The Secret of the Veda

The Eighteenth Hymn to Agni

A Hymn of the Lords of the Plenitude

[The Divine Will is invoked to complete the manifestation of the divine powers after the second state of the soul when it has passed beyond the mere physical being and is full of the perfect energy of the vital plane, for the gods have given all the life's fifty steeds of swiftness; Agni is there as the light and flame of its far-extended existence which has broken the limitations of the material being and he is full of the joys of this new and rich supra-physical life. Now the third state, the free mental being, is to be perfected by a richly varied and luminous play of thought and word ending in the manifestation of the highest reach of the mental realms, the power of the supramental Light in the mentality; there begins the manifestation of the intuitive and inspired mind. Agni has to create that vastness and light and divinity of the Truth-knowledge and so crown with it the already attained free swiftness of force and wide range of life and enjoyment proper to the perfected and god-filled vitality.]

1) Let the Will be affirmed in the dawning,¹ guest of the creature with his many delights who, immortal in mortals, takes joy in all their offerings.

2) He is the plenitude of his own discerning mind for the second soul² when it bears the purified intelligence; then it holds in itself the continual wine of delight and affirms thee, O Immortal.

3) Such art thou I call, the pure flame of this far-extending existence for the lords of the plenitude whose chariot inviolate

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ranges wide,³ O giver of the steeds of swiftness,—

4) The lords of the plenitude in whom is rich light of the thought and they keep the words of our utterance in their mouth;⁴ the fullness of the soul has been spread as a seat of sacrifice in the power⁵ of the luminous world and all its inspirations are set round about.

5) They who have given me fifty steeds of swiftness⁶ with a perfect affirming, the divine souls that are lords of the plenitude, for them, O Flame-Immortal, create the large, the vast, the luminous knowledge full of the godheads.

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