Hymns to the Mystic Fire

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RV II.4.1-5

II.4.

Hymn to Agni attributed to Somahuti Bhargava.

1) सुवृक्ति. Sayana gives his two alternatives, "released from sins" (सुवर्जितं पापैः) or "having good praise". Both of these senses are artificial. सुवृक्ति (not वृक्ति as Sayana's interpretation would demand) is undoubtedly used for a hymn, but in a special aspect of the hymn. The word may come either from वर्च् or वर्ज् and must either be equivalent to सुवर्चः or to सुवृजन. The present passage in which it is connected with सुद्योत्मानं seems to point to the former sense.

सुप्रयसं. Sy. "having good food". प्रयः from प्री to be pleased = pleasure, satisfaction and is coupled with मयः bliss, happiness. Agni is the प्रिय अतिथि because he is अतिथिः सुप्रयाः, a force of work inhabiting us that gives perfect pleasure as the result of the working. Because he is सुप्रयाः, therefore he is मित्र इव. All these expressions must be taken in sequence. Agni is a force of will resident in man that gives a perfect light (सुद्योत्मानं) and therefore perfect energy of light (वर्चः = तेजः) and therefore perfect pleasure (सुप्रयसं); because he has these three qualities he is like Mitra, the Friend of Creatures, the lord of light, love & harmony, who has the capacity of holding (दिधिषाय्यो) all things in their proper place & relation, & this he does on each plane of man because he is जातवेदाः, knower of all the planes of the soul on which it is successively born. Or else दिधिषाय्यो means who has to be held in man as Mitra. This is better as it gives a better connection in sense with the verses that follow.

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देव आदेवे जने. Divine in man who reflects the divinity. Sayana says "in all creatures up to the gods"; but cf IV.1.1. मर्त्येष्वा देवमादेवं जनत प्रचेतसं विश्वमादेवं जनत प्रचेतसं, "They gave being in mortals to the god as the reflected divinity who has the prajnana, the universal reflected divinity conscious in knowledge." This is the sense of आ in आ कृ & आ भू as applied to the gods who are formed or become in mortals; that is to say, they throw there their reflected image or being which is shaped in himself by man.

Sayana. I call for you Agni, the well-shining, well-praised or, well-abandoned (by sin), well-fooded guest of people,—the god who as a friend, or, as the Sun becomes the holder in (all) beings up to the gods, the knower of things born.

For you I call on the God-Will, guest of the peoples with his perfect light, his perfect energy, his perfect pleasures, he who becomes as the Lord of Love & Harmony, and has to be held in man as the god in the creature born who reflects in him the godhead and knows all his births.

2) अपां सधस्थे. Sy. सहस्थाने—the place where the waters are together = the antariksha. सधस्थे = place of session & is used in the sense of world. This सधस्थ is the world or seat of the waters and may refer either to the upper or lower ocean. Here, however, it must necessarily indicate the upper ocean.

दविता doubly, in their manifest human & their secret divine parts.

भृगवः. Sy. The Maharshis who preceded us. These are the Ancestors (the Gritsamadas are Bhargavas); as the Angirasas are powers of Agni, so the Bhrigus are powers of Surya.

आयोः. Sy. man = yajamana & vikshu = प्रजासु = his offspring = the ritwiks! Obviously विक्षु आयोः = मानुषीषु विक्षु in the next line and means mankind in general, not the Ritwiks.

विश्वानि भूमा. Sy. takes विश्वानि = all enemies and भूम = भूम्ना = अत्यर्थं. All this learned ingenuity is entirely wasted. भूम either = all the worlds or all the largenesses, that is the divine worlds from महस् upwards.

अरतिः. Sy. ईश्वरः or शीघ्रमरणशीलः. अरणशीलः (there is no शीघ्रं) is correct, but the idea of the root अर् includes not only

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movement, but battle, aspiration & labour. Agni has been set by the gods in man as the worker & fighter to raise him up to immortality. Cf IV.1.1. देवमरतिं न्येरिरे .. मर्त्येष्वा देवं जनत प्रचेतसं.

जीराश्वः. जृ has three senses, 1) rapidity, 2) waste, destruction as in जरा old age, and 3) enjoyment, love, adoration as in जारः, जरिता.

Sayana's rendering. The Bhrigus serving him held him in the meeting place of the waters (antariksha) in the people (the Ritwiks) of the man (the Yajamana) and from the place of the two; may he, swift-horsed, the lord of the gods (or, the swift-mover among the gods) overcome very much all (enemies).

I confess I cannot make any sense of Sayana's rendering. I render:

"Him setting in the order of the sacrifice the Shining Ancestors established in the session of the waters and doubly in the peoples of man. May this (flame) with his rapid steeds, the toiler for the gods, take possession of all the vast worlds."

The sense is that the Ancestors who incarnated or typified the powers of the luminous Truth have established him in his right place in the sacrifice in such a way that he pervades the upper ocean, to the superconscient existence, and occupies two places in man, his conscious mortal being and his secret divine being. In the mortal man he drives the rapid swiftnesses of the vital strength upwards to the ocean of the superconscient, for he is the aspiring toiler set here to that end by the gods. Let him then so rise and take possession for man of all the vastnesses, the different worlds of the divine existence.

3) क्षेष्यंतो to. S. takes in a double sense, first, as applied to the gods = when about to go to their home, then as proper to the simile = as men going for wealth leave a friend to guard their house. प्रियं S. says = giving pleasure to the gods. This is ingenious; but the Rishi is merely taking up the idea already given in verse 1, सुप्रयसं मित्र इव यो दिधिषाय्यः. The gods have set him in man as a power of love or a power that satisfies because they mean by him to set Mitra in his home; that is to say this Force contains the secret Power of Love&Harmony and as it rises to the Truth,

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the home of that Power, reveals itself as that. Cf VI.2.1. त्वं हि श्रौतवद्धशोऽग्ने मित्रो न पत्यसे—cf VI.3.1. यं त्वं मित्रेण वरुणः सजेषाः पासि. Meanwhile he shines in the Nights, the states of human ignorance,—the Rishi goes on to say,—because he has Mitra's light of Truth as well as his power of Love; these darkened states are full of desire which Agni satisfies by his pleasantness which increases with his light. Being a power of light, it is full of the power of discernment, दक्षाय्य, which belongs to "Mitra of the purified discernment".

दीदयत्. S. shines in the Nights that desire or else "illumines the Nights".

दक्षाय्यः. S. समर्धयिता or दाता. दक्ष means discernment, cf Greek δóξα, δοχέω, etc, skill, capacity, cf दक्ष, दक्षिण or else strength. The original sense is to "divide", & from this we can get the sense of discerning, that of destruction and therefore of martial strength, and that of giving which S. here very unnecessarily suggests.

दमे. S. the यागगृह. Rather the human system, the house of the soul.

Sayana's rendering. The gods established Agni who satisfies them among the human peoples when they were about to seek their home as men departing to seek wealth establish a friend; he shines in (or, illumines) the desiring nights, who is a giver for the giver of the offering in his house (of sacrifice).

I render. "Agni the gods have set in the human peoples, a satisfying friend, as seeking to bring Mitra to his home; he illumines the desire of the billowing Nights, he who for the giver of the sacrifice dwells in his house as a power of discernment."

The purpose of the gods and the action of Agni thus expressed explain verse 2) The vast worlds are the home of Mitra; in taking possession of them Agni is fulfilling the purpose of the gods in setting him here as well as the arrangement made by the Bhrigus; he is bringing Mitra to his home. And he is able to do this because he has the light & joy of those worlds in him; he is the intermediary who brings that light from the divine into the human; he shines illumining with it our dark states of ignorance and for the sacrificer who makes him his envoy to the gods, he bridges the gulf and turns this light of obscurity into

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the very divine discernment even here in this mortal body (दमे).He also turns, as we see in the next verse, the mortal satisfaction & pleasure (प्रिय, प्रयः) into the divine delight.

4) रण्वा. S. रमणीया or शब्दयुक्ता. It is difficult to understand why S. suggests this alternative meaning which makes sheer nonsense of the verse. रण्वा, delightful, takes up & develops the idea in प्रियं & सुप्रयसं. The increase of the Force is a delight and as it were the increase of one's own self.

संदृष्टिः. Either "the vision of him is of one speeding & burning" or "his vision is that of one speeding to his goal and seeking to discern". दक्षोः seems to refer back to दक्षाय्यः in the last line & in that case must have a kindred sense.

भरिभ्रद्. S. विहरति = कंपयति. It is rather the "carrying" (भृ) forward & backward of the flame; the complete reduplication suggests this constant or repeated motion; the word is a contraction for भरिभरत्.

देधवीति वारान्. S. shakes his tail (hairs) to get rid of biting flies; but this makes a meaningless ornament. धू (धव्) means any violent & impetuous movement; shaking, pouring, streaming, running. The root धाव् to run was originally no independent root, but only a modified form of धू. When the language became less fluid, धू was fixed in the sense of shaking, धाव् in that of running, but in the Veda the community of significance has not yet been lost. दोधवीति = runs & takes up the idea in हियानस्य which already suggests the figure of the horse so constantly applied to Agni & Soma. वार will then = वारं, supreme boons, blessings, the desirable things of the Vedic discipline. In the Veda the fluid variation between masculine & neuter is sufficiently common.

Sayana's rendering. Delightful is his increase as of the sacrificer himself and his appearance as he spreads & burns, he who shakes his tongue of flame among the plants (logs), as a chariot-horse shakes his tail.

Note that in Sayana's rendering the स्वस्येव is absolutely forced & inappropriate. What is meant by saying that the increase & appearance of the fire on the logs is as pleasant (or as resonant) as that of the sacrificer himself? I render:

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"Delightful is his increasing and is as that of one's own being and he has the vision of one hastening (on his path) and seeking to discern; when he darts to & fro his tongue upon the growths of earth (lit. heat-holders) he is as the galloping chariot-horse and is running towards the supreme boons."

The sense is that the growth of the Force is a delight & is as if the growth of one's own being; his light, his vision is that of a power in us hastening like a horse towards a goal,—the kshaya of Mitra, the viҫvani bhuma,—and seeking to discern. This force is constantly satisfying our desires & increasing its own heat by enjoying the objects of our material life imaged as the growths of earth, the plants that hold the heat of life and by eating which we get that vital heat & force into us; but in all this action of devouring desire the Force acts as the Steed of Life yoked to our chariot and is hastening always towards the supreme boons, the objects of a higher desire. This mortal enjoyment is to be strengthened & purified till the Strength is ready to convert it into the immortal. This is done, as the Rishi goes on to state in the next two verses, by the Power lifting itself from vital desire into mental knowledge. The capacity & the attempt to discern (दक्षाय्यः, दक्षोः) has to arrive at pure mental knowledge (चिकिते .. चिकेत द्यौरिव).

5) यत्. S. says यत् = यस्य. Such a violent conversion is wholly unnecessary. यत् means, as so often, "when" or "because".

अभ्वं. S. महत्वं. अभ्व means anything vast, vague, chaotic as in a अभ्वविहित, "covered up in chaos". द्यावो न यस्य पनयंत्यभ्वं भासांसि वस्ते सूर्यो न शुक्रः VI.4.3.

वनदः. Sayana connects this with मे and says this means either the enjoyers connected with me (an awkward construction only possible to the most bungling & incompetent writers) or else वनदः = अवनदः, that is, those who make a big noise = the praisers! It means obviously either the seekers or the givers of enjoyment, probably the former, and refers either to the gods or to the powers in man that aspire to the bliss (वारान्).

आ पनंत. S. praised from all sides. I take पन् in the Veda to mean "do, deal, work, labour", cf Gr. πóνος, पणि dealer,

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trafficker, Tamil pan., to do, act. Although this sense is not preserved in Sanscrit, it certainly existed in the root and may have still existed in the Vedic times. "Praise" in many passages gives no appropriate sense.

उशिग्भ्यो नामिमीत वर्णं. Sayana takes न = च, उशिग्भ्यः = those who desire my form, वर्ण = a form like his own, मिमीत = निर्मिमीते. We get then "whose greatness my makers of a big sound (praisers) praise and he makes a form like his own for those who desire my form." I confess that I can make no shadow of sense out of this rendering.

वर्णं This word seems to me to be used in two different senses, first, colour, appearance, (lit. surface from वृ to cover), secondly, as here, the supreme world or heaven, whether from वृ to cover, spread as in वरुण (sea or ether) or from वृ to choose, as in वार. In the latter case it means "the supreme desirable state" or "desirable world". उशिग्भ्यो न, as to them desiring = according to their desire, and the sense will be, "Because or when the seekers of delight laboured at my chaotic being, he forms (in it) according to their desire its supreme desirable state." The last verse describes the labour of Agni hastening through mortal desire to the supreme delight; this verse gives the transformation, the attainment.

रंसु. Sayana takes as locative plural, in the pleasant things, ie ghee, etc; this seems to me forced & improbable. I believe रंसु must be taken as an adjective, formed from the root रस् nasalised + उ or the root रम् + सु = that which is delightful as प्रियं is used for pleasure in general.

चिकिते. Sayana takes as passive, "he is distinguished by his many-coloured light in the pleasant things",—a clumsy way indeed of expressing the sense. I take as the middle voice = he comes to knowledge of that which is delightful by his varied light.

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