Vedic and Philological Studies

Mandala Ten

SUKTA 54

Hymn of Brihaduktha Vamadevya to Indra, Master of Mental Force, when he exceeded Mind and entered Mahas, yet maintained the lower firmaments,—realising his unity with Sah, the supreme Purusha.

(1) When thou hadst given wholly the fullness of the ideal to thy fame, O Maghavan of the fullness, when both the firmaments cried to thee in their terror, thou didst protect the gods, thou didst transfix the Enemy, by teaching strength of the Spirit, O Indra, even for this creation.

(2) When thou didst range abroad increasing in thy force of substance and prophesying strength to the peoples, that force was sufficient for thy battles of which they tell, but for thee thou knowest today no enemy nor before thou knewest.

(3) Who were the sages before us that came to the end of thy greatness equal-souled? didst thou not give being to thy father and thy mother together out of thine own body?

(4) Four, verily, are thy untameable mightinesses when thou dwellest in the Vastness; all of them thou knowest and by them thou hast done thy works, O Maghavan.

(5) Thou holdest all these that are absolute existences, thou makest known the objects that are hidden in the Secret Places of Being; smite not asunder my desire, O Maghavan, thou art he that commands it and thou art he that giveth.

(6) He who placed light in the heart of other light and joined sweetnesses to sweetness, to that Indra this love, this force, this thought was spoken from Brihaduktha when he fulfilled in himself the Brahman.

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SUKTA 129

(1) Then Non-Being was not, nor Being. When the mid-world was not, nor the highest heaven, what was it that was covered up? where? and in whom had it taken refuge? What was that ocean deep and impenetrable?

(2) Death was not then nor Immortality; there was no knowledge of day nor of night. That was One and lived without the Breath by its own fixity (E.S. nature); there was nothing else beyond It.

(3) Darkness concealed by darkness in the beginning was all this Ocean and perception was not in it. When by littleness it was covered up in chaos (abhva, anything dark, dense and unformed), then That (which is) One was born by the vastness of its energy.

(4) Desire (it was that) in the beginning became active in (that field, desire) that was the first seed of mind. The Wise Ones sought in their heart and found by thought the bond of Being in Non-Being.

(5) Their ray was extended horizontally, it was above, it was below. There were Casters of the seed, there were Mightinesses; self-fixity was below, working of energy was above.

(6) Who knoweth of this? who here can declare it, whence (this creation) was born, whence was this loosing-forth of things? The Gods exist below by its creation (loosing-forth); who then can know whence it came into being?

(7) Whence this creation came into being, whether He established it or did not establish it, He who regards it from above (or presides over it) in the highest ether, He knows,—or perhaps He knows it not.

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