Hymns to the Lords of Light THE FIRST HYMN TO MITRA-VARUNA V.62 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 th

THE FIFTH HYMN TO MITRA-VARUNA V.66 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 there is the

XI THE RIBHUS, ARTISANS OF IMMORTALITY Rig-veda 1.20 Lo, the affirmation made for the divine Birth with the breath of the mouth by illumined minds, that gives perfectly the bliss; 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. 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 sweet milk. O Ribhus, in your pervasion you made young again

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.] To the Seer and Ordainer who is the object of knowledge I bring the offering of the Word, to the glorious and victorious, to the pristine and supreme. He is the Mighty One accomplished in joy wh

THE SIXTH HYMN TO MITRA-VARUNA V.67 THE TWIN UPHOLDERS AND PROTECTORS [Mitra and Varuna perfect the vastness of the superconscient being which is the object of sacrifice; they possess the full abundance of its force. When they reach that luminous origin and home, they give men, labourers in the sacrificial work, its peace and bliss; on the way to it they protect the mortal from his spiritual enemies who would stand in the way of his immortality; for they keep firm to their higher workings and to the seats of the higher consciousness to which those workings belong and to which man rises in his ascent; universal and all-knowing they destroy these e

THE TWENTY-SIXTH HYMN TO AGNI A HYMN OF THE PRIEST AND SACRIFICIAL FLAME [The Rishi invokes the Divine Flame in all its usual attributes as the sacrificer.'the luminous seer who has the vision of the luminous world, the bringer of the gods, the carrier of the offering, the envoy, conqueror, increaser of the divine workings in man, the knower of the Births, the leader of the march of the sacrifice with its progressive epiphany of the godheads.] O Flame, O purifier, bring to us by thy tongue of rapture, O god, the gods and offer to them sacrifice. Thou who drippest the clarity, thou of the rich and varied luminousness, we desire the

THE TWENTY-THIRD HYMN TO AGNI A HYMN OF THE RICH AND CONQUERING SOUL [The Rishi desires through Agni that opulence of the divine Light against which the armies of darkness cannot stand; for it overpowers them by its plenitude and force. This it does on all the successive planes of the soul's labour and in each of them man gets, by this divine Force that is the true and transcendent Being, all the objects of his desire that they contain.] Bring to us, O Strength most forcefully prevailing, that forceful opulence of the Light which in all the fields of our labour shall by force prevail with thy mouth of flame to enter into the plenitudes.

CHAPTER XII The Herds of the Dawn THE Seven Rivers of the Veda, the Waters, āpaḥ, are usually designated in the figured Vedic language as the seven Mothers or the seven fostering Cows, sapta dhenavaḥ. The word āpaḥ. itself has, covertly, a double significance; for the root ap meant originally not only to move, from which in all probability is derived the sense of waters, but to be or bring into being, as in apatya, a child, and the Southern Indian appā, father. The seven Waters are the waters of being; they are the Mothers from whom all forms of existence are born. But we meet also another expression, sapta gāvaḥ, the seven Cows or the seven Lights, and

FROM A VEDIC HYMN 1.15 O Indra, drink according to the law of truth the Soma- wine; let the nectar-sweetnesses enter into thee, rapturous, that have there their home. O Maruts, drink according to the truth, purify the Yajna by the process of purification for ye are steadfast and very bold. About the Yajna utter for us thy cry, active and exhilarated drink thou by the truth for thou art the disposer of delight. O Agni, bring hither the gods, make them to sit in the three wombs, surround all and drink by the truth.

A VEDIC HYMN 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 achievement and they bear him on in their clarity, and he beholds the homes of the sou