{"id":862,"date":"2013-07-13T01:30:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=862"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:30:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:52","slug":"39-hymns-of-the-atris-foreword-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10\/39-hymns-of-the-atris-foreword-vol-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","title":{"rendered":"-39_Hymns of the Atris – Foreword.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\n
\nPART THREE<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nHYMNS OF THE ATRIS<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe Hymns to Agni (Rig-veda V, 1 to 28) were
\nlater revised by Sri Aurobindo and have been
\nincluded in HYMNS TO THE <\/span>MYSTIC
\n<\/span>FIRE <\/span>\u2014 Volume
\n11\u2014along with the Vedic text. Here only the
\noriginal translation, as it appeared in the ARYA<\/span>, is
\ngiven for the sake of the valuable Notes which
\naccompany it. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nForeword<\/font> <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>O<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b>translate the Veda is to border upon
\nan attempt at the impossible. For while a literal English rendering of the hymns of the ancient Illuminates would be a
\nfalsification of their sense and spirit, a version which aimed at
\nbringing all the real thought to the surface would be an interpretation rather than a translation. I have essayed a sort of middle
\npath, \u2014 a free and plastic form which shall follow the turns of
\nthe original and yet admit a certain number of interpretative de-
\nvices sufficient for the light of the Vedic truth to gleam out from
\nits veil of symbol and image.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Veda is a book of esoteric symbols, almost of spiritual
\nformulae, which masks itself as a collection of ritual poems.
\nThe inner sense is psychological, universal, impersonal; the ostensible significance and the figures which were meant to reveal
\nto the initiates what they concealed from the ignorant, are to all
\nappearance crudely concrete, intimately personal, loosely occasional and allusive. To this lax outer garb the Vedic poets are
\nsometimes careful to give a clear and coherent form quite other
\nthan the strenuous inner soul of their meaning; their language
\nthen becomes a cunningly woven mask for hidden truths. More
\noften they are negligent of the disguise which they use, and when they thus rise
\nabove their instrument, a literal and external translation gives either a bizarre, unconnected sequence of sentences
\nor a form of thought and speech strange and remote to the uninitiated intelligence. It is only when the figures and symbols are
\nmade to suggest their concealed equivalents that there emerges
\nout of the obscurity a transparent and well-linked though close
\nand subtle sequence of spiritual, psychological and religious
\nideas. It is this method of suggestion that I have attempted.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt would have been possible to present a literal version on
\ncondition of following it up by pages of commentary charged
\nwith the real sense of the words and the hidden message of the
\nthought. But this would be a cumbrous method useful only to<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 351<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe scholar and the careful student. Some form of the sense was
\nneeded which would compel only so much pause of the intelligence over its object as would be required by any mystic and
\nfigurative poetry. To bring about such a form it is not enough to
\ntranslate the Sanskrit word into the English; the significant name,
\nthe conventional figure, the symbolic image have also frequently
\nto be rendered..<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIf the images preferred by the ancient sages had been such as
\nthe modern mind could easily grasp, if the symbols of the sacrifice were still familiar to us and the names of the Vedic gods still
\ncarried their old psychological significance, \u2014 as the Greek or
\nLatin names of classical deities. Aphrodite or Ares, Venus or
\nMinerva, still bear their sense for a cultured European, \u2014 the
\ndevice of an interpretative translation could have been avoided.
\nBut India followed another curve of literary and religious development than the culture of the West. Other names of Gods have
\nreplaced the Vedic names or else these have remained but with
\nonly an external and diminished significance; the Vedic ritual,
\nwell-nigh obsolete, has lost its profound symbolic meaning; the
\npastoral, martial and rural images of the early Aryan poets sound
\nremote, inappropriate, or, if natural and beautiful, yet void of
\nthe old deeper significance to the imagination of their descendants. Confronted with the stately hymns of the ancient dawn,
\nwe are conscious of a blank incomprehension. And we leave
\nthem as a prey to the ingenuity of the scholar who gropes for
\nforced meanings amid obscurities and incongruities where the
\nancients bathed their souls in harmony and light.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nA few examples will show what the gulf is and how it was
\ncreated. When we write in a recognised and conventional imagery, "Laxmi and Saraswati refuse to dwell under one roof",
\nthe European reader may need a note or a translation of the
\nphrase into its plain unfigured thought, "Wealth and Learning
\nseldom go together", before he can understand, but every Indian
\nalready possesses the sense of the phrase. But if another culture
\nand religion had replaced the Puranic and Brahminical and the
\nold books and the Sanskrit language had ceased to be read and understood, this
\nnow familiar phrase would have been as meaningless in India as in Europe. Some infallible commentator or<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 352<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ningenious scholar might have been proving to our entire satisfaction that Laxmi was the Dawn and Saraswati the Night or that
\nthey were two irreconcilable chemical substances \u2014 or one
\nknows not what else! It is something of this kind that has over-
\ntaken the ancient clarities of the Veda; the sense is dead and only
\nthe obscurity of a forgotten poetic form remains. Therefore
\nwhen we read "Sarama by the path of the Truth discovers the
\nherds", the mind is stopped and baffled by an unfamiliar language. It has to be translated to us, like the phrase about
\nSaraswati to the European, into a plainer and less figured
\nthought, "Intuition by the way of the Truth arrives at the hidden
\nilluminations." Lacking the clue, we wander into ingenuities
\nabout the Dawn and the Sun or even imagine in Sarama,
\nthe hound of heaven, a mythological personification of some
\nprehistoric embassy to Dravidian nations for the recovery of
\nplundered cattle!<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd the whole of the Veda is conceived in such images.
\nThe resultant obscurity and confusion for our intelligence is
\nappalling and it will be at once evident how useless would be
\nany translation of the hymns which did not strive at the same
\ntime to be an interpretation. "Dawn and Night," runs an impressive Vedic verse, "two sisters of different forms but of one
\nmind, suckle the same divine Child." We understand nothing.
\nDawn and Night are of different forms, but why of one
\nmind ? And who is the child ? If it is Agni, the fire, what are we to understand
\nby Dawn and Night suckling alternately an infant fire ? But the Vedic poet is not thinking of the physical night,
\nthe physical dawn or the physical fire. He is thinking of the alternations in his own spiritual experience, its constant rhythm of
\nperiods of a sublime and golden illumination and other periods
\nof obscuration or relapse into normal unillumined consciousness
\nand he confesses the growth of the infant strength of the divine
\nlife within him through all these alternations and even by the
\nvery force of their regular vicissitude. For in both states there
\nworks, hidden or manifest, the same divine intention and the
\nsame high-reaching labour. Thus an image which to the Vedic
\nmind was clear, luminous, subtle, profound, striking, comes to
\nus void of sense or poor and incoherent in sense and therefore<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 353<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\naffects us as inflated and pretentious, the ornament of an inapt
\nand bungling literary craftsmanship.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSo too when the seer of the house of Atri cries high to Agni,
\n"O Agni, O Priest of the offering, loose from us the cords",
\nhe is using not only a natural, but a richly laden image. He is
\nthinking of the triple cord of mind, nerves and body by which the
\nsoul is bound as a’ victim in the great world-sacrifice, the sacrifice
\nof the Purusha; he is thinking of the force of the divine Will
\nalready awakened and at work within him, a fiery and irresistible
\ngodhead that shall uplift his oppressed divinity and cleave asunder the cords of its bondage; he is thinking of the might of that
\ngrowing Strength and inner Flame which receiving all that he has
\nto offer carries it to its own distant and difficult home, to the
\nhigh-seated Truth, to the Far, to the Secret, to the Supreme. All
\nthese associations are lost to us; our minds are obsessed by ideas
\nof a ritual sacrifice and a material cord. We imagine perhaps the
\nson of Atri bound as a victim in an ancient barbaric sacrifice,
\ncrying to the god of Fire for a physical deliverance!<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nA little later the seer sings of the increasing Flame, "Agni
\nshines wide with vast Light and makes all things manifest by his
\ngreatness." What are we to understand? Shall we suppose that
\nthe singer released from his bonds, one knows not how, is ad-
\nmiring tranquilly the great blaze of the sacrificial fire which was
\nto have devoured him and wonder at the rapid transitions of the
\nprimitive mind? It is only when we discover that the "vast Light"
\nwas a fixed phrase in the language of the Mystics for a wide, free
\nand luminous consciousness beyond mind, that we seize the true
\nburden of the Rik. The seer is hymning his release from the triple
\ncord of mind, nerves and body and the uprising of the knowledge
\nand will within him to a plane of consciousness where the real
\ntruth of all things transcendent of their apparent truth becomes
\nat length manifest in a vast illumination.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut how are we to bring home this profound, natural and
\ninner sense to the minds of others in a translation ? It cannot be
\ndone unless we translate interpretatively, "O Will, O Priest of our
\nsacrifice, loose from us the cords of our bondage" and "this
\nFlame shines out with the vast-Light of the Truth and makes all
\nthings manifest by its greatness". The reader will then at least<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 354<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nbe able to seize the spiritual nature of the cord, the light, the
\nflame; he will feel something of the sense and spirit of this ancient chant.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe method I have employed will be clear
\nfrom these instances. I have sometimes thrown aside the image, but not so as to
\ndemolish the whole structure of the outer symbol or to substitute a commentary for a translation. It would have been an
\nundesirable violence to strip from the richly-jewelled garb of the
\nVedic thought its splendid ornaments or to replace it by a coarse
\ngarment of common speech. But I have endeavoured to make it
\neverywhere as transparent as possible. I have rendered the significant names of the Gods, Kings, Rishis by their half-concealed
\nsignificances, \u2014 otherwise the mask would have remained impenetrable; where the image was unessential, I have sometimes
\nsacrificed it for its psychological equivalent; where it influenced
\nthe colour of the surrounding words, I have sought for some
\nphrase which would keep the figure and yet bring out its whole
\ncomplexity of sense. Sometimes I have even used a double
\ntranslation. Thus for the Vedic word which means at once light
\nor ray and cow, I have given according to the circumstances
\n"Light", "the radiances", "the shining herds", "the radiant
\nkine", "Light, mother of the herds". Soma, the ambrosial wine
\nof the Veda, has been rendered "wine of delight" or "wine of
\nimmortality".<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Vedic language as a whole is a powerful and remark-
\nable instrument, terse, knotted, virile, packed, and in its turns
\ncareful rather to follow the natural flight of the thought in the
\nmind than to achieve the smooth and careful constructions and
\nthe clear transitions of a logical and rhetorical syntax. But
\ntranslated without modification into English, such a language
\nwould become harsh, abrupt and obscure, a dead and heavy
\nmovement with nothing in it of the morning vigour and puissant
\nstride of the original. I have therefore preferred to throw it in
\ntranslation into a mould more plastic and natural to the English
\ntongue, using the constructions and devices of transition which
\nbest suit a modern speech while preserving the logic of the original thought; and I have never hesitated to reject the bald
\ndictionary equivalent of the Vedic word for an ampler phrase in<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 355<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe English where that was necessary to bring out the full sense
\nand associations. Throughout I have kept my eye fixed on my
\nprimary object \u2014 to make the inner sense of the Veda seizable
\nby the cultured intelligence of today.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWhen all has been done, the aid of some amount of annotation remained still indispensable; but I have tried not to over-
\nburden the translation with notes or to indulge in overlong explanations. I have excluded everything scholastic. In the Veda
\nthere are numbers of words of a doubtful meaning, many locutions whose sense can only be speculatively or provisionally fixed,
\nnot a few verses capable of two or more different interpretations.
\nBut a translation of this kind is not the place for any record of
\nthe scholar’s difficulties and hesitations. I have also prefixed a
\nbrief outline of the main Vedic thought indispensable to the
\nreader who wishes to understand.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe will expect only to seize the general trend and surface
\nsuggestions of the Vedic hymns. More would be hardly possible.
\nTo enter into the very heart of the mystic doctrine, we must our-
\nselves have trod the ancient paths and renewed the lost discipline,
\nthe forgotten experience. And which of us can hope to do that
\nwith any depth or living power? Who in this Age of Iron shall
\nhave the strength to recover the light of the Forefathers or soar
\nabove the two enclosing firmaments of mind and body into their
\nluminous empyrean of the infinite Truth ? The Rishis sought to
\nconceal their knowledge from the unfit, believing perhaps that
\nthe corruption of the best might lead to the worst and fearing to
\ngive the potent wine of the Soma to the child and the weakling.
\nBut whether their spirits still move among us looking for the rare
\nAryan soul in a mortality that is content to leave the radiant herds
\nof the Sun for ever imprisoned in the darkling cave of the Lords
\nof the sense-life or whether they await in their luminous world
\nthe hour when the Maruts shall again drive abroad and the
\nHound of Heaven shall once again speed down to us from beyond
\nthe rivers of Paradise and the seals of the heavenly waters shall be
\nbroken and the caverns shall be rent and the immortalising wine
\nshall be pressed out in the body of man by the electric thunder-stones, their secret remains safe to them. Small is the chance
\nthat in an age which blinds our eyes with the transient glories of<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 356<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe outward life and deafens our ears with the victorious trumpets
\nof a material and mechanical knowledge many shall cast more
\nthan the eye of an intellectual and imaginative curiosity on the
\npass-words of their ancient discipline or seek to penetrate into the
\nheart of their radiant mysteries. The secret of the Veda, even
\nwhen it has been unveiled, remains still a secret.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 357<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PART THREE HYMNS OF THE ATRIS   The Hymns to Agni (Rig-veda V, 1 to 28) were later revised by Sri Aurobindo and have been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-the-secret-of-the-veda-volume-10","wpcat-17-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}