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 sweetness in his hands.

3. O Strength, we have sought thee with our adoration, bring hither the God-Mind¹ bright and dear in his happy chariots²  for our increasing.

4. Widely spread thyself,³ softly, thickly covering; towards thee lighten the voices of our illumination. Be white and bright in us that we may conquer.

5. Swing open, O ye Doors divine.⁴ And give us easy passage for our expanding; farther, farther lead and fill our sacrifice.

6. Darkness and Dawn⁵ we desire, two mighty Mothers of the

¹Indra.

²The plural is used to indicate the manifold movement of the Divine Mind in its completeness.

³This verse is addressed to Indra, the Power of divine Mind, through whom comes the illumination of the supramental Truth; by the advancing chariots of this giver of Light we conquer our divine possessions.

⁴ Man's sacrifice is his labour and aspiration Godwards and is represented as travelling through the opening doors of the concealed heavenly realms, kingdoms conquered in succession by the expanding soul.

⁵ Night and Day, symbols of the alternation of the divine and human consciousness in us. The Night of our ordinary consciousness holds and prepares all that the Dawn brings out into conscious being.

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Truth, fairly fronting us, increasers of our spacious being.

7. And O ye divine Priests of our humanity, O worshipped Twain, approach on the paths of the Life-breath to this our sacrifice.

8. She of the vision of knowledge, she of its flowing inspiration, she of its vastness, three goddesses¹ who give birth to the Bliss, they who stumble not,² may they take their seats at the altar strewn of the sacrifice.

9. O Fashioner of things,³ beneficent hither come to us; pervader of all in thy being, in thy nourishing of all and with thyself,⁴ in sacrifice after sacrifice foster our ascension.

10. O Master of Delight⁵ to that goal⁶ where thou knowest the secret Names of the gods, thither lead our offerings.

11. Swaha to the Will and to the Lord of Wideness,⁷ Swaha to the God-Mind and to the Thought-Power,⁸ Swaha to the godheads be the food of our oblation.⁹

¹Ila, Saraswati, Mahi; their names are translated in order to give the idea of their functions.

²Or, who are not assailed, cannot be attacked by the ignorance and darkness, cause of our suffering.

³Twashtri.

⁴The Divine as the Fashioner of things pervades all that He fashions both with His immutable self-existence and with that mutable becoming of Himself in things by which the soul seems to grow and increase and take on new forms. By the former He is the indwelling Lord and Maker, by the latter He is the material of his own works.

⁵ Soma.

⁶ The Ananda, the state of divine Beatitude in which all the powers of our being are revealed in their perfect godhead, here secret and hidden from us.

⁷ Varuna.

⁸ The Maruts, nervous or vital forces of our being which attain to conscious expression in the thought, singers of the hymn to Indra, the God-Mind.

⁹That is, let all in us that we offer to the divine Life be turned into the self-light and self\force of the divine Nature.

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