The Ninth Hymn to Agni   DIVINE WILL ASCENDENT FROM THE ANIMAL TO MENTALITY   [The Rishi speaks of the birth of the divine Will by the working of the pure mental on the material consciousness, its involved action in man's ordinary state of mortal mind emotional, nervous, passionate marked by crooked activities and perishable enjoyments and its emergence on the third plane of our being where it is forged and sharpened into a clear and effective power for liberation and spiritual conquest. It knows all the births or planes of our existence and leads the sacrifice and its offerings by a successive and continuous progres

Chapter VII   Varuna-Mitra and the Truth   IF THE idea of the Truth that we have found in the very opening hymn of the Veda really carries in itself the contents we have supposed and amounts to the conception of a supramental consciousness which is the condition of the state of immortality or beatitude and if this be the leading conception of the Vedic Rishis, we are bound to find it recurring throughout the hymns as a centre for other and dependent psychological realisations. In the very next Sukta, the second hymn of Madhuchchhandas addressed to Indra and Vayu, we find another pas sage full of cear and this time quite invincible psychologica

' ' by Sri Aurobindo Page 1 of 50 Parashara's Hymns to the Lord of the Flame   1     He hides himself like a thief with the Cow of vision in the secret cavern of being taking to himself and bearing thither our adoration. The thinkers nurse a common joy in him in their hearts and follow in his way by her footprints. All the Masters of sacrifice come to thee, O Flame, in the secrecy.     The Gods follow after him the ways and works of the Truth. He shall stand encompassing the earth like heaven. The Waters increase by their toil growing in his bulk the Flame because he was born perfect i

' ' by Sri Aurobindo Page 1 of 50 Chapter VIII   The Ashwins —Indra — the Vishwadevas   THE third hymn of Madhuchchhandas is again a hymn of the Soma sacrifice. It is composed, like the second before it, in movements of three stanzas, the first addressed to the Ashwins, the second to Indra, the third to the Vishwadevas, the fourth to the goddess Saraswati. In this hymn also we have in the closing movement, in the invocation to Saraswati, a passage of clear

The Eleventh Hymn to Mitra-Varuna   AN INVOCATION TO THE SACRIFICE   [The Rishi invokes Mitra and Varuna to the sacrifice as the godheads who lead man on the path according to the law of the truth and confirm our spiritual gains by its workings.]     1. With the words we sacrifice to Mitra and to Varuna as the Atri. Sit on the seat of the largeness for the drinking of the wine     2. By your working you keep firm the gettings of good and you make men to walk the path by your law. Sit on the seat of the largeness for the drinking of the

The Twenty-Fourth Hymn to Agni   A HYMN TO THE DELIVERER AND PROTECTOR   [The Rishi invokes the Divine Will for protection from evil and for the fullness of the divine light and substance.]     1-2. O Will, become our inmost inmate, become auspicious to us, become our deliverer and our armour of protection. Thou who art the lord of substance and who of that substance hast the divine knowledge, come towards us, give us its most luminous opulence.     3-4. Awake! hear our call! keep us far from all that seeks to turn us to evil. O shining One, O flame of purest Light, thee for our co

The Second Hymn to the Dawn   [The Rishi hymns the divine Dawn, daughter of Heaven, as the bringer of the Truth, the bliss, the heavens of light, creator of the Light, giver of vision, maker, follower, leader of the paths of Truth, remover of the darkness, the eternal and ever youthful goddess of our godward journeying.]     1. Dawn of the luminous journey, Dawn queen of truth, large with the Truth, how wide is the gleam from her rosy limbs, —Dawn divine who brings with her the heaven of light! Her the seers adore with their thoughts.     2. This is she who has the vision and she awakens man and m

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