VOLUME 15 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1998 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA The Secret of the Veda   with Selected Hymns Publisher's Note  

Hymn to Varuna   [In this hymn there is throughout a sustained double sense. In the exoteric Varuna is hymned as the Asura, omniscient and omnipotent lord and creator, the Godhead in his creative wisdom and might forming the world and maintaining the law of things in the earth and mid-air and heavens. In the esoteric, in which the physical phenomena of the exoteric become symbols, the infinite Godhead is hymned in his all-pervading wisdom and purity opening the three worlds of our being to the Sun of knowledge, pouring down the streams of the Truth, purifying the soul from the falsehood of the lower being and its sin. The hymn is rendered here successively i

Part Four   Other Hymns     A Vedic Hymn   Rig Veda VII.60   O Sun, O Light, because today blameless in thy rising thou hast declared the Truth to the Lord of Love and the Lord of Purity, so may we abide in the godhead, dear to thee, O Mother infinite, dear to thee, O Lord of Strength, in all our speaking. O Mitra, O Varuna, this is he that seeth for the soul, the Sun that rises over earth and heaven in the pervading wideness, and he guards all that is in motion and all that is stable; for he beholds the straight things and the crooked in mortals. Seven shining energies has this Bright One yoked today in the world of our achi

Part Two   Selected Hymns     Author's Note   These translations are offered here only in their results for the interest of the general reader and as an illustration of the theory advanced. Their philological and critical justification would be interesting only to a limited circle. A few indications, however, may at a later stage be given which will illustrate the method.   I   The Colloquy of Indra and Agastya   Rig Veda I.170     Indra   1. It is not now, nor is It tomorrow; who knoweth that which is Supreme and Wonderful? It has motion and action in th

The Twenty-Second Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE JOURNEY TO THE PERFECT JOY   [Man, the eater of things, seeks a fulfilment of his desires in a final equality of delight. To this end he has to be purified by the divine Flame, the Seer-Will who holds in himself the conscious vision and the utter rapture. By increasing him in us we shall journey forward with our progressing sacrifice and the gods will utterly manifest themselves. We must entertain this divine Force as the master of our house, our physical and mental body, and give it all the objects of our enjoyment as its food.]     1. Man who seekest thy equa

The Twenty-Eighth Hymn to Agni   A HYMN OF THE HIGH-BLAZING FLAME, KING OF IMMORTALITY   [The Rishi celebrates the flame of the Will high-blazing in the dawn of knowledge as the King of Immortality, the giver to the soul of its spiritual riches and felicity and of a well-governed mastery of Nature. He is the bearer of our oblation, the illumined guide of our sacrifice to its divine and universal goal.]     1. The Flame of Will burning high rises to his pure light in the heaven of mind; wide he extends his illumination and fronts the Dawn. She comes, moving upward, laden with all desirable thin

IV   Agni, the Illumined Will   Rig Veda I.77       1. How shall we give to Agni? For him what Word accepted by the Gods is spoken, for the lord of the brilliant flame? for him who in mortals, immortal, possessed of the Truth, priest of the oblation strongest for sacrifice, creates the gods?     2. He who in the sacrifices is the priest of the offering, full of peace, full of the Truth, him verily form in you by your surrenderings; when Agni manifests1 for the mortals the gods, he also has perception of them and by the mind offers to them the sacrifice.     3. For he is the will

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 t

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

Chapter II   A Retrospect of Vedic Theory   VEDA, then, is the creation of an age anterior to our intellectual philosophies. In that original epoch thought proceeded by other methods than those of our logical reasoning and speech accepted modes of expression which in our modern habits would be inadmissible. The wisest then de pended on inner experience and the suggestions of the intuitive mind for all knowledge that ranged beyond mankind's ordinary perceptions and daily activities. Their aim was illumination, not logical conviction, their ideal the inspired seer, not the accurate reasoner. Indian tradition has faithfully preserved this account of the origin of