vital plane; for the gods have given all the life's fifty steeds of swiftness, Agni is there as the light and flame of its far-extended existence which has broken the limitations of the material being and he is full of the joys of this new and rich supra-physical life. Now the third state, the free mental being, is to be perfected by a richly varied and lumi

The Fourth Hymn to Agni   THE DIVINE WILL, PRIEST, WARRIOR AND LEADER OF OUR JOURNEY   [The Rishi hymns the Divine Force that knows all the successive births of the soul on its ascending planes of existence and as priest of his upward and onward-journeying sacrifice gives him the purity, the power, the knowledge, the increasing riches, the faculty of new formation and spiritual productiveness by which the mortal grows into immortality. It destroys the enemy, the assailants, the powers of evil, enriches the soul with all they try to withhold, gives the triple peace and the triple fulfilment of the mental, vital and physical b

Part Three   Hymns of the Atris     Foreword   TO TRANSLATE the Veda is to border upon an attempt at the impossible. For while a literal English rendering of the hymns of the ancient Illuminates would be a falsification of their sense and spirit, a version which aimed at bringing all the real thought to the surface would be an interpretation rather than a translation. I have essayed a sort of middle path, —a free and plastic form which shall follow the turns of the original and yet admit a certain number of interpretative devices sufficient for the light of the Vedic truth to gleam out from its veil of symbol and image.

The Fifth Hymn to Mitra-Varuna   THE GIVERS OF SELF-RULE   [The Rishi invokes Varuna, the vast form of the Truth, and Mitra the beloved, godhead of its harmonies and large bliss, who conquer for us the perfect force of our true and infinite being, to change our imperfect human nature into the image of their divine workings. Then the solar Heaven of the Truth is manifested within us, its wide pasture of herding illuminations becomes the field of journeying of our chariots, the high thoughts of the seers, their purified discernment, their rapid inspirations become ours, our very earth becomes the world of that vast Truth. For then th