THE SECRET OF THE VEDA

 

SRI AUROBINDO

 

Contents

 

PRE CONTENT

PART ONE

I.

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION

 

XIII

DAWN AND THE TRUTH

II.

A RETROSPECT OF VEDIC     THEORY (1)

 

XIV

THE COW AND THE ANGIRASA LEGEND

iii.

— THE SCHOLARS (2)

 

XV

THE LOST SUN AND THE LOST COWS

III.

 MODERN THEORIES

 

XVI

THE ANGIRASA RISHIS

IV.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY

 

XVII

THE SEVEN-HEADED THOUGHT,    SWAR  ANDTHE DASHAGWAS

V

PHILOLOGICAL METHOD OF THE VEDA

 

XVIII

THE HUMAN FATHERS

VI

AGNI AND THE TRUTH

 

XIX

THE VICTORY OP THE FATHERS

VII

VARUNA-MITRA AND THE TRUTH

 

XX

THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

VIII

THE ASHWINS — INDRA — THE VISHWADEVAS

 

XXI

THE SONS OF DARKNESS

IX

SARASWATI AND HER CONSORTS

 

XXII

THE CONQUEST OVER THE DASYUS

X

THE IMAGE OF THE OCEANS AND THE RIVERS

 

XXIII

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

XI

THE SEVEN RIVERS

     

XII

THE HERDS OF THE DAWN

     

 

  PART TWO
SELECTED HYMNS

 

I

THE COLLOQUY OF INDRA AND AGASTYA : I. 170

 

VIII

VAYU, THE MASTER OF THE LIFE ENERGIES : IV. 48

II

INDRA, GIVER OF LIGHT : I. 4

 

IX

BRIHASPATI, POWER OF THE SOUL : IV. 50

III

INDRA AND THE THOUGHT-FORCES : L 171

 

X

THE ASHWINS, LORDS OF Buss: IV. 45 . . . 314

IV

AGNI, THE ILLUMINED WILL : I. 77

 

XI

THE RIBHUS, ARTISANS OF IMMORTALITY : 1.20 . 324

V

SURYA SAVITRI, CREATOR AND INCREASER: V. 81

 

XII

 VISHNU, THE ALL-PERVADING GODHEAD : 1.154 . 331

VI

THE DIVINE DAWN : III.

 

XIII

SOMA, LORD OF DELIGHT AND IMMORTALITY : IX. 83 339

VII

To BHAGA SAVITRI, THE ENJOYER: V. 82

 

 

 

   

PART THREE
HYMNS OF THE ATRIS

 

FOREWORD

 

HYMNS TO AGNI: V

 

Agni, the Divine Will-Force

 

The Fifteenth Hymn to Agni

The First Hymn to Agni

 

The Sixteenth Hymn to Agni

The Second Hymn to Agni

 

The Seventeenth Hymn to Agni

The Third Hymn to Agni

 

The Eighteenth Hymn to Agni

The Fourth Hymn to Agni

 

The Nineteenth Hymn to Agni

The Fifth Hymn to Agni

 

The Twentieth Hymn to Agni

The Sixth Hymn to Agni

 

The Twenty-First Hymn to Agni

The Seventh Hymn to Agni

 

The Twenty-Second Hymn to Agni

The Eighth Hymn to Agni

 

The Twenty-Third Hymn to Agni

The Ninth Hymn to Agni

 

The Twenty-Fourth Hymn to Agni

The Tenth Hymn to Agni

 

The Twenty-Fifth Hymn to Agni

The Eleventh Hymn to Agni

 

The Twenty-Sixth Hymn to Agni

The Twelfth Hymn to Agni

 

The Twenty-Seventh Hymn to Agni

The Thirteenth Hymn to Agni

 

The Twenty-Eighth Hymn to Agni

The Fourteenth Hymn to Agni

 

 

 

 

THE GUARDIANS OF THE LIGHT:

 

HYMNS TO THE LORDS OF LIGHT : V

Surya, Light and Seer

 

The First Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

The Divine Dawn

 

The Second Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

Pushan the Increaser

 

The Third Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

Savitri the Creator

 

The Fourth Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

The Four Kings

 

The Fifth Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

Varuna

 

The Sixth Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

Mitra

 

The Seventh Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

Aryaman

 

The Eighth Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

Bhaga

 

The Ninth Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

 

 

The Tenth Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

 

 

The Eleventh Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

     

PART FOUR

 

OTHER HYMNS

 

HYMN IN PRAISE OF INDRA : I. 5

 

A HYMN TO SAVITRI: V. 81 

HYMN TO INDRA: 1.7-11

 

HYMN TO VARUNA (two versions): V. 85

HYMN TO INDRA: VIII. 54 

 

A VEDIC HYMN: VII. 60

HYMN TO INDRA : X. 54

 

THE GOD OF THE MYSTIC WINE : IX. 42,75

A VEDIC HYMN: 1.3

 

A HYMN OF THE THOUGHT-GODS : V. 52-58

FROM A VEDIC HYMN: 1.15

 

INTERPRETATION OF THE VEDA

HYMN TO BRAHMANASPATI: 1.18

 

INTERPRETATION OF THE VEDA

HYMNS TO THE DAWN : V. 79,80

 

THE ORIGINS OF ARYAN SPEECH

 

 

Bibliographic note

 

All references are to the Rig-veda unless otherwise stated.

A HYMN OF THE THOUGHT GODS

 

Based on V.52-58

 

      The shining host has arisen in my soul, the host of the Thought-gods and, they sing a hymn as they march upward, a hymn of the heart's illumination. March thou on, O my soul, impetuously to their violent and mighty music. For they are drunken with the joy of an inspiration that betrays not to falsehood, because the truth of eternal Nature is its guide. They are the comrades of a firm and blazing Light and in the force of the Light they work out their lofty aggressions; conquerors, violently they march on their path, self-protecting they guard of themselves the soul against falsehood; for they are many and march without a gap in their brilliant ranks. Violent are they as a herd of rushing bulls; the nights come against them, but they overleap the nights; they possess the earth in our thoughts and they rise with them to the heavens. No half-lights, no impotent things are they, but mighty in aggression and puissant to attain. Spears of light they hold and they loose them from their hands at the children of Darkness; the flashing lightnings of the Thought-gods search the night and the light of heaven rises of itself on our souls at their battle-call. Truth is their shining strength; the hosts of the Thought-gods are the artificers of the soul and they fashion its immortality; themselves they yoke their coursers to the chariot of our life and they drive galloping to the joy that is its goal.

They have bathed their limbs in the waters of Parushni, in the stream that has a multitude of currents, they have put on their divine raiment and now with the wheels of their chariots they break open all Nature's secret caves. Sometimes they march on a thousand branching paths, sometimes they rush direct at their goal; sometimes their paths are within, sometimes they follow outward Nature's thousand ways; the world-sacrifice fulfils itself by the many names of their godhead and by their ever-widening march. Now they make themselves as galloping forces of our life, now they are gods and powers of the soul; at

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last they put on forms of a supreme world, forms of vision, forms of light. They have attained to the goal, they support the rhythms of the world, chanting they weave their glorious dance round the very fountain of things; they are creators of supreme forms, they expand the soul in vision and make it a divine blaze of light. For these are rushing seekers of the Truth; for the Truth their lightnings stab and search; they are seers, they are creators and ordainers; their aggressions are inspired by the might and force of heaven, therefore affirmed in our thoughts they speed carrying us confidently on their way. When the mind is full of them, it is borne on towards godhead, for they have the radiant inspiration of the path.

Who has known the place of their birth or who has sat in their high beatitudes ? Who desires and seeks his Friend beyond? A Mother bore them many-hued in her soul and of her they tell him; a Violent One was their Father whose impulse drives all beings that are born, and him they reveal. Seven and seven the Thought-gods came to me and seven times they gave a hundred-fold ; in Yamuna I will bathe the shining herds of my thoughts which they have given, I will purify my swiftnesses in the river of my soul.

Lo, they march on in their cohorts and their companies; let us follow in their steps with the pace of our thinkings. For they bear with them an imperishable seed of creation and the grain of immortal forms and this if they plant in the fields of the soul, there shall grow as its harvest life universal and bliss transcendent. They will put by all that derides our aspiration and pass beyond all that limits us; they will destroy all fault and dumbness and the soul's poverties. For theirs is the rain of the abundance of heaven and theirs the storms that set flowing the rivers of life; their thunders are the chant of the hymn of the gods and the proclamations of the Truth. They are the eye that leads us on a happy path and he who follows them shall not stumble, nor have pain nor hurt, nor decay nor die; their plenitudes are not destroyed nor their felicities diminished; they make of man a seer and a king. Their vastness is the blazing of a divine Sun; they shall place us in the seats of Immortality.

Of all that was of old and of all that is new, of all that rises

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from the soul and all that seeks expression they are the impellers. They stand in the upper and the lower and the middle heaven; they have descended from the highest supreme. They are born of the Truth; they are luminous leaders of the mind; they shall drink the sweet wine of delight and give us the supreme inspirations. The Woman, the Divine is with them who shall put away from us hurt and thirst and desire and refashion man's mind in the form of the godhead. Lo, these are knowers of the Truth, seers whom the Truth inspires, vast in expression, vast in diffusion, young for ever and immortal.

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