THE NINETEENTH HYMN TO AGNI A HYMN OF THE REVEALING RAY AND CONQUERING WILL [That epiphany of the soul is sung in which all the coverings of its higher states are penetrated and open to the divine light. It is the opening of the whole third plane of our existence which was before as a fortified city with its gates closed to the soul embodied in Matter. By this new action of the Divine Force the mental and physical consciousness are wedded to the high supramental which was till now separated from them and the life-force blazing in its works with the heat of the divine Sun is harmonised with the play of the sun-ray of the divine knowledge.] State

III INDRA AND THE THOUGHT-FORCES Rig-veda 1.171 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. 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. Affirmed let the Maruts be benign to us, affirmed the lord of plenitude has becom

Interpretation of the Veda A REJOINDER TO AN EARLY CRITICISM* While thanking you for the generous appreciation in your re- view of the "Arya" "may I also crave the indulgence of your columns, — if indeed you can spare so much space at such a time when the whole world is absorbed in the gigantic homicidal conflict convulsing Europe, — for an answer to your criticisms on my "Secret of the Veda", or rather to an explanation of my standpoint which the deficiencies of my expression and the brief and summary character of my article in the "Arya" have led you, in some respects, to misconceive? Surely, I have nowhere said that "knowledge of which no o

THE TWENTY-FIRST HYMN TO AGNI A HYMN OF THE DIVINE FLAME IN HUMANITY [The Rishi invokes the divine Flame to burn as the divine Man in humanity and to raise us to our perfection in the seats of the Truth and the Bliss.] As the human¹ we set thee within us, as the human we kindle thee; O Flame, O Seer-Puissance, as the human offer sacrifice to the gods for the seeker of the godheads. O Flame, thou burnest in the human creature when thou art satisfied with his offerings; his ladles go to thee unceasingly, O perfect in thy birth, O presser out of the running richness. Thee all the gods with one heart of love made their

THE SECOND HYMN TO AGNI A HYMN OF THE LIBERATION OF THE DIVINE FORCE [Nature in her ordinary limited and material workings holds the Divine Force concealed in her secret or subconscient being; only when consciousness enlarges itself towards the One and Infinite, is it manifested, born for the conscient Mind. The clarities of the higher illumination cannot be kept so long as there is not this Strength to guard them, for hostile powers snatch them away and conceal them again in their secret cavern. Divine Will manifested in man, itself liberated, liberates him from the cords which bind him as a victim in the world- sacrifice; we attain to it by the teaching o

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.] Chanting the word that illumines we call to thee, chanting the word that illumines we kindle thee, O Will, chanting the word that illumines for our increase

CHAPTER XVII The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas THE language of the hymns establishes, then, a double aspect for the Angirasa Rishis. One belongs to the external garb of the Veda; it weaves together its naturalistic imagery of the Sun, the Flame, the Dawn, the Cow, the Horse, the Wine, the sacrificial Hymn; the other extricates from that imagery the internal sense. The Angirasas are sons of the Flame, lustres of the Dawn, givers and drinkers of the Wine, singers of the Hymn, eternal youths and heroes who wrest for us the Sun, the Cows, the Horses and all treasures from the grasp of the sons of darkness. But they a

CHAPTER XV The Lost Sun and the Lost Cows THE conquest or recovery of the Sun and the Dawn is a frequent subject of allusion in the hymns of the Rig-veda. Sometimes it is the finding of Surya, sometimes the finding or conquest of Swar, the world of Surya. Sayana, indeed, takes the word Swar as a synonym of Surya; but it is perfectly clear from several passages that Swar is the name of a world or supreme Heaven above the ordinary heaven and earth. Sometimes indeed it is used for the solar light proper both to Surya and to the world which is formed by his illumination. We have seen that the waters which descend from Heaven or which are conquered and

THE SECOND HYMN TO MITRA-VARUNA V.63 THE GIVERS OF THE RAIN [Mitra and Varuna are by their united universality and harmony the guardians of the divine Truth and its divine Law eternally perfect in the ether of our supreme being; thence they rain down the abundance of the heavens and its bliss upon the favoured soul. Seers in man of that world of Truth, as they are, by their guardianship of its law, rulers of all this becoming, they give us its rain of spiritual wealth and immortality. The Life-powers range with the voice of the truth-seeking thought through earth and heaven and the two Kings come to their cry with the brilliant clouds full of

CHAPTER IX Saraswati and Her Consorts THE symbolism of the Veda betrays itself with the greatest clearness in the figure of the goddess Saraswati. In many of the other gods the balance of the internal sense and the external figure is carefully preserved. The veil sometimes becomes transparent or its corners are lifted even for the ordinary hearer of the Word; but it is never entirely removed. One may doubt whether Agni is anything more than the personification of the sacrificial Fire or of the physical principle of Light and Heat in things, or Indra anything more than the god of the sky and the rain or of physical Light, or Vayu anything more than the d