Hymns to the Mystic Fire

[19]

RV III.1.1-12

Rigveda. Mandala III.

[word] - word(s) omitted by the author or lost through damage to the manuscript that are required by grammar or sense, and that could be supplied by the editors.

[note] - situations requiring textual explication; all such information is printed in italics.

I. Viswamitra's Hymn to Agni.

1) सोमस्य मा तवसं वक्षि अग्ने वन्हिं चकर्थ विदथे यजध्यै ।
देवानच्छा दीद्यद्युंजे अद्रिं शमाये अग्ने तन्वं जुषस्व ॥१॥

Sayana renders the sloka—O Agni, since thou for sacrificing in the sacrifice hast made me the bearer of the Soma, therefore desire me who am powerful. O Agni, I shining towards the gods apply the stone (for pressing the Soma) and become calm (or praise). O Agni, cleave to my body (for protection) or cleave to me who am carrying out works.

A confused & incoherent rendering. Moreover सोमस्य introducing the sentence मा तवसं वक्षि cannot be shunted into the later sentence वन्हिं चकर्थ from which it is entirely divided by the verb वक्षि; nor is there anything in the text to justify the construction यन्मां चकर्थ तन्मां वक्षि. The rendering of वक्षि as कामयस्व makes no good sense and is needless since वक्षि can be as well from वह् to bear as from वश् to desire. There is no connection of sense between the application of the stone to its work of Soma-pressing and the resultant calmness of the sacrificer. "Praise" for शमाये, Sayana's alternative rendering, makes a better sense. Then, what sense has the cleaving of Agni to the body of the sacrificer in a physical sacrifice? Therefore Sayana does well to suggest another rendering. But तन्वं always means body in the Rigveda.

शमाये. For his alternative rendering "praise"—note how every word has to be forced into a ritualistic sense, praise, food,

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priest etc, which it does not naturally bear,—Sayana quotes Rigveda VI.1.9 सो अग्न ईजे शशमे च मर्तः, but there the sense of acquiring stillness is as possible & better than the ritualist rendering, O Agni, therefore I sacrifice and become thereby still in my mortal being.

अद्रिं. Sayana's rendering connects well with the idea of the physical Soma offering, but अद्रि occurs in a host of passages where it cannot mean the stone of the Soma-distilling.

The final phrase अग्ने तन्वं जुषस्व points clearly to a moral sense for the sacrifice, since only as the god of pure tapas can Agni cleave to the body of the sacrificer and not as the god of physical fire. I render:—

"Sustain me, O Agni, with strength for the Soma; thou hast made me the bearer of it in the knowledge (Vidya) for action of sacrifice; flaming up towards the gods I yoke to them my (material) being and grow still within. Cleave, O Agni, to my body."

The sense is clear and each word bears the unvarying sense I give it in the theosophic rendering of the Veda. Soma is the symbol of Ananda, विदथ is Vidya, the higher knowledge; the sacrifice is the offering of the realised Ananda to the gods of the higher life. Every other word, also, bears its plain & natural sense.

Agni, the pure tapas, has made the sacrificer, Viswamitra, by establishing him in the higher knowledge, a fit vessel for the divine Ananda which is to be offered up in Yogic action & enjoyment to the gods. He calls upon the god to sustain his lower parts and maintain him in full strength for that divine burden. Then, sustained by Agni, his whole nature flames up in divine force from its natural mortality towards the divinity of the gods and he attains that pure stillness of the mind & life-energies which is the foundation of the higher life. He prays to Agni to cleave to his body, that is, to dwell constantly as pure divine tapas in his corporeal & mortal being so as to sustain permanently that higher life.

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2) प्रांचं यज्ञं चकृम वर्धतां गीः समिद्भिरग्निं नमसा दुवस्यन् ।
दिवः शशासुर्विदथा कवीनां गृत्साय चित्तवसे गातुमीषुः ॥२॥

Sayana renders the mantra—O Agni, we have performed a sacrifice which goes entirely; may my hymn of praise increase; our people served Agni with fuel and the oblation. The gods came down from heaven and taught knowledge (or hymns) to the praisers and to Agni praiseworthy and increased the praisers desire also to sing.

Comment on this is superfluous; it is sheer incoherent futility. Grammatically also, it is impossible that there should be three different unexpressed subjects for the verbs दुवस्यन्, शशासुः and ईषुः. Note that in this verse Sayana is compelled to take विदथ in a different sense from his rendering of it in the first verse; he is compelled to give the natural meaning knowledge, but still cannot forsake his ritualism & at once offers his usual rendering for every word he can press into that sense, स्तोत्राणि. He takes कवि in the sense of "praisers", "makers of hymns", approaching to its modern sense, poets; but कवि in the Veda means a seer and not a poet,—a seer, that is to say, one who has the direct ideal knowledge of the vijnana, as distinguished from those who have mentally acquired knowledge, maníshí. विदथा कवीनां can only mean the realisations of (ideal) knowledge possessed by the seers.

In my rendering I take, as usual, प्रांचं in the sense of "higher, supreme" = परांचं, दुवस्यन् in the sense of "made active", नमस् of submission or adoration, गृत्साय of "eager, desirous to acquire". गीः is the goddess Vak who expresses the विदथा, समित् the activities by which pure Tapas is fed, दिवः the realm of pure mind. दिवः may be a locative genitive, from the heaven of pure mind or depend on vidatha. The past tenses here I take as having the sense of habitual action always done in the past & still done.

"We have offered the high sacrifice, let Speech increase in us; by the fuel of their activities, by devout submission men have set Agni to his workings, they have taught the realisations of heaven of the seers, yea, they have had power to chant them to the man who hungers after them & has strength (to bear their force)."

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Viswamitra has offered the supreme sacrifice of the Ananda to the gods; he prays that as a result the power of divine speech by which men chant the Vedic knowledge in these inspired poems may grow in him; for it is so that men have always prevailed (ishuh) to sing the Veda in the past. They have given the activities of their being to the divine & infinite Force of God as its fuel, they have submitted themselves devoutly to that Force not interfering by the lower egoistic personal effort, then has it worked in them & done its miracles; then they have taught to mankind those realisations of the ideal planes which have been revealed in or from the pure heaven of mind to the Vedic sages and have had power to express them in divine song for the soul which hungers after the Vedic knowledge and has the force to receive and assimilate it.

3) मयो दधे मेधिरः पृतदक्षो दिवः सुबंधुर्जनुषा पृथिव्याः ।
अविंदन्नु दर्शतमप्स्वंतर्देवासो अग्निमपसि स्वसृणाम् ॥३॥

Sayana:—Intelligent, pure in strength, a good friend from his birth, Agni, who disposes bliss of heaven & earth, the gods found that beautiful Agni within the waters of the flowing streams in (for?) the work (of bearing the sacrifice). उपसि & स्वसृणाम् obviously go together and there is no necessity or room for Sayana's rendering of the latter, सरणशीलानाम्; the sense "sisters" is proved by युवतयः सयोनीः of the sixth mantra.

I render:—"Wide in mental capacity, purified in discernment he, the perfect friend, has established Beatitude by his birth in heaven & on earth; within the waters the gods found Agni of glorious beauty (or, the seer), in the work of the sisters."

Pure divine tapas in man, says Viswamitra, equipped with the full capacity of the mind and a power of discernment purified from the errors & disorder of the lower mortality, establishes, as soon as it can manifest, the divine bliss of Sachchidananda both in the purified mind & in the purified body of this mortal. Viswamitra then enlarges the word जनुषा by the usual Vedic symbolisms which recur almost in the same language in so many hymns. This divine tapas is hidden, not born, not manifested, in

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the waters of our sevenfold being, in the working of the seven sisters, the seven states of our consciousness which begin from Sat the pure state of conscious being & descend to Bhuh, its material state. The gods, that is to say, the great powers which work in our being to uplift the mortal to divinity, find the hidden Force of God concealed in the secret working of these sisters & bring him to light in our waking consciousness.

4) अवर्धयन्त्सुभगं सप्त यह्वीः श्वेतं जज्ञानमरुषं महित्वा ।
शिशुं न जातमभ्यारुरश्वा देवासो अग्निं जनिमन्वपुष्यन् ॥४॥

Sayana:—The seven flowing great (rivers) increased Agni of good wealth born bright and shining by his greatness. As mares(?) go to a child that is born, so did they; also the gods made Agni a brightness in his birth (or in the water).

I confess I do not understand the sense of Sayana's rendering and doubt if it has any.

सुभगं. भग means either enjoyment or splendour or what is enjoyed, & in the latter significance has various derivate meanings. We may take it either as describing Agni, the pure tapas, to be also full of Ananda or as referring back to दर्शत, if दर्शत means beautiful, in the sense of "shining gloriously".

अरुषं. अरुष in the Veda means bright, and especially rosy-bright or rosy-red or simply bright red.We should then take the words of the text to mean, "white in his birth, rose red (or red) by (ie after) his growth to greatness". We must remember that in Indian yoga which has all its roots in the Veda, there is a fixed symbolism of colours. White is the symbol of purity; the pure Sat, the inactive luminous Brahman is imaged in the Vedanta as of a white lustre, शुभ्रं, शुक्रं; Shiva is white; sattwaguna is white; on the other [hand] red is the colour of Brahma, the creator, of the rajoguna and symbolic of action, force, desire etc. The rose brings in the idea of love & delight into the idea of action. Agni is सुबन्धुः, सुभगः. If we accept, as we have already accepted in hypothesis, this Yogic symbolism as already formed in the times of Viswamitra, the sense of the image will be that Agni, the divine force, comes out white & pure from the state of non manifestation,

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but as it grows and casts itself on its object it assumes the hue & lustre of enjoyment and action. In the next verse we see a distinction drawn between the brightness of the body of Agni and the brightness which he wears as a robe which probably refers back to this distinction between श्वेतं and अरुषं, for, there, it is by his bright white limbs that he purifies the strength in man; it is when he wears his brilliant robe that he acts and builds up the glories of life.

आरुः. It is difficult to fix the meaning of this word. The sense of अर् is strong energy in being, action, motion, light etc; it means to lift, be high (Gr. αἴρω, ἄρδƞν, arduus), to plough, ἀρóωn, to fight, (Ares, arete, etc), to excel, to be swift, bright, as in अरुष. We must fall back on its connection with अश्वाः to determine its meaning in this passage. If a अश्वाः could mean horses, Sayana would be right in taking आरुः as expressive of motion, "galloped towards". But to take a अश्वाः in the sense [of] horses results in this as in some other passages of Veda, in sheer futility. We must take a अश्वाः in the sense of "strong ones, lords of force" and as an epithet of देवाः the gods. आरुः will then mean laboured over, increased or reared to strength. वपुष्यन् also means "gave him body, increased his substance". A perfectly good sense then emerges.

I render, "The seven great currents increased him in his splendours, born white but rosy-red in his growth; the lords of strength laboured over him as over a newborn child, yea, the gods increased Agni in his body at his very birth."

Again we have the familiar images. All the seven streams of consciousness give of the milk of their udders to increase this pure force of God that has been born in man, born white in its utter purity, but as it grows, it assumes the rosy hue of pure enjoyment & action; as soon as it is manifested, all the other divine powers are at work over it and increase it immediately in its substance. For it is said that Agni as soon as born grows at once to his full strength; divine force takes possession of its world & springs at once to maturity of power & action, unlike the hampered & slow growth of our limited mortal capacities.

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5) शुक्रेभिरंगै रज आततन्वान् कतुं पुनानः कविभिः पवित्रैः ।
शोचिर्वसानः पर्यायुरपां श्रियो मिमीते बृहतीरनृनाः ॥५॥

Sayana:—Agni with his bright lustres pervading the mid-air, purifying the doer of works (the sacrificer) with intelligent (or praiseworthy) and purifying lustres, wearing brightness about him as a dress creates for the active performers of ritual food and large & perfect prosperities.

I object to this rendering that अंगैः means limbs and not lustres and should be so rendered, क्रतुं may mean mind (cf Tamil karuttu, thought) or will or strength, (cf Gr. kratos) but hardly a doer, the rendering praiseworthy or hymnable for कविः is an unnecessary violence and क्रांतप्रज्ञैस्तेजोभिः lustres with intelligence imparted to them is an absurdity. I cannot accept आयुः in the sense of food; आयुः from the ancient root आ to be, means life or being and nowhere in Veda is it necessary to take it in any other than its natural sense. Otherwise, the rendering is more coherent than is Sayana's wont. It means that the sacrificial fire when it pervades the air with its flames purifies the sacrificer & brings him great prosperity,—a simple & natural, if shallow sense, suitable to the ritualistic interpretation of Veda. Unfortunately, while intelligible in itself as a separate verse, the mantra so understood, sheds no light on its context with which it seems to have no earthly connection.

I take कविभिः in the sense of ideal illuminations. The words ऋषि & कवि in the Veda mean a seer, but I think they are capable also of bearing the sense of the "knowledge" & this seems best to suit the context in several passages. The termination इ added to a root may give the sense of the action or state implied in the root or of the doer or instrument of action or possessor of the state, eg जनिः birth or a mother, छिदिः axe and cutting etc etc. So कविः the seer or the knowledge.

क्रतुः. That which does, the force, or in the mind, the mind-force or will, or the mind which possesses the force or will. "Mind" here gives the most obvious sense, but I think, in spite of this apparent probability, it is the will or strength in a man which is supposed to be purified by the divine force entering

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it & illumining its otherwise blind or half blind action with illuminations of ideality.

अपाम्. अप् may mean "creative forces" or "works, actions" or "doers of works or actions" or else "waters". I take परि as governing आयुः which gives us a better construction than the awkward coupling of आयुः & श्रियः as objects of मिमीते. "Throughout the being of the doers of works" or "throughout the being of the waters", ie the seven streams of world-consciousness. As the whole passage is concerned with the working of Agni in these waters the latter sense seems tome, in spite of the tradition of Vedic scholars, far the more probable, although it makes a less superficially simple & attractive sense than the other rendering. Both however make good sense and fit into the context.

रजः is taken by Sayana = अंतरिक्षं. It means properly either light or kingdom.

श्रियः. I take श्री as equivalent in Veda to शक्ति. This, I think, was its original sense.

I render then:—"Extending himself through this kingdom with his pure bright limbs & purifying our strength with pure illuminations, wearing a robe of brilliance over all the being of the waters he builds up (measures out) vast & undefective powers."

Agni, the divine Tapas, growing to fullness of body, extends himself in that body of bright purity through this kingdom of our mortal being and in doing so purifies our human strength by the illuminations of ideality which are pure of the disorder & errors of the mortal mind. He wears brilliance like a robe,—the various brilliance of Tapas poured into many kinds of workings, and builds up throughout the whole range of our sevenfold conscious being powers which are vast as proceeding from the infinity of the ideal consciousness, that mahas which is satyam ritam brihat, and not like our human & mental powers subject at every step to defect, narrowness, insufficiency & limitation.

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6) वव्राजा सीमनदतीरदब्धा दिवो यह्वीरवसाना अनग्नाः ।
सना अत्र युवतयः सयोनीरेकं गर्भं दधिरे सप्त वाणीः ॥६॥

Sayana. Agni went from every side to the waters which are children of heaven, which neither devour him (as water quenches fire) nor are hurt by him (as fire evaporates water), are neither clothed nor naked; these seven rivers who are immortal & young (immortally young, always grown up) and have one place of residence (the mid-air) held one Agni in their wombs.

Sayana thinks the Rishi means that the rivers do not need to wear any dress because they are clothed with water & therefore not naked! I take वाणी here as equivalent to वनिता or वना.

He went all about the mighty streams of heaven, & they devoured not nor were overcome, clothed they were not, yet were they not naked; here the eternal damsels born of a common womb held, seven women, their one common child.

The divine force pervading this mortal kingdom with its bright limbs goes all about the sevenfold conscious being manifested in the heaven of pure mind, it fills our whole purified & liberated mentality with itself. Then these activities in us of mentalised infinite being, mentalised infinite force, mentalised infinite beatitude, mentalised ideality, mind pure in itself, mentalised life-energy, mentalised material being work perfectly & without harm to us or deficiency in themselves; they do not devour & break up the life & body by their unharmonised intensities, neither are they dominated by the lower energies (adabdhah); they are not revealed in their sheer nakedness of self-being, for all of them are rendered in the mental values proper to this existence of mind in material life, neither are they covered & concealed by the obscurations of the lower & false values given by our present tainted & muddied perceptions. The truth of them shines through the thin mental veil they wear. Here, in this lower kingdom, the seven in their eternal youth & vigour, children of one universal mother Prakriti, are as seven women with a common child; all of them, that is to say, enjoy the possession of this divine force, Agni, which they formerly kept concealed in their workings, but now hold manifested as if

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a child born to them in the world of human life. The imagery of Veda only seems to us confused & unintelligibly mystic so long as we have not the clue; once the clue is in our hands there is an admirable force, clearness & sublimity in every word & image of the sacred writings. The idea is that of the existence of the mental being man in this world made absolutely full in all its parts & harmonious by the completest power, range & complexity possible to our beings; this is the great result of the waking & working of divine Tapas in the human soul.

7) स्तीर्णा अस्य संहतो विश्वरुपा घृतस्य योनौ स्रवथे मधुनाम् ।
अस्थुरत्र धेनवः पिन्वमाना मही दस्मस्य मातरा समीची ॥७॥

Sayana—In the womb of water (the mid-air) the massed many-formed and spreading rays of this Agni stand in the flow of waters. Here the waters becoming full became pleasers of all. The shining great earth & heaven became the mothers of beautiful Agni.

Sayana's rendering is sufficiently incoherent and barren of sense but to arrive at it he has to do some extraordinary violences to language & reason which are very characteristic of his method.We have seen him already suggesting that जनिमन् which naturally & in its context can mean nothing but birth should be taken as equivalent to water; here he insists on taking two words घृत & मधु in the wholly foreign & inappropriate sense of water. This he has to do because he is taken aback by the idea of clarified butter & honey flowing from the sky. Equally violent is his transference of अस्थुः the natural verb of धेनवः to an unexpressed रश्मयः in the first line, his rendering of धेनवः as an adjective with an understood अभवन्, & his gloss upon समीची that it is equivalent to समंचंत्यौ as if it were derived from the root अंच्, and consequently signified shining or beautiful. In my rendering I take संहतो for a noun, as it is obviously intended, not an adjective, स्तीर्णा as its predicate, घृत & मधु in their usual symbolic sense, धेनवः in its ordinary sense of the seven rivers with the usual double entendre of rivers & cows. समीच is an adjective formed from सम on the system explained in my Origins of Aryan Speech,

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like घृताच, पिशाच, पराच, वरुच, दधीच, प्रतीच from घृत, पिश्, पर, वर, दध्, प्रति. The meaning is easy to fix; we have समीचः in the sense of the level expanse of ocean, समीचक signifying sexual union, समीचीन meaning fit, & so right, proper or true. समीच, समीचीन are therefore merely secondary adjectives, (cf likely, whitish etc in English) modifying temperamentally the original senses of सम in same, equal, level, joined, harmonised, fit, true. Earth & heaven, the two mothers of Agni, are मही liberated from limitation and समीची harmonised with each other, सम.

I render:—The gathered substances of Agni taking all forms are spread in the womb of richness, in the outflow of sweetnesses; here the Rivers stand growing fat therewith; the two mothers of the bounteous god become vast & equal.

Viswamitra pursues his free but consistent strain of ancient symbolic imagery. As the divine Tapas grows, as it pervades the harmonised consciousness of the purified nature, it begins to gather its masses of force into definite forms, into all the forms of life & thought and action and these spread themselves in the mind which becomes a womb of rich faculty, a flowing river of sweetness & delight; with this richness and delight the seven streams of our being, force, bliss, ideality, mind, life, body are all fattened & nourished; they stand here अत्र in this lower kingdom, receiving these life-giving nectars. Mental being & bodily being become harmonised in us, each answering to the calls of each other, not at discord, their mutual vibrations equalised, not harmful by one unevenly dominating, the other suffering; they are now मही, wide & vast, partaking of the infinity of the higher realms. They are the two mothers of Agni, like the rivers, because in them & out of them the force manifests.

8) बभ्राणः सूनो सहसो व्यद्यौद् दधानः शुका रभसा वपूंषि ।
श्चोतंति धारा मधुनो घृतस्य वृषा यत्र वावृधे काव्येन ॥८॥

Sayana. O son of force, held by all, thou shinest holding bright & speedy rays.Where (for whatever sacrificer) Agni increases by the hymn, there streams of very sweet water flow out. Sayana explains the passage to mean that when Agni is pleased with

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the hymn of the sacrificer, then it rains. Possibly; but that is not what Viswamitra says. He says that when Agni increases, then streams of घृत flow out. The pluvial interpretation of the Agni & Indra legends (they are not legends but symbols & metaphors) suffers always from this defect that a few words or slokas here & there acquire a false clearness & aptness; but all the rest becomes hopelessly muddled, inapt, strained, words have to be tortured out of their plain significance and the writers convicted of such a hopeless anarchy & licence of language & chaotic confusion of imagery that the Veda becomes capable of meaning anything & everything which its interpreter pleases. There is no straightforwardness, no honesty or efficiency in their language, no consistency of ideas, no coherence, no logical development.

I take बभ्राणः here as a middle like दधानः, not a passive. मधुनो घृतस्य might mean sweet butter, if we had not had in the preceding verse घृतस्य .. मधूनाम् which binds us to take मधुनो in this passage also as a noun. शुक्रा वपूंषि recalls शुक्रैरंगैः, but the sense of वपूंषि is not limbs, it is bodies,—the संहतो विश्वरूपा of the last verse.

I render:—O son of Force, bringing (all this wealth) thou hast lightened forth upholding thy bright & rapturous forms; the streams of sweetness & richness flow down where he as the strong lord increases by the ideal knowledge.

Agni, born of the might of God, has blazed out in the whole range of our being, illuminating it with strength whose substance is knowledge & knowledge whose force is strength, the Chit-Tapas from which he sprang; in that blaze of strength & light he holds up all the bright & rapturous formations of thought & action & life & physical self-expression with which the ways of our existence are now strewn; for it is when Agni as the vrisha, the master & lord with all our capacities, the ग्नाः, the बृहतीः श्रियः, as his paramours, increases in us by the growth of ideal truth & knowledge that all these streams of richness & sweetness, glad force & utter delight, begin to drip, to trickle & to stream out upon our exalted mortal nature.

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9) पितुश्चिदूधर्जनुषा विवेद व्यस्य धारा असृजद् वि धेनाः ।
गुहा चरंतं सखिभिः शिवेभिर्दिवो यह्वीभिर्न गुहा बभूव ॥९॥

Sayana:—Agni of himself knows the region of water which is as the udder of his father the mid-air; he poured out the streams from that udder & the middle words(?); this Agni living in the cave with his beneficent friends the winds and the waters, children of mid-air, no one situated in the cave was able to get.

This rendering is merely a confession that Sayana could make nothing of the verse and may be dismissed without comment.

पितुः—the father must be taken in the absence of other indication in its ordinary sense, the world-Purusha, father of all. ऊधः used of a male being shows that the Vedic Rishis still used words with the freedom of their early life when they had not crystallised into their derived significances. ऊधः means teat, udder; but this is certainly not the pure original significance. It means obviously anything raised or swollen or holding in itself swelling contents,—so the continent, womb, teats, breasts, bosom—& into the latter senses it has crystallised. (The sense given by the lexicographers, "a secret place to which only friends are admitted", may be rejected at once as a gloss & nothing to the purpose.) The real difficulty of the passage lies in the accusative गुहा चरंतं. न गुहा बभूव obviously refers to Agni,—he who had been concealed in the secrecy of our sevenfold consciousness did not in this action, though he went into the secret places of the Purusha to draw out these streams, relapse into the unmanifest state. The general meaning is clear. But if चरंतं is correct, & we are forced to accept it, there is an ellipse somewhere in the sentence. We have to take then गुहा चरंतं as referring to an understood पितरं,—that is easy & natural,—and governed by विवेद understood from the first pada,—which is not easy, though just possible, & far from natural. I cannot help suspecting an original गुहा चरन् सं सखिभिः शिवेभिः.

I render:—He knew from his birth the secret hold of the Father, f that he poured out the showers, the rivers; him dwelling n secrecy he found, (yet) by the help of friendly comrades and

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the mighty ones of heaven he became not hidden.

Agni, the divine force, is able to pour out these liberated rivers of being, these showers of richness & sweetness, because he manifests himself in man with the inborn knowledge of the divine Purusha and the secret hold from which he pours out this sevenfold stream of the workings of Prakriti with all its riches; he knows at once where to go for the enrichment of our life & nature, to the Spirit's secret hold whence all things are produced; instead of the little powers & pleasures of our mortal life he pours out thence the full richness. To bring it he has to plunge into that higher secret place far above the mortal mind, but supported by his comrades the gods & the liberated action of our sevenfold consciousness he himself does not again become unmanifest, but is able to enter into the secrecy & yet remain active on the lower plane. For when we are full of the divine force, when our nature is liberated, then the higher principles of Sat, Chit, Ananda & Tapas, the four great rivers, are active on the plane of mind and in free touch with their secret sources. The Force in us is able therefore to draw power & delight & knowledge thence without the danger of losing itself in the higher planes so difficult for us to be in touch with—they being sushupta in us,—that we also in our ordinary state must become sushupta in the trance of Samadhi to reach them and cannot command them in our waking consciousness.

10) पितुश्च गर्भं जनितुश्च बभ्रे पूर्वाीरेको अधयत्पीप्यानाः ।
वृष्णे सपत्नी शुचये सबंधू उभे अस्मै मनुष्ये नि पाहि ॥१०॥

Sayana. This Agni bears the world (herbs etc) of the Brahman, father of the whole world, which is the offspring (by rain) of the father (the mid-air); one Agni eats many which have grown; Heaven & Earth co-wives (of the Sun) & beneficent to men are friends to this raining & pure Agni. O Agni, protect them.

The rendering of this verse also may be dismissed without comment. The difficulty in पितुश्च जनितुश्च is that two words are used with an identical meaning "father" to express two different

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persons. There is no meaning in the words "the child of the father & also of the begetter". I suggest that पिता च जनिता च is an ancient pre-Vedic phrase preserved in Vedic Sanscrit with the force of father & mother. The termination तृ with a feminine force is still preserved in very ancient words like माता, दुहिता but it was afterwards replaced by the later feminine form त्री, which obviously grew up by analogy & could not have been originally native to the तृ forms. जनितृ in the oldest Sanscrit must have been masculine, feminine & neuter and borne equally the sense of father & mother; & as in जनिः, जानिः, जामिः the feminine sense may originally have been preferred.

अधयत्. धे to suck, suck the milk of, drink. Agni drinks of the rivers, the streams & showers of honey which he has himself set flowing; they are nourished by him, he by them.

मनुष्ये. मनुष्य from मनुष् a man is originally an adjective, human, belonging to man; but it cannot mean, surely, good for man. This is a strained and far-fetched interpretation resorted to by the grammarians in order to avoid a difficulty created by their own ignorance, because not having the clue they could not understand how Heaven & Earth could be described as human. I take मनुष्ये with नि पाहि. It will make equally good sense in the preceding clause, but the other rendering is simpler in construction & idea.

I render:—He bore the issue of the father & the mother; he being one, drank of the many whom he nourished. Both heaven & earth are common wives to his mastery, common friends to his purity. Them in man do thou protect.

The garbha, that which was contained in the secret hold of the father & which now comes forth as the child of Purusha & Prakriti, Agni bears & brings to man, all this higher fruit of their union upon the levels of purified mind. Agni, alone possessing the whole of our nature as Force divine manifested in many forms, drinks the joy of all these many rich streaming rivers of our conscious being which he has nourished with the streams of richness & sweetness, of glad force & delight. He increases all our being & capacities & uses them again for his own increase. Thus divine force continues ever increasing in our

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purified mentality. To heaven and earth in man, manushye, mind & matter manifesting in this mortal world & in human nature, Agni stands in two relations. Divine force in us is purity & to the soul that is pure both mental & physical nature become harmonious, amical, like two friends and helpful playfellows. Divine force in us is also mastery & enjoyment; to the strong soul mental & physical nature become like wives submitted to its command for action and demand on their delight. They are his common wives, common friends—not discordant or incompatible. He is not divine & lord & pure in mind, fallen or struggling in body, but in both supreme, great & holy. Protect, O Agni, cries Viswamitra, these thy two wives & friends in our human totality.

11) उरौ महाननिबाधे ववर्ध आपो अग्निं यशसः सं हि पूर्वीः ।
ऋतस्य योनावशयद्दमूना जामीनामग्निरपसि स्वसृणाम् ॥११॥

Sayana:—This great Agni increases in the unhampered wide mid-air,—for many foodful waters increase him; he, thus increased, situated in the place of water (the mid-air) lies down with a controlled mind in the water of the self-moving sisters.

Again, I pass from this rendering without comment; for comment is superfluous. उरु is the common word in the Rigveda for mahas, the realm of vijnana. यशसः I take in the sense of victorious, successful, who have attained their end. The word दमूना is a little difficult to fix. It is obviously connected with the दम्येभिरनीकैः of a later verse, & both are, I think, adjectives from दमः, house. In that case, दमूना will mean, dwelling in the house or in his own house स्वे दमे. जामि means properly associated, companion. I render:—

Huge in the free Vast he increased, for many waters victorious increased Agni; in the womb of Truth he lay down in his home, even Agni in the working of the companions & sisters.

Viswamitra now passes on to the final stage of this great movement in the Vedic Yoga, for the object of the awakening of divine Force in our mortal nature is not the perfection of our bodily & mental being on their own levels, but, as a result of

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that perfection, the arising of our human life out of that mortal & materialised mentality which is now our seat & centre into the ideal plane, ऋतस्य योनौ, of the pure truth, the spontaneous law, the vast & unhampered being. Agni is now released into the Vast, mahas, satyam ritam brihat; in the wideness of the ideal self where there is no limit, hindrance or wall of enclosing consciousness, where the soul is vast, universal & free, Agni, mahán, wide & great in the nature of mahas increases yet farther; for the seven streams of being, now full & victorious, all in their multitude increase him so that he may take them up with him into those ideal vasts. There he arises, there in that womb of the realised & actualised truth, ऋतं, he reposes in his own home of ideal force,—calm & still in the free & effortless working of the seven sisters, always companions, but here revealed in their perfect harmony & sisterhood.

12) अको न बभ्रिः समिथे महीनां दिदृक्षेयः सूनवे भाऋजीकः ।
उदुस्रिया जनिता यो जजान अपां गर्भो नृतमो यह्वो अग्निः ॥१२॥

Sayana:—Agni who, father of all the worlds, child of the waters, a perfect leader (a great protector) of men & great, is the assailant of his foes (or unassailable by them) & in the battle the bearer (or master) of his great armies visible to all & self-luminous, he created the waters for the giver of the oblation.

Sayana's renderings of अक्रो as आक्रमिता, महीनां as great with सेनानाम् understood & भाऋजीकः as self-luminous seem to me astonishing rather than convincing. अक्र is an old Vedic word to the meaning of which our one clue is the Greek ἄχρος. If that identity holds, अक्र means supreme, highest or on a height. But it may also mean not acting, अ negative and क्र = कर from कृ to do. This will give a better sense, though both are possible.

समिथे is "coming together" either friendly in the sense of union or hostile in the sense of battle.

महीनाम्. The seven rivers, described now as all great & full, like Agni himself, उरौ महाननिबाधे ।

दिदृक्षेयः. दिदृक्षा must mean either the desire of seeing or the power of seeing, दिदृक्षेयः I take as an adjective from दिदृक्षा, the

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sight referred to being the ideal दृष्टि of the Rishis, or सत्यदृष्टि, which belongs to the vijnana & is referred to in the Isha Upanishad, सत्यधर्माय दृष्टये

सूनवे. सूनुः means son, "that which is produced or begotten"; it means "producer of Soma", "Soma-sacrificer" & "sacrificer" generally. But it may also bear another sense, [incomplete]