The Third Hymn to Mitra-Varuna   THE LEADERS TO THE BLISSFUL HOME   [The Rishi invokes the Lords of the infinite wideness and harmony whose arms embrace the soul's highest plane of the Truth and Bliss, to extend to him those arms of awakened consciousness and knowledge, so that he may have their all-embracing delight. He aspires by the path of Mitra to the joy of his harmonies in which there is no wound nor hurt; conceiving and holding the highest by the power of the illumining word, he would aspire to an increase in that plane, the proper home of the gods. Let the two great gods create in his being that wide world of their divine

The Fifth Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE SUMMONING OF THE GODS   [The hymn calls to the sacrifice by the summons of the divine Flame the principal godheads. Each is described or invoked in that capacity and functioning in which he is needed and helpful to the perfection of the soul and its divine growth and attaining.]     1. To the Will that knoweth all the births, to the Flame highly kindled, purely luminous offer a poignant clarity.     2. This is he that expresses the powers of the gods, the untameable who speeds on its way this our sacrifice, this is the seer who comes with the wine of s

Chapter V   The Philological Method of the Veda   NO INTERPRETATION of the Veda can be sound which does not rest on a sound and secure philological basis; and yet this scripture with its obscure and antique tongue of which it is the sole remaining document offers unique philological difficulties. To rely entirely on the traditional and often imaginative renderings of the Indian scholars is impossible for any critical mind. Modern philology strives after a more secure and scientific basis, but has not yet found it. In the psychological interpretation of the Veda there are, especially, two difficulties which can only be met by a

The Fifteenth Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE DIVINE UPHOLDER AND CONQUEROR   [The Rishi hymns the Divine Will as the Seer and the Mighty One, the upholder of the Bliss and the Truth, by which men attain to the supreme-seated godheads. He breaks leonine through an army of opposers, sees and confirms for man all the possible births and manifestations of the soul, forms in him the secret superconscient plane and by knowledge delivers him into that vast beatitude.]     1. To the Seer and Ordainer who is the object of knowledge I bring the offering of the Word, to the glorious and

The Sixth Hymn to Agni   THE GALLOPING FLAME-POWERS OF THE JOURNEY   [The flames of Agni the divine Will, home and meeting-place of all our increasing and advancing life-powers, are imaged as galloping on our human journey to the supreme good. Divine Will creates in us the divine strength of impulsion, an illumined and undecaying force and flame described as the steed of the plenitude, which brings us that good and carries us to that goal. His flames are coursers on the path who increase by the sacrifice; they hasten uninterruptedly, and race always more swiftly; they bring in the penned-up illuminations of the hidden knowledge. Their enti

The Eleventh Hymn to Agni   A HYMN TO THE DIVINE PRIEST AND SACRIFICIAL FLAME   [The Rishi hymns the birth of the wakeful and discerning sacrificial Flame who is vision and will-power, the seer whose passion of effort turns into a divine knowledge, in the heavens of mind. This seer-will the inspired words of the Thought have to increase. It is a thing of puissance, the Son of Force, and found by the ancient Souls of luminous puissance concealed in the growths of earth, in all the experiences that the soul here seeks to enjoy.]     1. The protector of the creature is born, the Flame that is

' ' by Sri Aurobindo Page 1 of 50 Chapter XXII   The Conquest over the Dasyus   THE DASYUS stand in opposition to both the Aryan gods and the Aryan seers. The Gods are born from Aditi in the supreme Truth of things, the Dasyus or Danavas from Diti in the nether darkness; they are the Lords of Light and the Lords of Night fronting each other across the triple world of earth, heaven and mid-air, body, mind and the connecting breath of life. Sarama in X.108 descends from the supreme   realm, parākāt; she has to cross the waters of the Rasa, she meets the night which gives place to her for fear of her overleaping it, atiṣkado bhiyasā; she arrives

The God of the Mystic Wine   Rig Veda IX.75 and 42    These two hymns are rendered as literally as possible so as to show the original symbolism of the Veda untranslated into its psychological equivalents. I   1. Placed in delight he flows to the pleasant Names in which he increases; vast and wise he ascends the chariot of the vast sun, the chariot of a universal movement.     2. Tongue of the Truth, a pleasant honey,1 he flows speaker and lord of this Thought and invincible; the Son places the third hidden Name of the Parents2 in the luminous world of Heaven.  

Chapter XVIII   The Human Fathers   THESE characteristics of the Angiras Rishis seem at first sight to indicate that they are in the Vedic system a class of demigods, in their outward aspect personifications or rather personalities of the Light and the Voice and the Flame, but in their inner aspect powers of the Truth who second the gods in their battles. But even as divine seers, even as sons of Heaven and heroes of the Lord, these sages represent aspiring humanity. True, they are originally the sons of the gods, devaputrāh, children of Agni, forms of the manifoldly born Brihaspati, and in their ascent to the world of the Truth they are described as ascendin

VII   To Bhaga Savitri, the Enjoyer   Rig Veda V.82     1. Of Savitri divine we embrace that enjoying, that which is the best, rightly disposes all, reaches the goal, even Bhaga's, we hold by the thought.     2. For of him no pleasure in things can they diminish, for too self-victorious is it, nor the self-empire of this Enjoyer.     3. 'Tis he that sends forth the delights on the giver, the god who is the bringer forth of things; that varied richness of his enjoyment we seek.     4. Today, O divine Producer, send forth on us fruitful felicity,