SUTAMBHARA
SUKTA
11
1. Fire the guardian of men has been born, wakeful and discerning for a new
happy journey; luminous is his front and with his heaven-touching vast he shines
out full of light and brilliant in his purity for the Bringers.
2. Fire the supreme intuition of the sacrifice, the representative priest, men
have kindled high in the triple world of his session; let him come in one
chariot with Indra and the gods and take his seat on the sacred grass, the
Priest of the call, strong in will to sacrifice.
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3. Unoppressed thou art born brilliant-pure from the mothers twain, a rapturous
Priest of the call thou hast risen up from the sun; they have increased thee
with the offering of light, O Fire, fed with the oblation and thy smoke has
become a ray of intuition lodged in heaven.
4. May the Fire come to our sacrifice with power to accomplish, men carry the
Fire severally in house and house; the Fire has become the messenger and carrier
of our offering; when men accept the Fire it is the seer-will that they accept.
5. For thee, O Fire, this word most full of the honey-sweetness, for thee this
Thinking, let it be a happiness to thy heart; thee our words fill with
force as the great rivers fill the sea and make thee grow.
6. Thee, O Fire, the Angiras sought and found hidden in the secrecy lodging in
tree and tree; by our pressure on thee thou art born a mighty force, the Son of
Force they call thee, O Angiras!
SUKTA
12
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1. To Fire, the vast sacrificial Flame, to the Bull of the Truth, to the mighty
lord I bring my thought as if the offering of light in the sacrifice, purified
in the mouth I bring the word turned to meet him for the master of the herds.
2. O thou conscious of the Truth, of the Truth alone be conscious, cut out in
succession many streams of the Truth; I know not how to travel by force or by
division to the Truth of the shining lord.
3. By what thought of ours seeking the Truth by the Truth shalt thou become for
us, O Fire, a new discoverer of the word? The god who is guardian of the order
and laws of the Truth knows me but I know him not, the master of the conquering
riches.
4. O Fire, who are these that are binders of the Adversary, who are the
guardians, the luminous ones that shall possess and conquer ? who keep the
foundation of the Falsehood, O Fire? who are the guardians of the untrue Word?
5. These were thy comrades, O Fire, who have turned away from thee, they were
benignant and have become malign; they have done violence to themselves by their
words speaking crooked things to the seeker after straightness.
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6. But he, O Fire, who desires with obeisance the sacrifice, guards the Truth of
the luminous lord; let there come to him his wide and perfect habitation, the
last state of man as he advances on his journey.
SUKTA
13
1. Singing the word of illumination we call to thee, singing the word of
illumination we kindle, singing the word of illumination, O Fire, that thou
mayst be our guard.
2. Seekers of the riches we meditate today the all-achieving laud of the divine,
heaven-touching Fire.
3. May Fire accept our words, he who is the priest of the call in men; may he
sacrifice to the divine kind.
4. Great is thy wideness, O Fire, our priest of the call, beloved and supremely
desirable; by thee men carry out the sacrifice.
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5. Thee high-lauded, O Fire, the strong conqueror of the plenitudes, the
illumined wise increase; so do thou give us the gift of a complete hero-might.
6. As the rim of a wheel the spokes, so dost thou encompass the gods; thou shalt
arrange for us our rich achievement.
SUKTA
14
1. Awake by the laud the Fire, let the immortal be kindled and let him set our
offerings in the godheads.
2. Him they pray in the pilgrim-sacrifices, mortals the divine and immortal who
is strong for sacrifice in human kind.
3. Him, the divine Fire, the perpetual generations pray with the ladle dripping
the clarity for the carrying of their offerings.
4. Fire at his birth has shone out slaying the destroyers, darkness by the
light, he found the Ray-Cows, the Waters, the Sun-World.
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5. Serve Fire the supremely desirable, the seer with his back of Light; may he
come, may he hear my call.
6. The Fire they have made to grow by the light, the all-seeing by their lauds
that place rightly the thought, that seek for the word.
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DHARUNA ANGIRASA
SUKTA
15
1. I bring my word to the creator and seer, him whom we must know, the glorious,
the ancient one; Fire the Mighty One seated in the light, full of bliss, the
holder of the Treasure, the continent of the Riches.
2. By the Truth they held the Truth that holds all, in the might of the
sacrifice, in the supreme ether, they who reached the gods seated in the law
that is the upholder of heaven, reached by the godheads born the unborn.
3. They weave bodies that reject evil, they weave a vast expansion hard to cross
for the ancient one; he new-born can
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cross through the regions¹ though they stand around him as around an angry lion.
4. When growing wide thou bearest like a mother birth after birth for firm
foundation, for vision, when thou boldest and wearest out manifestation after
manifestation, taking many forms thou encompassest all things with thyself.
5. May thy plenitude guard the last limit of thy force, the wide continent of
the riches that milks out its abundance, O godhead: like a thief thou boldest in
the secrecy that plane, awakening him to the consciousness of the great riches
thou hast rescued Atri.
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PURU
SUKTA
16
1. Create by the illumining word a wide expansion for the Light, for the divine
Fire, whom mortals by their proclaimings of him set in their front as Mitra the
friend.
2. He is men's priest of the call who by his illuminations carries in his two
arms of the Understanding the offerings wholly in a continuous order; as Bhaga,
the enjoyer, he
¹Or,
breaks through his converging hunters
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reaches our desirable good.
3. In the lauding of this master of plenty, in his friendship as his light
grows, ^for all things are in this Fire of the many voices, men have founded
their strength in him, the Noble One.
4. Now, indeed, O Fire, these have reached a plenitude of heroic strength,
around him as around one mighty, earth and heaven have become an inspired
knowledge.
5. Now, voiced by our word, come to us and bring to us our desirable good; we
here and the illumined seers, let us together found our blissful state. And do
thou be with us in our battles that we may grow.
SUKTA
17
1. Mortal man should pray thee, O God, by the sacrifices because thou hast the
right strength for his guard; when well-done is the pilgrim-sacrifice man must
pray the Fire that he may protect him.
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2. By his mouth, in his complete law, thou becomest greater in the self-glory
and boldest in mind that rapturous heaven manifoldly brilliant in its light
beyond the thinking mind.
3. This, indeed, is he who by the ray of this Fire has become possessed of the
force and the word and whose rays by the seed of heaven blaze into a vast light.
4. By the will of this completely conscious achiever of works the riches are
there in his car; so now is the Fire the one to be called and he is proclaimed
in all the peoples.
5. Now, indeed, by the mouth of the Fire, can the luminous seers cleave to that
desirable good; O son of energy, protect us that we may enter in, have power for
the happy state. And do thou be with us in our battles that we may conquer.
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DWITA MRIKTAWAHAS
SUKTA
18
1. Let the Fire with his multitude of delightful things, the guest of man,
receive the laud at dawn, he who is immortal in mortals and takes joy in all
their offerings.
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2. The plenitude of his own understanding for the twofold power that carries the
purified offering; he holds uninterruptedly the moon-wine and he too who lauds
thee, holds it, O immortal. ,
3. I call him by the word who is the light of long-extended life for you the
lords of plenty, you whose chariot goes abroad without hurt, O giver of the
Horse, —
4. in whom is the richly brilliant light of thought and they guard the
utterances in their mouths; spread is the sacred seat and they found the
inspirations all around it in the Godhead of the sun-world.
5. They who have given me in the moment of the laud the fifty steeds of
swiftness create for those lords of plenty a great and luminous inspired
knowledge, create for those gods the Vast, with its gods, O Immortal, O Fire.
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VAVRI
SUKTA
19
1. State upon state is born, covering upon covering has become
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conscious and aware, in the lap of the mother he sees.
2. Awaking to an entire knowledge they have called and guard a sleepless
strength, they have entered the strong fortified city.
3. Creatures born, men who people the earth have increased the luminosity of the
son of the white mother; his neck wears the golden necklace, he has the
utterance of the Vast, and with his honey-wine he is the seeker of the
plenitude.
4. He is as if the delightful and desirable milk of the mother, he is that which
is uncompanioned abiding with the two companions ; he is the blaze of the light,
and the belly of the plenitude, he is the eternal invincible and the
all-conqueror.
5. O Ray, mayst thou be with us and play with us, unifying thy knowledge with
the shining of the breath of life; may those flames of him be for us violent and
intense and keenly whetted, strong to carry and settled in the breast.
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PRAYASWATS
SUKTA
20
1. O Fire, O thou who art most strong to conquer the plenitudes, the wealth
which thou boldest in mind that make full of inspiration by the words and set it
to work in the gods as our ally.
2. They have grown on thy forceful strength, O Fire, yet impel us not on the
way, they fall away and cleave to the hostility, cleave to the crookedness of
one who has a law alien to thine.
3. Thee, O Fire, the ancient one, we choose in our sacrifices as the Priest of
the call, one who accomplishes a discerning knowledge, and bringing the pleasant
offering we call thee by the word.
4. So rightly make it that we may live in thy protection and that we may grow
towards the Truth day by day, O forceful Fire, O strong in will, together
rejoicing in the light of the Ray-Cow, together rejoicing in the strength of the
Heroes.
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SASA
SUKTA
21
1. As the human we set thee within us, as the human we kindle
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thee; O Fire, O Angiras, as the human offer sacrifice to the gods for the seeker
of the godheads.
2. O Fire, thou art kindled in the human being and well-satisfied; unceasing
ladles go to thee, O perfect in thy birth, O thou who receivest as oblation the
stream of his clarities!
3. Thee all the gods with one mind of acceptance made their envoy; men serving
thee pray thee as the godhead in their sacrifices, O seer.
4. Let mortal man with will to the divine sacrifice to you, pray to the divine
Fire; O brilliant Flame, high-kindled shine; mayst thou take thy seat in the
native home of the Truth, take thy seat in the native home of the peace.
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VISHWASAMAN
SUKTA
22
1. O thou of the universal peace, as the Atri sing the word of illumination to
Fire of the purifying light who is to be prayed in the pilgrim-sacrifices, the
Priest of the call, most rapturous in man.
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– 234
2. Set within you Fire, the knower of all things born, as the divine ordinant of
the rite; let your sacrifice march forward today most strong to bring the
epiphany of the gods.
3. Mortals we fix our minds on thee the godhead who hast the mind of conscious
knowledge for the protection as we journey, for the guardian supremely
desirable.
4. O Fire, become conscious of this in us, this is our word, O forceful Flame: O
strong-jawed master of the house this is thou whom the Atris magnify with their
lauds, whom the Atris glorify with their words.
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DYUMNA VISHWACHARSHANI
SUKTA
23
1. O Fire, bring by the force of the light a forceful wealth which shall
overcome by thy mouth in the plenitudes all the peoples.
2. O forceful Fire, bring that wealth which overcomes armies,
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for thou art the true, the wonderful, the giver of the plenitude of the
Ray-Cows.
3. All men who have plucked the sacred grass with one mind of acceptance
approach thee, the beloved Priest of the call in their houses and reach in thee
the multitude of desirable things.
4. This is the labourer in all man's works and he holds in him-self an
all-besieging force. O pure brilliant Flame, shine out full of joy and opulence
in these our habitations, shine out full of light, O our purifier.
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GAUPAYANAS OR LAUPAYANAS
SUKTA
24
1-2. O Will, become our inmost inmate, become auspicious to us, become our
deliverer and our armour of protection. Thou who art the lord of substance and
who of that substance hast the divine knowledge, come towards us, give us its
most luminous opulence.
3-4. Awake! hear our call! keep us far from all that seeks to turn us to evil. O
shining One, O Flame of purest Light,
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thee for our comrades we desire that even now they may have the bliss and peace.
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VASUYUS
SUKTA
25
1. Raise thy song towards the Will, towards the divine for thy increasing, for
he is our lord of substance and he lavishes; he is the son of the seekers of
knowledge; he is the keeper of the Truth who ferries us beyond the surge of our
destroyers.
2. This is the true in his being whom the seers of old kindled, yea, the gods
too kindled him with perfect outshinings into his wide substance of the light,
the Priest of the oblation with his tongue of ecstasy.
3. O Flame supremely desirable, so by our supreme thinking, by our brightest
perfected mentality, by its utter cleaving away of all evil, let thy light give
unto us the bliss.
4. The Will is that which shines out in the gods, the Will is that which enters
with its light into mortals, the Will is the carrier of our oblation; the Will
seek and serve in all your thoughts.
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5. The Will gives to the giver of sacrifice the Son¹ born of his works who teems
with the many inspirations and many voices of the soul, the highest, the
unassailable, the Master of things who opens our ears to the knowledge.
6. Yea, 'tis the Will that gives to us the Lord of existences who conquers in
the battle by souls of power; Will gives to us our swift-galloping steed of
battle ever conquering, never conquered.
7. That which is strongest in us to upbear, we give it to the Will. Sing out the
Vast, O thou whose wide substance is its light. Thy opulence is as if the
largeness of the Goddess² herself; upward is the rush of thy plenitudes.
8. Luminous are thy flaming radiances; there rises from thee a vast utterance
like the voice of the pressing-stone of delight; yea, thy cry of itself rises up
like a thunder-chant from the heavens.
¹The
Son of the sacrifice is a constant image in the Veda. Here it is the godhead
himself, Agni who gives himself as a son to man, a Son who delivers his father.
Agni is also the War-Horse and the steed of the journey, the White Horse, the
mystic galloping Dadhikravan who carries us through the battle to the goal of
our voyaging.
²Aditi, the vast Mother.
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9. Thus, desiring substance, we adore the Will who is forceful to
conquer. May he who has the perfect power of his workings, carry us beyond all
the forces that seek to destroy us, like a ship over the waters.
SUKTA
26
1. O Flame, O purifier, bring to us by thy tongue of rapture, O god, the gods
and offer to them sacrifice.
2. Thou who drippest the clarity, thou of the rich and varied luminousness, we
desire thee because thou hast the vision of our world of the Truth. Bring to us
the gods for their manifesting.¹
3. O Seer, we kindle thee in thy light and thy vastness in the march of our
sacrifice who carriest the offerings on their journey.
4. Come, O Will, with all the godheads for the giving of the oblation; thee we
accept as the Priest of the offering.
¹Or, "for the journeying" to the
luminous world of the Truth, or "for the eating" of the oblations.
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5. For the sacrificer who presses the wine of his delight, bring, O Flame, a
perfect energy. Sit with the gods on the seat of the soul's fullness.
6. O Flame, thou burnest high and increasest the divine laws and art the
conqueror of a thousandfold riches; thou art the messenger of the gods who hast
the word.
7. Set within you the Flame who knows the births, bearer of the offering,
youngest vigour, divine sacrificer in the seasons of the Truth.
8. Today let thy sacrifice march forward unceasingly, thy sacrifice that shall
bring the whole epiphany of the godheads. Strew the seat of thy soul that there
they may sit.
9. There let the Life-powers¹ take their seat and the Riders of the Horse² and
the Lord of Love³ and the Lord of Wideness,4
even the gods with all their nation.
¹The Maruts. ²The twin Ashwins. ³Mitra.
4Varuna.
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TRYARUNA TRAIVRISHNA, TRASADASYU
PAURUKUTSA, ASHWAMEDHA BHARATA
SUKTA
27
1. O Will, O Universal Power,¹ the mighty One supreme in vision, master of
his being, lord of his plenitudes has given me his two cows of the Light
that draw his wain. He of the triple dawn, son of the triple Bull,² has
awakened to knowledge with the ten thousands³ of his plenitude.
2. He gives to me the hundred and twenty4 of the cows of dawn;
his two shining5 horses he gives, yoked to the car, that bear
aright the yoke. O Will, O Universal Power, do thou rightly affirmed and
increasing extend peace and bliss to the lord of the triple dawn.
¹Or, Godhead,
²The Triple Bull is Indra, lord of the
three luminous realms of Swar, the Divine Mind; Tryaruna Trasadasyu is
the half-god, man turned into the Indra type; therefore he is described
by all the usual epithets of Indra, "Asura", "Satpati", "Maghavan". The
triple dawn is the dawn of these three realms on the human mentality.
³Thousand symbolises absolute
completeness. But there are ten subtle powers of the illumined
mind each of which has to have its entire plenitude.
4The
symbolic figure of the illuminations of divine knowledge as the series
of dawns (cows) of the twelve months of the year and twelve periods of
the sacrifice. There are again ten times twelve to correspond to the ten
subtle sisters, powers of the illumined mentality.
5The
two shining horses of Indra identical probably with the two cows of
light of the first verse; they are the two vision-powers of the
supramental Truth-Consciousness, right-hand and left-hand, probably
direct truth-discernment and intuition. As cows symbolising light of
knowledge they yoke themselves to the material mind, the wain; as horses
symbolising power of knowledge to the chariot of Indra, the liberated
pure mind.
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3. For thus has he done desiring thy grace of mind, new-given for him,
new-manifested, — he, the disperser of the destroy-ers,¹ the lord of the
triple dawn who with attentive mind gives response to the many words of my
many births.²
4. May he who answers to me with assent give to the illumined giver of the
Horse-sacrifice,³ by the word of illumination, possession of the goal of his
journey; may he give power of intelligence to the seeker of the Truth.
5. A hundred strong bulls of the diffusion4 raise me up to joy;
the gifts of the sacrificer of the steed are as outpourings of the wine of
delight with their triple infusions.5
¹Trasadasyu; in all things
he reproduces the characteristics of Indra.
²The seer by this self-fulfilment
on the higher plane is born, as it were, into many realms of consciousness
and from each of these there go up its words that express the impulses in it
which seek a divine fulfilment. The Mind-Soul answers to these and gives
assent, it supplies to the word of expression the answering word of
illumination and to the Life that seeks the Truth it gives the power of
intelligence that finds and holds the Truth.
³The Horse-sacrifice is the
offering of the Life-power with all its impulses, desires, enjoyments to the
divine existence. The Life-soul (Dwita) is itself the giver of this
sacrifice which it performs when by the power of Agni it attends to vision
on its own vital plane, when it becomes, in the figure of the hymn, the
illumined seer, aśvamedha.
4 The complete
hundred powers of the Life by whom all the abundance of the vital plane is
showered upon the growing man. The vital forces being the instrument of
desire and enjoyment, this diffusion is like the outpouring of the wine of
delight that raises the soul to new and intoxicating joys.
5The delight
extracted from existence is typefied by the honey-wine of the Soma; it is
mixed with the milk, the curds and the grain, the milk being that of the
luminous cows, the curds the fixation of their yield in the intellectual
mind and the grain the formulation of the light in the force of the physical
mind. These symbolic senses are indicated by the double meaning of the words
used, go, dadhi, yava.
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6. May the God-Mind and the God-Will uphold in the sacrificer of the Horse
and giver of his hundred a perfect energy and a vast force of battle even as
in heaven the Sun of Light indestructible.¹
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VISHWAWARA
SUKTA
28
1. The Flame of Will burning high rises to his pure light in the heaven of
mind; wide he extends his illumination and fronts the Dawn. She comes,
moving upward, laden with all desirable things, seeking the gods with the
oblation, luminous with the clarity.
2. When thou bumest high thou art king of immortality and thou cleavest to
the doer of sacrifice to give him that blissful state; he to whom thou
comest to be his guest, holds in himself all substance and he sets thee
within in his front.
3. O Flame, put forth thy battling might for a vast enjoyment² of bliss, may
there be thy highest illumination; create a well-governed union of the Lord
and his Spouse, set thy foot
¹Perfect and vast energy in
the vital being corresponding to the infinite and immortal light of the
Truth in the mental being.
²The Vedic immortality is a
vast beatitude, a large enjoyment of the divine and infinite existence
reposing on a perfect union between the Soul and Nature; the soul becomes
King of itself and its environment, conscious on all its planes, master of
them, with Nature for its bride delivered from divisions and discords into
an infinite and luminous harmony.
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on the greatness of hostile powers.
4. I adore, O Flame, the glory of thy high-blazing mightiness. Thou art the
Bull with the illuminations; thou burnest up in the march of our sacrifices.
5. O Flame that receivest our offerings, perfect guide of the sacrifice,
high-kindled offer our oblation to the godheads; for thou art the
bearer of our offerings.
6. Cast the offering, serve the Will with your works¹ while your sacrifice
moves forward to its goal, accept the carrier of our
oblation.
¹Or, set the Will to its
workings
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