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The Ashwins, Lords of Bliss
Rig Veda IV.45
1. Lo, that Light is rising up and the all-pervading car is being yoked on the high level of this Heaven; there are placed satisfying delights in their triple pairs and the fourth skin of honey overflows.
2. Full of honey upward rise the delights; upward horses and cars in the wide-shinings of the Dawn and they roll aside the veil of darkness that encompassed on every side and they extend the lower world into a shining form like that of the luminous heaven.
3. Drink of the honey with your honey-drinking mouths, for the honey yoke your car beloved. With the honey you glad den the movement and its paths; full of honey, O Ashwins, is the skin that you bear.
Page – 327 4. Full of the honey are the swans that bear you, golden-winged, waking with the Dawn, and they come not to hurt; they rain forth the waters, they are full of rapture and touch that which holds the Rapture. Like bees to pourings of honey you come to the Soma-offerings.
5. Full of the honey the fires lead well the sacrifice and they woo your brightness, O Ashwins, day by day, when one with purified hands, with a perfect vision, with power to go through to the goal has pressed out with the pressing-stones the honeyed Soma-wine.
6. Drinking the wine near them, the fires ride and run and extend the lower world into a shining form like that of the luminous heaven. The Sun too goes yoking his steeds; by force of Nature's self-arranging you move consciously along all paths.1
7. I have declared, O Ashwins, holding the Thought in me, your car that is undecaying and drawn by perfect steeds, —your car by which you move at once over all the worlds towards the enjoyment rich in offerings that makes through to the goal.
1 Or, you take knowledge of all the paths in their order.
Page – 328 COMMENTARY
The hymns of the Rig Veda addressed to the two shining Twins, like those addressed to the Ribhus, are full of symbolic expressions and unintelligible without a firm clue to their symbolism. The three leading features of these hymns to the Ashwins are the praise of their chariot, their horses and their rapid all-pervading movement; their seeking of honey and their joy in the honey, madhu, and the satisfying delights that they carry in their car; and their close association with the Sun, with Surya the daughter of the Sun and with the Dawn. The Ashwins like the other gods descend from the Truth consciousness, the Ritam; they are born or manifested from Heaven, from Dyaus, the pure Mind; their movement pervades all the worlds, —the effect of their action ranges from the body through the vital being and the thought to the superconscient Truth. It commences indeed from the ocean, from the vague of the being as it emerges out of the subconscient and they conduct the soul over the flood of these waters and prevent its foundering on its voyage. They are therefore Nāsatyā, lords of the movement, leaders of the journey or voyage. They help man with the Truth which comes to them especially by association with the Dawn, with Surya, lord of the Truth, and with Surya, his daughter, but they help him more characteristically with the delight of being. They are lords of bliss, śubhaspatī; their car or movement is loaded with the satisfactions of the delight of being in all its planes; they bear the skin full of the overflowing honey; they seek the honey, the sweetness, and fill all things with it. They are therefore effective powers of the Ananda which proceeds out of the Truth-consciousness and which manifesting itself variously in all the three worlds maintains man in his journey. Hence their action is in all the worlds. They are especially riders or drivers of the Horse, Ashwins, as their name indicates, —they use the vitality of the human being as the motive-force of the journey: but also they work in the thought and lead it to the Truth. They give health, beauty, wholeness to the body; they are the divine physicians. Of all
Page – 328 the gods they are the most ready to come to man and to create for him ease and joy, āgamisthā, śubhaspatī. For this is their peculiar and perfect function. They are essentially lords of weal, of bliss, śubhaspatī. This character of the Ashwins is brought out with a continual emphasis by Vamadeva in the present hymn. In almost every verse occurs with a constant iteration the words madhu, madhumān, honey, honied. It is a hymn to the sweetness of existence; it is a chant of the delight of being. The great Light of lights, the Sun of Truth, the illumination of the Truth-consciousness is rising up out of the movement of life to create the illumined Mind, Swar, which completes the evolution of the lower triple world. Esa sya bhānur udiyarti. By this rising of the Sun in man, the full movement of the Ashwins becomes possible; for by the Truth comes the realised Delight, the heavenly beatitude. Therefore, the chariot of the Ashwins is being yoked upon the height of this Dyaus, the high level or plane of the resplendent mind. That chariot is all-pervading; its motion goes everywhere; its speed runs freely on all planes of our consciousness. Yujyate rathah parijmā divo asya sānavi. The full all-pervading movement of the Ashwins brings with it the fullness of all the possible satisfactions of the delight of being. This is expressed symbolically in the language of the Veda by saying that in their car are found the satisfactions, prksāsah, in three pairs, prksāsa asmin mithunā adhi trayah. The word prksa is rendered food in the ritual interpretation like the kindred word prayas. The root means pleasure, fullness, satisfaction, and may have the material sense of a "delicacy" or satisfying food and the psychological sense of a delight, pleasure or satisfaction. The satisfactions or delicacies which are carried in the car of the Ashwins are, then, in three pairs; or the phrase may simply mean, they are three but closely associated together. In any case, the reference is to the three kinds of satisfaction or pleasure which correspond to the three movements or worlds of our progressive consciousness, —satisfactions of the body, satisfactions of the vitality, satisfactions of the mind. If they are in three pairs, then we must understand that on each plane there
Page – 329 is a double action of the delight corresponding to the double and united twinhood of the Ashwins. It is difficult in the Veda itself to distinguish between these brilliant and happy Twins or to discover what each severally represents. We have no such indication as is given us in the case of the three Ribhus. But perhaps the Greek names of these two Dioskouroi, Divo napātā, sons of Heaven, contain a clue. Kastor, the name of the elder, seems to be Kashtri, the Shining One; Poludeukes2 may possibly be Purudansas, a name which occurs in the Veda as an epithet of the Ashwins, the Manifold in activity. If so, the twin birth of the Ashwins recalls the constant Vedic dualism of Power and Light, Knowledge and Will, Consciousness and Energy, Go and Ashwa. In all the satisfactions brought to us by the Ashwins these two elements are inseparably united; where the form is that of the Light or Consciousness, there Power and Energy are contained; where the form is that of the Power or Energy, there Light and Consciousness are contained. But these three forms of satisfaction are not all that their chariot holds for us; there is something else, a fourth, a skin full of honey and out of this skin the honey breaks and overflows on every side. Drtis turīyo madhuno vi rapśate. Mind, life and body, these are three; turīya, the fourth plane of our consciousness, is the superconscient, the Truth-consciousness. The Ashwins bring with them a skin, drti, literally a thing cut or torn, a partial formation out of the Truth-consciousness to contain the honey of the superconscient Beatitude; but it cannot contain it; that unconquerably abundant and infinite sweetness breaks out and overflows everywhere drenching with delight the whole of our existence. With that honey the three pairs of satisfactions, mental, vital, bodily are impregnated by this all-pervasive overflowing plenty and they become full of its sweetness, madhumantah. And so becoming, at once they begin to move upward. Touched
2 The k of Poludeukes points to an original s; the name would then be Purudamśas; but such fluctuations between the various sibilants were common enough in the early fluid state of the Aryan tongues.
Page – 330 by the divine delight all our satisfactions in this lower world soar upward irresistibly attracted towards the superconscient, towards the Truth, towards the Beatitude. And with them, —for, secretly or openly, consciously or subconsciously it is the delight of being that is the leader of our activities, —all the chariots and horses of these gods take the same soaring upward movement. All the various movements of our being, all the forms of Force that give them their impulsion, all follow the ascending light of Truth towards its home. Ud vām prksāso madhumanta irate, ratha aśvāsa usaso vyustisu. "In the wide-shinings of the Dawn" they rise; for Dawn is the illumination of the Truth rising upon the mentality to bring the day of full consciousness into the darkness or half-lit night of our being. She comes as Dakshina, the pure intuitive discernment on which Agni the God-force in us feeds when he aspires towards the Truth or as Sarama, the discovering intuition, who penetrates into the cave of the subconscient where the niggard lords of sense-action have hidden the radiant herds of the Sun and gives information to Indra. Then comes the lord of luminous Mind and breaks open the cave and drives upward the herds, udājat, upwards towards the vast Truth-consciousness, the own home of the gods. Our conscious existence is a hill (adri) with many successive levels and elevations, sānūni; the cave of the subconscient is below; we climb upwards towards the godhead of the. Truth and Bliss where are the seats of Immortality, yatrāmrtāsa āsate. 3 By this upward movement of the chariot of the Ashwins with its burden of uplifted and transformed satisfactions the veil of Night that encompasses the worlds of being in us is rolled away. All these worlds, mind, life, body, are opened to the rays of the Sun of Truth. This lower world in us, rajas, is extended and shaped by this ascending movement of all its powers and satisfactions into the very brightness of the luminous intuitive mind, Swar, which receives directly the higher Light. The mind, the act, the vital, emotional, substantial existence, all becomes
3 R.V. IX.15.2.
Page – 331 full of the glory and the intuition, the power and the light of the divine Sun, — tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya.4 The lower mental existence is transformed into an image and reflection of the higher Divine. Apornuvantas tama ā parīvrtam, svar na śukram tanvanta ā rajah. This verse closes the general description of the perfect and final movement of the Ashwins. In the third the Rishi Vamadeva turns to his own ascension, his own offering of the Soma, his voyage and sacrifice; he claims for it their beatific and glorifying action. The mouths of the Ashwins are made to drink of the sweetness; in his sacrifice, then, let them drink of it. Madhvah pibatam madhupebhir āsabhih. Let them yoke their chariot for the honey, their chariot beloved of men; uta priyam madhune yuñjāthām ratham. For man's movement, his progressive activity, is made by them glad in all its paths with that very honey and sweetness of the Ananda. Ā vartanim madhunā jinvathas pathah. For they bear the skin full and overflowing with its honey. Drtim vahethe madhumantam aśvinā. By the action of the Ashwins man's progress towards the beatitude becomes itself beatific; all his travail and struggle and labour grows full of a divine delight. As it is said in the Veda that by Truth is the progress towards the Truth, that is to say by the growing law of the Truth in the mental and physical consciousness we arrive finally beyond mind and body to the superconscient Truth, so here it is indicated that by Ananda is the progress towards the Ananda, —by a divine delight growing in all our members, in all our activities we arrive at the superconscious beatitude. In the upward movement the horses that draw the chariot of the Ashwins change into birds, into swans, hamsāsah. The Bird in the Veda is the symbol, very frequently, of the soul liberated and upsoaring, at other times of energies so liberated and upsoaring, winging upwards towards the heights of our being, winging widely with a free flight, no longer involved in the ordinary limited movement or labouring gallop of the Life energy, the Horse, Ashwa. Such are the energies that draw the
4 The great phrase of the Gayatri, R.V. III.62.10.
Page – 332 free car of the Lords of Delight, when there dawns on us the Sun of the Truth. These winged movements are full of the honey showered from the overflowing skin, madhumantah. They are unassailable, asridhah, they come to no hurt in their flight; or, the sense may be, they make no false or hurtful movement. And they are golden-winged, hiranyaparnāh. Gold is the symbolic colour of the light of Surya. The wings of these energies are the full, satisfied, attaining movement, parna, of his luminous knowledge. For these are the birds that awake with the Dawn; these are the winged energies that come forth from their nests when the feet of the daughter of Heaven press the levels of our human mentality, divo asya sānavi. Such are the swans that bear the swift-riding Twins. Hamsāso ye vam madhumanto asridho, hiranyaparnā uhuva usarbudhah. Full of the honey these winged energies shower on us as they rise the abundance of the waters of heaven, the full outpouring of the high mental consciousness; they are instinct with ecstasy, with rapture, with the intoxication of the immortal wine; and they touch, they come into conscious contact with that superconscient being which is eternally in possession of the ecstasy, rapturous for ever with its divine intoxication. Udapruto mandino mandinisprśah. Drawn by them the Lords of delight come to the Rishi's Soma-offerings like bees to tricklings of honey; madhvo na maksah savanāni gacchathah. Makers themselves of the sweetness, they like the bees seek whatever sweetness can serve them as their material for more delight. In the sacrifice the same movement of general illumination already described as the result of the ascending flight of the Ashwins is now described as being effected by the aid of the fires of Agni. For the flames of the Will, the divine Force burning up in the soul, are also drenched with the overflowing sweetness and therefore they perform perfectly from day to day their great office of leading the sacrifice5 progressively to its goal. For that
5 Adhvara, the word for sacrifice, is really an adjective and the full phrase is adhvara yajña, sacrificial action travelling on the path, the sacrifice that is of the nature of a progression or journey. Agni, the Will, is the leader of the sacrifice.
Page – 333 progress they woo with their flaming tongues the daily visitation of the brilliant Ashwins who are bright with the light of the intuitive illuminations and uphold them with their thought of flashing energy.6 Svadhvarāso madhumanta agnaya usrā jarante prati vastor aśvinā. This aspiration of Agni happens when the Sacrificer with pure hands, with a perfectly discerning vision, with power in his soul to travel to the end of its pilgrimage, to the goal of the sacrifice through all obstacles, breaking all opposers, has pressed out the immortalising wine with the pressing-stones and that too becomes full of the honey of the Ashwins. Yan niktahastas taranir vicaksanah, somam susāva madhumantam adribhih. For the individual's delight in things is met by the Ashwins' triple satisfactions and by the fourth, the delight pouring from the Truth. The cleansed hands of the Sacrificer, niktahastah, are possibly 7 symbolic of the purified physical being; the power comes from a fulfilled life-energy; the force of clear mental vision, vicaksana, is the sign of the truth-illumined mind. These are the conditions in mind, life and body for the overflowing of the honey over the triple satisfactions of the Ashwins. When the sacrificer has thus pressed out the honey-filled delight of things in his sacrifice, the flames of the Will are able to drink them from near, they are not compelled to bring them meagrely or with pain from a distant and hardly accessible plane of consciousness. Therefore, drinking immediately and freely, they become full of an exultant force and swiftness and run and race about over the whole field of our being to extend and build up the lower consciousness into the shining image of the world of free and luminous Mind. Ā kenipāso ahabhir davidhvatah, svar na śukram tanvanta ā rajah. The formula used is repeated without variation from the second Rik; but here it is the flames of the Will full of the fourfold satisfaction that do the work. There the free upsoaring of the gods by the mere touch of the
6 Savīrayā dhiyā, R.V. I.3.2. 7 The hand or arm is often, however, otherwise symbolic, especially when it is the two hands or arms of Indra that are in question.
Page – 334 Light and without effort; here the firm labour and aspiration of man in his sacrifice. For then it is by Time, by the days, that the work is perfected, ahabhih, by successive dawns of the Truth each with its victory over the night, by the unbroken succession of the sisters of which we have had mention in the hymn to the divine Dawn. Man cannot seize or hold at once all that the illumination brings to him; it has to be repeated constantly so that he may grow in the light. But not only the fires of the Will are at work to transform the lower consciousness. The Sun of Truth yokes also his lustrous coursers and is in movement; sūraś cid aśvān yuyujāna īyate. The Ashwins too take knowledge for the human consciousness of all the paths of its progress so that it may effect a complete, harmonious and many-sided movement. This movement advancing in many paths is combined in the light of the divine knowledge by the spontaneous self-arranging action of Nature which she assumes when the will and the knowledge are wedded in the perfect harmony of a fully self-conscious, intuitively guided action. Viśvān anu svadhayā cetathas pathahā. Vamadeva closes his hymn. He has been able to hold firmly the shining Thought with its high illumination and has expressed in himself by the shaping and fixing power of the Word the chariot, that is to say, the immortal movement of the delight of the Ashwins; the movement of a bliss that does not fade or grow old or exhaust itself, —it is ageless and undecaying, ajarah, —because it is drawn by perfect and liberated energies and not by the limited and soon exhausted, soon recalcitrant horses of the human vitality. Pra vām avocam aśvinā dhiyamdhā, rathah svaśvo ajaro yo asti. In this movement they traverse in a moment all the worlds of the lower consciousness, covering it with their speeding delights, and so arrive to that universal enjoyment in man full of his offering of the Soma-wine by which they can lead him, puissantly entering into it, through all opposers and to the great goal. Yena sadyah pari rajamsi yātho, havismantam taranim bhojam accha.
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