The Secret of the Veda

The Third Hymn to Mitra-Varuna

The Leaders to the Blissful Home

[The Rishi invokes the Lords of the infinite wideness and harmony whose arms embrace the soul's highest plane of the Truth and Bliss, to extend to him those arms of awakened consciousness and knowledge, so that he may have their all-embracing delight. He aspires by the path of Mitra to the joy of his harmonies in which there is no wound nor hurt; conceiving and holding the highest by the power of the illumining word, he would aspire to an increase in that plane, the proper home of the gods. Let the two great gods create in his being that wide world of their divine strength and vastness; let them bring to him its plenitude and felicity in the dawning of the divine light and the divine force.]

वरुणं वो रिशादसमृचा मित्रं हवामहे ।
परि व्रजेव बाह्वोर्जगन्वांसा स्वर्णरम् ॥१॥

1) Varuna, destroyer of the foe, and Mitra we call to you by the word of illumination; their arms encompass the world of the power of Light¹ as if cast around the pens of the shining herds.

ता बाहवा सुचेतुना प्र यन्तमस्मा अर्चते ।
शेवं हि जायँ वां विश्वासु क्षासु जोगुवे ॥२॥

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2) Stretch out your arms of awakened knowledge² to the human being when he chants to you the illumining word; your bliss adorable shall reach through all our earths.³

यन्नूनमश्यां गतिं मित्रस्य यायां पथा ।
अस्य प्रियस्य शर्मण्यहिंसानस्य सश्चिरे ॥३॥

3) May I go by the path of the Friend⁴ that even now I may attain to the goal⁵ of my journey; so men cling firmly to the bliss of that Beloved in whom there is no wounding.

युवाभ्यां मित्रावरुमोपमं धेयामृचा ।
यद्ध क्षये मघोनां स्तोतृणां च स्पूर्धसे ॥४॥

4) O Mitra and Varuna, may my thought hold by the illumining word that highest which is your possession, so that it shall aspire⁶ to the home of the masters of plenitude for them and for men who affirm you.

आ नो मित्र सुदीतिभिर्वरुणश्च सधस्थ आ ।
स्वे क्षये मघोनां सखीनां च वृधसे ॥५॥

5) O Mitra, come to us with thy perfect givings and Varuna in the world of our session, for increase in their own home of the masters of plenitude⁷ and for increase of your companions.

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युवं नो येषु वरुण क्षत्र बृहच्च बिभृथः ।
उरु णो वाजसातये कृतं राये स्वस्तये ॥६॥

6) For in them you twain bring to us, O Varuna, the might⁸ and the vastness; form in us the wide world for the conquest of our plenitudes, for bliss, for our soul's happiness.

उच्छन्त्यां मे यजता देवक्षत्रे रुशद्गवि ।
सुत सोमं न हस्तिभिरा पडि्भर्धावतं नरा बिभ्रतावर्चनानसम् ॥७॥

7) To me, O lords of sacrifice, in the breaking of the dawn, in the flashing of the ray, in the force of the gods, to my wine pressed out as if⁹ by men with hands come racing with your trampling steeds, O gods who bring,—to the pilgrim of the Light.¹⁰

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