Hymns to the Mystic Fire

Sri Aurobindo

FOREWORD

In ancient times the Veda was revered as a sacred book of wisdom, a great mass of inspired poetry, the work of Rishis, seers and sages, who received in their illumined minds rather than mentally constructed a great universal, eternal and impersonal Truth which they embodied in Mantras, revealed verses of power, not of an ordinary but of a divine inspiration and source. The name given to these sages was Kavi, which afterwards came to mean any poet, but at the time had the sense of a seer of truth, -- the Veda itself describes them as kavayah satyasrutah, "seers who are hearers of the Truth" and the Veda itself was called, sruti, a word which came to mean "revealed Scripture". The seers of the Upanishad had the same idea about the Veda and frequently appealed to its authority for the truths they themselves announced and these too afterwards came to be regarded as Sruti, revealed Scripture, and were included in the sacred Canon.

This tradition persevered in the Brahmanas and continued to maintain itself in spite of the efforts of the ritualistic commentators, Yajnikas, to explain everything as myth and rite and the division made by the Pandits distinguishing the section of works, Karmakanda, and the section of Knowledge, Jnanakanda, identifying the former with the hymns and the latter with the Upanishads. This drowning of the parts of Knowledge by the parts of ceremonial works was strongly criticised in one of the Upanishads and in the Gita, but both look on the Veda as a Book of Knowledge. Even, the Sruti including both Veda and Upanishad was regarded as the supreme authority for spiritual knowledge and infallible.

Is this all legend and moonshine, or a groundless and even nonsensical tradition? Or is it the fact that there is only a scanty element of higher ideas in some later hymns which started this theory? Did the writers of the Upanishads foist upon the Riks a meaning which was not there but read into it by their imagination or a fanciful interpretation? Modern European scholarship insists on having it so. And it has persuaded the mind of modern India. In favour of this view is the fact that the Rishis of the Veda were not only seers but singers and priests of sacrifice, that their chants were written to be sung at public sacrifices and refer constantly to the customary ritual and seem to call for the outward objects of these ceremonies, wealth, prosperity, victory over enemies. Sayana, the great commentator, gives us a ritualistic and where necessary a tentatively mythical or historical sense to the Riks, very rarely does he put forward any higher meaning though sometimes he lets a higher sense come through or puts it as an alternative as if in despair of finding out some ritualistic or mythical interpretation. But still he does not reject the spiritual authority of the Veda or deny that there is a higher truth contained in the Riks. This last development was left to our own times and popularised by occidental scholars.

The European scholars took up the ritualistic tradition, but for the rest they dropped Sayana overboard and went on to make their own etymological explanation of the words, or build up their own conjectural meanings of the Vedic verses and gave a new presentation often arbitrary and imaginative. What they sought for in the Veda was the early history of India, its society, institutions, customs, a civilisation-picture of the times. They invented the theory based on the difference of languages of an Aryan invasion from the north, an invasion of a Dravidian India of which the Indians themselves had no memory or tradition and of which there is no record in their epic or classical literature. The Vedic religion was in this account only a worship of Nature-Gods full of solar myths and consecrated by sacrifices and a sacrificial liturgy primitive enough in its ideas and contents, and it is these barbaric prayers that are the much vaunted, haloed and apotheosized Veda.

There can be no doubt that in the beginning there was a worship of the Powers of the physical world, the Sun, Moon, Heaven and Earth, Wind, Rain and Storm etc., the Sacred Rivers and a number of Gods who presided over the workings of Nature. That was the general aspect of the ancient worship in Greece, Rome, India and among other ancient peoples. But in all these countries these gods began to assume a higher, a psychological function; Pallas Athene who may have been originally a Dawn-Goddess springing in flames from the head of Zeus, the Sky-God, Dyaus of the Veda, has in classical Greece a higher function and was identified by the Romans with their Minerva, the Goddess of learning and wisdom; similarly, Saraswati, a River Goddess, becomes in India the goddess of wisdom, learning and the arts and crafts: all the Greek deities have undergone a change in this direction -- Apollo, the Sun-God, has become a god of poetry and prophecy, Hephaestus the Fire-God a divine smith, god of labour. In India the process was arrested half-way, and the Vedic Gods developed their psychological functions but retained more fixedly their external character and for higher purposes gave place to a new pantheon. They had to give precedence to Puranic deities who developed out of the early company but assumed larger cosmic functions, Vishnu, Rudra, Brahma, -- developing from the Vedic Brihaspati, or Brahmanaspati, -- Shiva, Lakshmi, Durga. Thus in India the change in the gods was less complete, the earlier deities became the inferior divinities of the Puranic pantheon and this was largely due to the survival of the Rig-veda in which their psychological and their external functions co-existed and are both given a powerful emphasis; there was no such early literary record to maintain the original features of the Gods of Greece and Rome.

This change was evidently due to a cultural development in these early peoples who became progressively more mentalised and less engrossed in the physical life as they advanced in civilisation and needed to read into their religion and their deities finer and subtler aspects which would support their more highly mentalised concepts and interests and find for them a true spiritual being or some celestial figure as their support and sanction. But the largest part in determining and deepening this inward turn must be attributed to the Mystics who had an enormous influence on these early civilisations; there was indeed almost everywhere an age of the Mysteries in which men of a deeper knowledge and self-knowledge established their practices, significant rites, symbols, secret lore within or on the border of the more primitive exterior religions. This took different forms in different countries; in Greece there were the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries, in Egypt and Chaldea the priests and their occult lore and magic, in Persia the Magi, in India the Rishis. The preoccupation of the Mystics was with self-knowledge and a profounder world-knowledge; they found out that in man there was a deeper self and inner being behind the surface of the outward physical man, which it was his highest business to discover and know. "Know thyself" was their great precept, just as in India to know the Self, the Atman became the great spiritual need, the highest thing for the human being. They found also a Truth, a Reality behind the outward aspects of the universe and to discover, follow, realise this Truth was their great aspiration. They discovered secrets and powers of Nature which were not those of the physical world but which could bring occult mastery over the physical world and physical things and to systematise this occult knowledge and power was also one of their strong preoccupations. But all this could only be safely done by a difficult and careful training, discipline, purification of the nature; it could not be done by the ordinary man. If men entered into these things without a severe test and training it would be dangerous to themselves and others; this knowledge, these powers could be misused, misinterpreted, turned from truth to falsehood, from good to evil. A strict secrecy was therefore maintained, the knowledge handed down behind a veil from master to disciple. A veil of symbols was created behind which these mysteries could shelter, formulas of speech also which could be understood by the initiated but were either not known by others or were taken by them in an outward sense which carefully covered their true meaning and secret. This was the substance of Mysticism everywhere.

It has been the tradition in India from the earliest times that the Rishis, the poet-seers of the Veda, were men of this type, men with a great spiritual and occult knowledge not shared by ordinary human beings, men who handed down this knowledge and their powers by a secret initiation to their descendant and chosen disciples. It is a gratuitous assumption to suppose that this tradition was wholly unfounded, a superstition that arose suddenly or slowly formed in a void, with nothing whatever to support it; some foundation there must have been however small or however swelled by legend and the accretions of centuries. But if it is true, then inevitably the poet-seers must have expressed something of their secret knowledge, their mystic lore in their writings and such an element must be present, however well-concealed by an occult language or behind a technique of symbols, and if it is there it must be to some extent discoverable. It is true that an antique language, obsolete words, -- Yaska counts more than four hundred of which he did not know the meaning, -- and often a difficult and out-of-date diction helped to obscure their meaning; the loss of the sense of their symbols, the glossary of which they kept to themselves, made them unintelligible to later generations; even in the time of the Upanishads the spiritual seekers of the age had to resort to initiation and meditation to penetrate into their secret knowledge, while the scholars afterwards were at sea and had to resort to conjecture and to concentrate on a mental interpretation or to explain by myths, by the legends of the Brahmanas themselves often symbolic and obscure. But still to make this discovery will be the sole way of getting at the true sense and the true value of the Veda. We must take seriously the hint of Yaska, accept the Rishi's description of the Veda's contents as "seer-wisdoms, seer-words", and look for whatever clue we can find to this ancient wisdom. Otherwise the Veda must remain for ever a sealed book; grammarians, etymologists, scholastic conjectures will not open to us the sealed chamber.

For it is a fact that the tradition of a secret meaning and a mystic wisdom couched in the Riks of the ancient Veda was as old as the Veda itself. The Vedic Rishis believed that their Mantras were inspired from higher hidden planes of consciousness and contained this secret knowledge. The words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who was himself a seer or mystic; from others the verses withheld their hidden knowledge. In one of Vamadeva's hymns in the fourth Mandala (IV.3.16) the Rishi describes himself as one illumined expressing through his thought and speech words of guidance, "secret words" -- ninya vacamsi -- "seer-wisdoms that utter their inner meaning to the seer" -- kavyani kavaye nivacana. The Rishi Dirghatamas speaks of the Riks, the Mantras of the Veda, as existing "in a supreme ether, imperishable and immutable in which all the gods are seated", and he adds "one who knows not That what shall he do with the Rik?" (I.164.39) He further alludes to four planes from which the speech issues, three of them hidden in the secrecy while the fourth is human, and from there comes the ordinary word; but the word and thought of the Veda belongs to the higher planes (I.164.46). Elsewhere in the Riks the Vedic Word is described (X.71) as that which is supreme and the topmost height of speech, the best and the most faultless. It is something that is hidden in secrecy and from there comes out and is manifested. It has entered into the truth-seers, the Rishis, and it is found by following the track of their speech. But all cannot enter into its secret meaning. Those who do not know the inner sense are as men who seeing see not, hearing hear not, only to one here and there the Word desiring him like a beautifully robed wife to a husband lays open her body. Others unable to drink steadily of the milk of the Word, the Vedic cow, move with it as with one that gives no milk, to him the Word is a tree without flowers or fruits. This is quite clear and precise; it results from it beyond doubt that even then while the Rig-veda was being written the Riks were regarded as having a secret sense which was not open to all. There was an occult and spiritual knowledge in the sacred hymns and by this knowledge alone, it is said, one can know the truth and rise to a higher existence. This belief was not a later tradition but held, probably, by all and evidently by some of the greatest Rishis such as Dirghatamas and Vamadeva.

The tradition, then, was there and it was prolonged after the Vedic times. Yaska speaks of several schools of interpretation of the Veda. There was a sacrificial or ritualistic interpretation, the historical or rather mythological explanation, an explanation by the grammarians and etymologists, by the logicians, a spiritual interpretation. Yaska himself declares that there is a triple knowledge and therefore a triple meaning of the Vedic hymns, a sacrificial or ritualistic knowledge, a knowledge of the gods and finally a spiritual knowledge; but the last is the true sense and when one gets it the others drop or are cut away. It is this spiritual sense that saves and the rest is outward and subordinate. He says further that "the Rishis saw the truth, the true law of things, directly by an inner vision"; afterwards the knowledge and the inner sense of the Veda were almost lost and the Rishis who still knew had to save it by handing it down through initiation to disciples and at a last stage outward and mental means had to be used for finding the sense such as Nirukta and other Vedangas. But even then, he says, "the true sense of the Veda can be recovered directly by meditation and tapasya", those who can use these means need no outward aids for this knowledge. This also is sufficiently clear and positive.

The tradition of a mystic element in the Veda as a source of Indian civilisation, its religion, its philosophy, its culture is more in consonance with historical fact than the European scouting of this idea. The nineteenth century European scholarship writing in a period of materialistic rationalism regarded the history of the race as a development out of primitive barbarism or semi-barbarism, a crude social life and religion and a mass of superstitions, by the growth of outward civilised institutions, manners and habits through the development of intellect and reason, art, philosophy and science and a clearer and sounder, more matter-of-fact intelligence. The ancient idea about the Veda could not fit into this picture; it was regarded as rather a part of ancient superstitious ideas and a primitive error. But we can now form a more accurate idea of the development of the race. The ancient more primitive civilisations held in themselves the elements of the later growth but their early wise men were not scientists and philosophers or men of high intellectual reason but mystics and even mystery-men, occultists, religious seekers; they were seekers after a veiled truth behind things and not of an outward knowledge. The scientists and philosophers came afterwards; they were preceded by the mystics and often like Pythagoras and Plato were to some extent mystics themselves or drew many of their ideas from the mystics. In India philosophy grew out of the seeking of the mystics and retained and developed their spiritual aims and kept something of their methods in later Indian spiritual discipline and Yoga. The Vedic tradition, the fact of a mystical element in the Veda fits in perfectly with this historical truth and takes its place in the history of Indian culture. The tradition of the Veda as the bed-rock of Indian civilisation -- not merely a barbaric sacrificial liturgy -- is more than a tradition, it is an actual fact of history.

But even if an element of high spiritual knowledge, or passages full of high ideas were found in the hymns, it might be supposed that those are perhaps only a small factor, while the rest is a sacrificial liturgy, formulas of prayer and praise to the Gods meant to induce them to shower on the sacrificers material blessings such as plenty of cows, horses, fighting men, sons, food, wealth of all kinds, protection, victory in battle, or to bring down rain from heaven, recover the sun from clouds or from the grip of Night, the free flowing of the seven rivers, recovery of cattle from the Dasyus (or the Dravidians) and the other boons which on the surface seem to be the object of this ritual worship. The Rishis would then be men with some spiritual or mystic knowledge but otherwise dominated by all the popular ideas proper to their times. These two elements they would then mix up intimately in their hymns and this would account at least in part for the obscurity and the rather strange and sometimes grotesque jumble which the traditional interpretation offers us. But if, on the other hand, a considerable body of high thinking clearly appears, if there is a large mass of verses or whole hymns which admit only of a mystic character and significance, and if finally, the ritualistic and external details are found to take frequently the appearance of symbols such as were always used by the mystics, and if there are many clear indications, even some explicit statements in the hymns themselves of such a meaning, then all changes. We are in the presence of a great scripture of the mystics with a double significance, one exoteric the other esoteric, the symbols themselves have a meaning which makes them a part of the esoteric significance, an element in the secret teaching and knowledge. The whole of the Rig-veda, a small number of hymns perhaps excepted, becomes in its inner sense such a Scripture. At the same time the exoteric sense need not be merely a mask; the Riks may have been regarded by their authors as words of power, powerful not only for internal but for external things. A purely spiritual scripture would concern itself with only spiritual significances, but the ancient mystics were also what we would call occultists, men who believed that by inner means outer as well as inner results could be produced, that thought and words could be so used as to bring about realisations of every kind, -- in the phrase common in the Veda itself, -- both the human and the divine.

But where is this body of esoteric meaning in the Veda? It is only discoverable if we give a constant and straightforward meaning to the words and formulas employed by the Rishis, especially to the key-words which bear as keystones the whole structure of their doctrine. One such word is the great word, Ritam, Truth; Truth was the central object of the seeking of the Mystics, a spiritual or inner Truth, a truth of ourselves, a truth of things, a truth of the world and of the gods, a truth behind all we are and all that things are. In the ritualistic interpretation this master word of the Vedic knowledge has been interpreted in all kinds of senses according to the convenience or fancy of the interpreter, "truth", "sacrifice", "water", "one who has gone", even "food", not to speak of a number of other meanings; if we do that, there can be no certitude in our dealings with the Veda. But let us consistently give it the same master sense and a strange but clear result emerges. If we apply the same treatment to other standing terms of the Veda, if we give them their ordinary, natural and straightforward meaning and give it constantly and consistently not monkeying about with their sense or turning them into purely ritualistic expressions, if we allow to certain important words, such as sravas, kratu, the psychological meaning of which they are capable and which they undoubtedly bear in certain passages as when the Veda describes Agni as kratur hrdi, then this result becomes all the more clear, extended, pervasive. If, in addition, we follow the indications which abound, sometimes the explicit statement of the Rishis about the inner sense of their symbols, interpret in the same sense the significant legends and figures on which they constantly return, the conquest over Vritra and the battle with the Vritras, his powers, the recovery of the Sun, the Waters, the Cows from the Panis or other Dasyus, the whole Rig-veda reveals itself as a body of doctrine and practice, esoteric, occult, spiritual, such as might have been given by the mystics in any ancient country but which actually survives for us only in the Veda. It is there deliberately hidden by a veil, but the veil is not so thick as we first imagine; we have only to use our eyes and the veil vanishes; the body of the Word, the Truth stands out before us.

Many of the lines, many whole hymns even of the Veda bear on their face a mystic meaning; they are evidently an occult form of speech, have an inner meaning. When the seer speaks of Agni as "the luminous guardian of the Truth shining out in his own home", or of Mitra and Varuna or other gods as "in touch with the Truth and making the Truth grow" or as "born in the Truth", these are words of a mystic poet, who is thinking of that inner Truth behind things of which the early sages were the seekers. He is not thinking of the Nature-Power presiding over the outer element of fire or of the fire of the ceremonial sacrifice. Or he speaks of Saraswati as one who impels the words of Truth and awakes to right thinkings or as one opulent with the thought: Saraswati awakes to consciousness or makes us conscious of the "Great Ocean and illumines all our thoughts". It is surely not the River Goddess whom he is thus hymning but the Power, the River if you will, of inspiration, the word of the Truth, bringing its light into our thoughts, building up in us that Truth, an inner knowledge. The Gods constantly stand out in their psychological functions; the sacrifice is the outer symbol of an inner work, an inner interchange between the gods and men, -- man giving what he has, the gods giving in return the horses of power, the herds of light, the heroes of Strength to be his retinue, winning for him victory in his battle with the hosts of Darkness, Vritras, Dasyus, Panis. When the Rishi says, "Let us become conscious whether by the War-Horse or by the Word of a Strength beyond men", his words have either a mystic significance or they have no coherent meaning at all. In the portions translated in this book we have many mystic verses and whole hymns which, however mystic, tear the veil off the outer sacrificial images covering the real sense of the Veda. "Thought," says the Rishi, "has nourished for us human things in the Immortals, in the Great Heavens; it is the milch-cow which milks of itself the wealth of many forms" -- the many kinds of wealth, cows, horses and the rest for which the sacrificer prays; evidently this is no material wealth, it is something which Thought, the Thought embodied in the Mantra, can give and it is the result of the same Thought that nourishes our human things in the Immortals, in the Great Heavens. A process of divinisation, and of a bringing down of great and luminous riches, treasures won from the Gods by the inner work of sacrifice, is hinted at in terms necessarily covert but still for one who knows how to read these secret words, ninya vacamsi, sufficiently expressive, kavaye nivacana. Again, Night and Dawn the eternal sisters are like "joyful weaving women weaving the weft of our perfected works into the form of a sacrifice". Again, words with a mystic form and meaning, but there could hardly be a more positive statement of the psychological character of the Sacrifice, the real meaning of the Cow, of the riches sought for, the plenitudes of the Great Treasure.

Under pressure of the necessity to mask their meaning with symbols and symbolic words -- for secrecy must be observed -- the Rishis resorted to fix double meanings, a device easily manageable in the Sanskrit language where one word often bears several different meanings, but not easy to render in an English translation and very often impossible. Thus the word for cow, go, meant also light or a ray of light; this appears in the names of some of the Rishis, Gotama, most radiant, Gavishthira, steadfast in the Light. The cows of the Veda were the Herds of the Sun, familiar in Greek myth and mystery, the rays of the Sun of Truth and Light and Knowledge; this meaning which comes out in some passages can be consistently applied everywhere yielding a coherent sense. The word ghrta means ghee or clarified butter and this was one of the chief elements of the sacrificial rite; but ghrta could also mean light, from the root ghr to shine and it is used in this sense in many passages. Thus the horses of Indra, the Lord of Heaven, are described as dripping with light, ghrtasnu [[Sayana, though in several passages he takes ghrta in the sense of light, renders it here by `water'; he seems to think that the divine horses were very tired and perspiring profusely! A Naturalistic interpreter might as well argue that as Indra is a God of the sky, the primitive poet might well believe that rain was the perspiration of Indra's horses.]] -- it certainly does not mean that ghee dripped from them as they ran, although that seems to be the sense of the same epithet as applied to the grain of which Indra's horses are invited to partake when they come to the sacrifice. Evidently this sense of light doubles with that of clarified butter in the symbolism of the sacrifice. The thought or the word expressing the thought is compared to pure clarified butter, expressions like dhiyam ghrtacim, the luminous thought or understanding occur. There is a curious passage in one of the hymns translated in this book calling on Fire as priest of the sacrifice to flood the offering with a mind pouring ghrita, ghrtaprusa manasa and so manifest the Seats ("places, or planes"), the three heavens each of them and manifest the Gods. [[This is Sayana's rendering of the passage and rises directly from the words.]] But what is a ghee-pouring mind, and how by pouring ghee can a priest manifest the Gods and the triple heavens? But admit the mystical and esoteric meaning and the sense becomes clear. What the Rishi means is a "mind pouring the light", a labour of the clarity of an enlightened or illumined mind; it is not a human priest or a sacrificial fire, but the inner Flame, the mystic seer-will, kavikratu, and that can certainly manifest by this process the Gods and the worlds and all planes of the being. The Rishis, it must be remembered, were seers as well as sages, they were men of vision who saw things in their meditation in images, often symbolic images which might precede or accompany an experience and put it in a concrete form, might predict or give an occult body to it: so it would be quite possible for him to see at once the inner experience and in image its symbolic happening, the flow of clarifying light and the priest god pouring this clarified butter on the inner self-offering which brought the experience. This might seem strange to a Western mind, but to an Indian mind accustomed to the Indian tradition or capable of meditation and occult vision it would be perfectly intelligible. The mystics were and normally are symbolists, they can even see all physical things and happenings as symbols of inner truths and realities, even their outer selves, the outer happenings of their life and all around them. That would make their identification or else an association of the thing and its symbol easy, its habit possible.

Other standing words and symbols of the Veda invite a similar interpretation of their sense. As the Vedic "cow" is the symbol of light, so the Vedic "horse" is a symbol of power, spiritual strength, force of tapasya. When the Rishi asks Agni for a "horse-form cow-in-front gift" he is not asking really for a number of horses forming a body of the gift with some cows walking in front, he is asking for a great body of spiritual power led by the light or, as we may translate it, "with the Ray-Cow walking in its front." [[Compare the expression which describes the Aryan, the noble people as led by the light -- jyotir-agrah.]] As one hymn describes the recovery from the Panis of the mass of the rays (the cows, -- the shining herds, gavyam), so another hymn asks Agni for a mass of abundance or power of the horse -- asvyam. So too the Rishi asks sometimes for the heroes or fighting men as his retinue, sometimes in more abstract language and without symbol for a complete hero-force -- suviryam; sometimes he combines the symbol and the thing. So too the Rishis ask for a son or sons or offspring, apatyam,as an element of the wealth for which they pray to the Gods, but here too an esoteric sense can be seen, for in certain passages the son born to us is clearly an image of some inner birth: Agni himself is our son, the child of our works, the child who as the Universal Fire is the father of his fathers, and it is by setting the steps on things that have fair offspring that we create or discover a path to the higher world of Truth. Again, "water" in the Veda is used as a symbol. It speaks of the inconscient ocean, salilam apraketam, in which the Godhead is involved and out of which he is born by his greatness; it speaks also of the great ocean, maho arnah, the upper waters which, as one hymn says, Saraswati makes conscious for us or of which she makes us conscious by the ray of intuition -- pra cetayati ketuna. The seven rivers seem to be the rivers of Northern India but the Veda speaks of the seven Mighty Ones of Heaven who flow down from Heaven; they are waters that know, knowers of the Truth -- rtajna -- and when they are released they discover for us the road to the great Heavens. So, too, Parashara speaks of Knowledge and universal Life, "in the house of the waters". Indra releases the rain by slaying Vritra, but this rain too is the rain of Heaven and sets the rivers flowing. Thus the legend of the release of the waters which takes so large a place in the Veda puts on the aspect of a symbolic myth. Along with it comes the other symbolic legend of the discovery and rescue, from the dark cave in the mountain, of the Sun, the cows or herds of the Sun, or the Sun-world -- svar -- by the Gods and the Angiras Rishis. The symbol of the Sun is constantly associated with the higher Light and the Truth: it is in the Truth concealed by an inferior Truth that are unyoked the horses of the Sun, it is the Sun in its highest light that is called upon in the great Gayatri Mantra to impel our thoughts. So, too, the enemies in the Veda are spoken of as robbers, dasyus, who steal the cows, or Vritras and are taken literally as human enemies in the ordinary interpretation, but Vritra is a demon who covers and holds back the Light and the waters and the Vritras are his forces fulfilling that function. The Dasyus, robbers or destroyers, are the powers of darkness, adversaries of the seekers of Light and the Truth. Always there are indications that lead us from the outward and exoteric to an inner and esoteric sense.

In connection with the symbol of the Sun a notable and most significant verse in a hymn of the fifth Mandala may here be mentioned; for it shows not only the profound mystic symbolism of the Vedic poets, but also how the writers of the Upanishads understood the Rig-veda and justifies their belief in the inspired knowledge of their forerunners. "There is a Truth covered by a Truth", runs the Vedic passage, "where they unyoke the horses of the Sun; the ten hundreds stood together, there was That One; [[Or, That (the supreme Truth) was one;]] I saw the greatest (best, most glorious) of the embodied gods." [[Or, it means, "I saw the greatest (best) of the bodies of the gods."]] Then mark how the seer of the Upanishad translates this thought or this mystic experience into his own later style, keeping the central symbol of the Sun but without any secrecy in the sense. Thus runs the passage in the Upanishad, "The face of the Truth is covered with a golden lid. O Pushan, that remove for the vision of the law of the Truth. [[Or, for the law of the Truth, for vision.]] O Pushan (fosterer), sole seer, O Yama, O Sun, O Child of the Father of beings, marshal and gather together thy rays; I see the Light which is that fairest (most auspicious) form of thee; he who is this Purusha, He am I." The golden lid is meant to be the same as the inferior covering truth, rtam, spoken of in the Vedic verse; the "best of the bodies of the Gods" is equivalent to the "fairest form of the Sun", it is the supreme Light which is other and greater than all outer light; the great formula of the Upanishad, "He am I", corresponds to That One, tad ekam, of the Rig-vedic verse; the "standing together of the ten hundreds" (the rays of the Sun, says Sayana, and that is evidently the meaning) is reproduced in the prayer to the Sun "to marshal and mass his rays" so that the supreme form may be seen. The Sun in both the passages, as constantly in the Veda and frequently in the Upanishad, is the Godhead of the supreme Truth and Knowledge and his rays are the light emanating from that supreme Truth and Knowledge. It is clear from this instance -- and there are others -- that the seer of the Upanishad had a truer sense of the meaning of the ancient Veda than the mediaeval ritualistic commentator with his gigantic learning, much truer than the modern and very different mind of the European scholars.

There are certain psychological terms which have to be taken consistently in their true sense if we are to find the inner or esoteric meaning. Apart from the Truth, Ritam, we have to take always in the sense of "thought" the word dhi which constantly recurs in the hymns. This is the natural meaning of dhi which corresponds to the later word Buddhi; it means thought, understanding, intelligence and in the plural 'thoughts', dhiyah. It is given in the ordinary interpretation all kinds of meanings; "water", "work", "sacrifice", "food", etc. as well as thought. But in our search we have to take it consistently in its ordinary and natural significance and see what is the result. The word ketu means very ordinarily "ray" but it also bears the meaning of intellect, judgment or an intellectual perception. If we compare the passages in the Veda in which it occurs we can come to the conclusion that it meant a ray of perception or intuition, as for instance, it is by the ray of intuition, ketuna, that Saraswati makes us conscious of the great waters; that too probably is the meaning of the rays which come from the Supreme foundation above and are directed downwards; these are the intuitions of knowledge as the rays of the Sun of Truth and Light. The word kratu means ordinarily work or sacrifice but it also means intelligence, power or resolution and especially the power of the intelligence that determines the work, the will. It is in this latter sense that we can interpret it in the esoteric rendering of the Veda. Agni is a seer-will, kavikratu, he is the "will in the heart",kratur hrdi. Finally the word sravas which is constantly in use in the Veda means fame, it is also taken by the commentators in the sense of food, but these significances cannot be fitted in everywhere and very ordinarily lack all point and apposite force. But sravas comes from the root sru to hear and is used in the sense of ear itself or of hymn or prayer -- a sense which Sayana accepts -- and from this we can infer that it means the "thing heard" or its result knowledge that comes to us through hearing. The Rishis speak of themselves as hearers of the Truth, satyasrutah, and the knowledge received by this hearing as Sruti. It is in this sense of inspiration or inspired knowledge that we can take it in the esoteric meaning of the Veda and we find that it fits in with a perfect appositeness; thus when the Rishi speaks of sravamsi as being brought through upward and brought through downward, this cannot be applied to food or fame but is perfectly apposite and significant if he is speaking of inspirations which rise up to the Truth above or bring down the Truth to us. This is the method we can apply everywhere, but we cannot pursue the subject any further here. In the brief limits of this Foreword these slight indications must suffice; they are meant only to give the reader an initial insight into the esoteric method of interpretation of the Veda.

But what then is the secret meaning, the esoteric sense, which emerges by this way of understanding the Veda? It is what we would expect from the nature of the seeking of the mystics everywhere. It is also, as we should expect from the actual course of the development of Indian culture, an early form of the spiritual truth which found its culmination in the Upanishads; the secret knowledge of the Veda is the seed which is evolved later on into the Vedanta. The thought around which all is centred is the seeking after Truth, Light, Immortality. There is a Truth deeper and higher than the truth of outward existence, a Light greater and higher than the light of human understanding which comes by revelation and inspiration, an immortality towards which the soul has to rise. We have to find our way to that, to get into touch with this Truth and Immortality, sapanta rtam amrtam, [[I.68.2.]] to be born into the Truth, to grow in it, to ascend in spirit into the world of Truth and to live in it. To do so is to unite ourselves with the Godhead and to pass from mortality into immortality. This is the first and the central teaching of the Vedic mystics. The Platonists, developing their doctrine from the early mystics, held that we live in relation to two worlds, -- a world of higher truth which might be called the spiritual world and that in which we live, the world of the embodied soul which is derived from the higher but also degraded from it into an inferior truth and inferior consciousness. The Vedic mystics held this doctrine in a more concrete and pragmatic form, for they had the experience of these two worlds. There is the inferior truth here of this world mixed as it is with much falsehood and error, anrtasya bhureh, [[VII.60.5.]] and there is a world or home of Truth, sadanam rtasya, [[I.164.47; also IV.21.3.]] the Truth, the Right, the Vast, satyam rtam brhat, [[Atharva XII.I.I.]] where all is Truth-Conscious, rtacit. [[IV.3.4.]] There are many worlds between up to the triple heavens and their lights but this is the world of the highest Light -- the world of the Sun of Truth, svar, or the Great Heaven. We have to find the path to this Great Heaven, the path of Truth, rtasya panthah, [[III.12.7; also VII.66.3.]] or as it is sometimes called the way of the gods. This is the second mystic doctrine. The third is that our life is a battle between the powers of Light and Truth, the Gods who are the Immortals and the powers of Darkness. These are spoken of under various names as Vritra and Vritras, Vala and the Panis, the Dasyus and their kings. We have to call in the aid of the Gods to destroy the opposition of these powers of Darkness who conceal the Light from us or rob us of it, who obstruct the flowing of the streams of Truth, rtasya dharah, [[V.12.2; also VII.43.4.]] the streams of Heaven and obstruct in every way the soul's ascent. We have to invoke the Gods by the inner sacrifice, and by the Word call them into us, -- that is the specific power of the Mantra, -- to offer to them the gifts of the sacrifice and by that giving secure their gifts, so that by this process we may build the way of our ascent to the goal. The elements of the outer sacrifice in the Veda are used as symbols of the inner sacrifice and self-offering; we give what we are and what we have in order that the riches of the divine Truth and Light may descend into our life and become the elements of our inner birth into the Truth, -- a right thinking, a right understanding, a right action must develop in us which is the thinking, impulsion and action of that higher Truth, rtasya presa, rtasya dhitih, [[I.68.3.]] and by this we must build up ourselves in that Truth. Our sacrifice is a journey, a pilgrimage and a battle, -- a travel towards the Gods and we also make that journey with Agni, the inner Flame, as our path-finder and leader. Our human things are raised up by the mystic Fire into the immortal being, into the Great Heaven, and the things divine come down into us. As the doctrine of the Rig-veda is the seed of the teaching of the Vedanta, so is its inner practice and discipline a seed of the later practice and discipline of Yoga. Finally, as the summit of the teaching of the Vedic mystics comes the secret of the one Reality, ekam sat, [[1.164.46.]] or tad ekam, [[X.129.2.]] which became the central word of the Upanishads. The Gods, the powers of Light and Truth are powers and names of the One, each God is himself all the Gods or carries them in him: there is the one Truth, tat satyam, [[III.39.5; also IV.54.4 and VIII.45.27.]] and one bliss to which we must rise. But in the Veda this looks out still mostly from behind the veil. There is much else but this is the kernel of the doctrine.

The interpretation I have put forward was set out at length in a series of articles with the title "The Secret of the Veda" in the monthly philosophical magazine, Arya, some thirty years ago; written in serial form while still developing the theory and not quite complete in its scope or composed on a preconceived and well-ordered plan it was not published in book-form and is therefore not yet available to the reading public. It was accompanied by a number of renderings of the hymns of the Rig-veda which were rather interpretations than translations and to these there was an introduction explanatory of the "Doctrine of the Mystics". Subsequently there was planned a complete translation of all the hymns to Agni in the ten Mandalas which kept close to the text; the renderings of those hymns in the second and sixth Mandalas are now published in this book for the first time as well as a few from the first Mandala. But to establish on a scholastic basis the conclusions of the hypothesis it would have been necessary to prepare an edition of the Rig-veda or of a large part of it with a word by word construing in Sanskrit and English, notes explanatory of important points in the text and justifying the interpretation both of separate words and of whole verses and also elaborate appendices to fix firmly the rendering of keywords like rta, sravas, kratu, ketu,} etc. essential to the esoteric interpretation. This also was planned, but meanwhile greater preoccupations of a permanent nature intervened and no time was left to proceed with such a considerable undertaking. For the benefit of the reader of these translations who might otherwise be at a loss, this Foreword has been written and some passages [[In the present edition the entire essay has been reproduced. - Ed.]] from the unpublished "Doctrine of the Mystics" have been included. The text of the Veda has been given for use by those who can read the original Sanskrit. These translations however are not intended to be a scholastic work meant to justify a hypothesis; the object of this publication is only to present them in a permanent form for disciples and those who are inclined to see more in the Vedas than a superficial liturgy and would be interested in knowing what might be the esoteric sense of this ancient Scripture.

This is a literary and not a strictly literal translation. But a fidelity to the meaning, the sense of the words and the structure of the thought, has been preserved: in fact the method has been to start with a bare and scrupulously exact rendering of the actual language and adhere to that as the basis of the interpretation; for it is only so that we can find out the actual thoughts of these ancient mystics. But any rendering of such great poetry as the hymns of the Rig-veda, magnificent in their colouring and images, noble and beautiful in rhythm, perfect in their diction, must, if it is not to be a merely dead scholastic work, bring at least a faint echo of their poetic force, -- more cannot be done in a prose translation and in so different a language. The turn of phrase and the syntax of English and Vedic Sanskrit are poles asunder; to achieve some sense of style and natural writing one has constantly to turn the concentrated speech of the Veda into a looser, more diluted English form. Another stumbling- block for the translator is the ubiquitous double entendre marking in one word the symbol and the thing symbolised, Ray and Cow, clear light of the mind and clarified butter, horses and spiritual power; one has to invent phrases like the "herds of the light" or "the shining herds" or to use devices such as writing the word horse with a capital H to indicate that it is a symbolic horse that is meant and not the common physical animal; but very often the symbol has to be dropped, or else the symbol has to be kept and the inner meaning left to be understood ; [[The Rishis sometimes seem to combine two different meanings in the same word; I have occasionally tried to render this double sense.]] I have not always used the same phrase though always keeping the same sense, but varied the translation according to the needs of the passage. Often I have been unable to find an adequate English word which will convey the full connotation or colour of the original text; I have used two words instead of one or a phrase or resorted to some other device to give the exact and complete meaning. Besides, there is often a use of antique words or turns of language of which the sense is not really known and can only be conjectured or else different renderings are equally possible. In many passages I have had to leave a provisional rendering; it was intended to keep the final decision on the point until the time when a more considerable body of the hymns had been translated and were ready for publication; but this time has not yet come.

The Doctrine of the Mystics

The Veda possesses the high spiritual substance of the Upanishads, but lacks their phraseology; it is an inspired knowledge as yet insufficiently equipped with intellectual and philosophical terms. We find a language of poets and illuminates to whom all experience is real, vivid, sensible, even concrete, not yet of thinkers and systematisers to whom the realities of the mind and soul have become abstractions. Yet a system, a doctrine there is; but its structure is supple, its terms are concrete, the cast of its thought is practical and experimental, but in the accomplished type of an old and sure experience, not of one that is crude and uncertain because yet in the making. Here we have the ancient psychological science and the art of spiritual living of which the Upanishads are the philosophical outcome and modification and Vedanta, Sankhya and Yoga the late intellectual result and logical dogma. But like all life, like all science that is still vital, it is free from the armoured rigidities of the reasoning intellect; in spite of its established symbols and sacred formulae it is still large, free, flexible, fluid, supple and subtle. It has the movement of life and the large breath of the soul. And while the later Philosophies are books of Knowledge and make liberation the one supreme good, the Veda is a Book of Works and the hope for which it spurns our present bonds and littleness is perfection, self-achievement, immortality.

The doctrine of the Mystics recognises an Unknowable, Timeless and Unnameable behind and above all things and not seizable by the studious pursuit of the mind. Impersonally, it is That, the One Existence; to the pursuit of our personality it reveals itself out of the secrecy of things as the God or Deva, -- nameless though he has many names, immeasurable and beyond description though he holds in himself all description of name and knowledge and all measures of form and substance, force and activity.

The Deva or Godhead is both the original cause and the final result. Divine Existent, builder of the worlds, lord and begetter of all things, Male and Female, Being and Consciousness, Father and Mother of the Worlds and their inhabitants, he is also their Son and ours: for he is the Divine Child born into the Worlds who manifests himself in the growth of the creature. He is Rudra and Vishnu, Prajapati and Hiranyagarbha, Surya, Agni, Indra, Vayu, Soma, Brihaspati, -- Varuna and Mitra and Bhaga and Aryaman, all the gods. He is the wise, mighty and liberating Son born from our works and our sacrifice, the Hero in our warfare and Seer of our knowledge, the White Steed in the front of our days who gallops towards the upper Ocean.

The soul of man soars as the Bird, the Hansa, past the shining firmaments of physical and mental consciousness, climbs as the traveller and fighter beyond earth of body and heaven of mind by the ascending path of the Truth to find this Godhead waiting for us, leaning down to us from the secrecy of the highest supreme where it is seated in the triple divine Principle and the source of the Beatitude. The Deva is indeed, whether attracting and exalted there or here helpful to us in the person of the greater Gods, always the Friend and Lover of man, the pastoral Master of the Herds who gives us the sweet milk and the clarified butter from the udder of the shining Cow of the infinitude. He is the source and outpourer of the ambrosial Wine of divine delight and we drink it drawn from the sevenfold waters of existence or pressed out from the luminous plant on the hill of being and uplifted by its raptures we become immortal.

Such are some of the images of this ancient mystic adoration.

The Godhead has built this universe in a complex system of worlds which we find both within us and without, subjectively cognised and objectively sensed. It is a rising tier of earths and heavens; it is a stream of diverse waters; it is a Light of seven rays, or of eight or nine or ten; it is a Hill of many plateaus. The seers often image it in a series of trios; there are three earths and three heavens. More, there is a triple world below, -- Heaven, Earth and the intervening mid-region; a triple world between, the shining heavens of the Sun; a triple world above, the supreme and rapturous abodes of the Godhead.

But other principles intervene and make the order of the worlds yet more complex. These principles are psychological; for since all creation is a formation of the Spirit, every external system of worlds must in each of its planes be in material correspondence with some power or rising degree of consciousness of which it is the objective symbol and must house a kindred internal order of things. To understand the Veda we must seize this Vedic parallelism and distinguish the cosmic gradations to which it leads. We rediscover the same system behind the later Puranic symbols and it is thence that we can derive its tabulated series most simply and clearly. For there are seven principles of existence and the seven Puranic worlds correspond to them with sufficient precision, thus:

Principle World

1. Pure Existence -- Sat	World of the highest truth of being (Satyaloka)
2. Pure Consciousness -- Chit	World of infinite Will or conscious force (Tapoloka)
3. Pure Bliss -- Ananda	World of creative delight of existence (Janaloka)
4. Knowledge or Truth -- Vijnana	World of the Vastness (Maharloka)
5. Mind	World of light (Swar)
6. Life (nervous being)	World of various becoming (Bhuvar)
7. Matter	The material world (Bhur)

Now this system which in the Purana is simple enough, is a good deal more intricate in the Veda. There the three highest worlds are classed together as the triple divine Principle, -- for they dwell always together in a Trinity; infinity is their scope, bliss is their foundation. They are supported by the vast regions of the Truth whence a divine Light radiates out towards our mentality in the three heavenly luminous worlds of Swar, the domain of Indra. Below is ranked the triple system in which we live.

We have the same cosmic gradations as in the Puranas but they are differently grouped, -- seven worlds in principle, five in practice, three in their general groupings:

1. The Supreme Sat-Chit-Ananda	The Triple divine worlds
2. The Link-World Super-mind	The Truth, Right, Vast, manifested in Swar, with its three luminous heavens
3. The triple lower world
Pure Mind	Heaven (Dyaus, the three heavens)
Life-force	The Mid-Region (Antariksha)
Matter	Earth (the three earths)

And as each principle can be modified by the subordinate manifestation of the others within it, each world is divisible into several provinces according to different arrangements and self-orderings of its creative light of consciousness. Into this framework, then, we must place all the complexities of the subtle vision and the fertile imagery of the seers down to the hundred cities which are now in the possession of the hostile kings, the Lords of division and evil. But the gods shall break them open and give them for his free possession to the Aryan worshipper!

But where are these worlds and whence are they created? Here we have one of the profoundest ideas of the Vedic sages. Man dwells in the bosom of the Earth-Mother and is aware of this world of mortality only; but there is a superconscient high beyond where the divine worlds are seated in a luminous secrecy; there is a subconscient or inconscient below his surface waking impressions and from that pregnant Night the worlds as he sees them are born. And these other worlds between the luminous upper and the tenebrous lower ocean? They are here. Man draws from the life-world his vital being, from the mind-world his mentality; he is ever in secret communication with them; he can consciously enter into them, be born into them, if he will. Even into the solar worlds of the Truth he can rise, enter the portals of the Superconscient, cross the threshold of the Supreme. The divine doors shall swing open to his increasing soul.

This human ascension is possible because every being really holds in himself all that his outward vision perceives as if external to him. We have subjective faculties hidden in us which correspond to all the tiers and strata of the objective cosmic system and these form for us so many planes of our possible existence. This material life and our narrowly limited consciousness of the physical world are far from being the sole experience permitted to man, -- be he a thousand times the Son of Earth. If maternal Earth bore him and retains him in her arms, yet is Heaven also one of his parents and has a claim on his being. It is open to him to become awake to profounder depths and higher heights within and such awakening is his intended progress. And as he mounts thus to higher and ever higher planes of himself, new worlds open to his life and his vision and become the field of his experience and the home of his spirit. He lives in contact and union with their powers and godheads and remoulds himself in their image. Each ascent is thus a new birth of the soul, and the Veda calls the worlds "births" as well as seats and dwelling-places.

For as the Gods have built the series of the cosmic worlds, even so they labour to build up the same series of ordered states and ascending degrees in man's consciousness from the mortal condition to the crowning immortality. They raise him from the limited material state of being in which our lowest manhood dwells contented and subject to the Lords of Division, give him a life rich and abundant with the many and rapid shocks and impulsions from the dynamic worlds of Life and Desire where the Gods battle with the demons and raise him yet higher from those troubled rapidities and intensities into the steadfast purity and clarity of the high mental existence. For pure thought and feeling are man's sky, his heaven; this whole vitalistic existence of emotion, passions, affections of which desire is the pivot, forms for him a mid-world; body and material living are his earth.

But pure thought and pure psychic state are not the highest height of the human ascension. The home of the Gods is an absolute Truth which lives in solar glories beyond mind. Man ascending thither strives no longer as the thinker but is victoriously the seer; he is no longer this mental creature but a divine being. His will, life, thought, emotion, sense, act are all transformed into values of an all-puissant Truth and remain no longer an embarrassed or a helpless tangle of mixed truth and falsehood. He moves lamely no more in our narrow and grudging limits but ranges in the unobstructed Vast; toils and zigzags no longer amid these crookednesses, but follows a swift and conquering straightness; feeds no longer on broken fragments, but is suckled by the teats of Infinity. Therefore he has to break through and out beyond these firmaments of earth and heaven; conquering firm possession of the solar worlds, entering on to his highest Height he has to learn how to dwell in the triple principle of Immortality.

This contrast of the mortality we are and the immortal condition to which we can aspire is the key of the Vedic thought and practice. Veda is the earliest gospel we have of man's immortality and these ancient stanzas conceal the primitive discipline of its inspired discoverers.

Substance of being, light of consciousness, active force and possessive delight are the constituent principles of existence; but their combination in us may be either limited, divided, hurt, broken and obscure or infinite, enlightened, vast, whole and unhurt. Limited and divided being is ignorance; it is darkness and weakness, it is grief and pain; in the Vast, in the integral, in the infinite we must seek for the desirable riches of substance, light, force and joy. Limitation is mortality; immortality comes to us as an accomplished self-possession in the infinite and the power to live and move in firm vastnesses. Therefore it is in proportion as he widens and on condition that he increases constantly in substance of his being, brightens an ever loftier flame of will and vaster light of knowledge, advances the boundaries of his consciousness, raises the degrees and enlarges the breadth of his power, force and strength, confirms an intenser beatitude of joy and liberates his soul into immeasurable peace that man becomes capable of immortality.

To widen is to acquire new births. The aspiring material creature becomes the straining vital man; he in turn transmutes himself into the subtle mental and psychical being; this subtle thinker grows into the wide, multiple and cosmic man open on all sides of him to all the multitudinous inflowings of the Truth; the cosmic soul rising in attainment strives as the spiritual man for a higher peace, joy and harmony. These are the five Aryan types, each of them a great people occupying its own province or state of the total human nature. But there is also the absolute Aryan who would conquer and pass beyond these states to the transcendental harmony of them all.

It is the supramental Truth that is the instrument of this great inner transfiguration. That replaces mentality by luminous vision and the eye of the gods, mortal life by breath and force of the infinite existence, obscure and death-possessed substance by the free and immortal conscious-being. The progress of man must be therefore, first, his self-expanding into a puissant vitality capable of sustaining all vibrations of action and experience and a clear mental and psychical purity; secondly, an outgrowing of this human light and power and its transmutation into an infinite Truth and an immortal Will.

Our normal life and consciousness are a dark or at best a starlit Night. Dawn comes by the arising of the Sun of that higher Truth and with Dawn there comes the effective sacrifice. By the sacrifice the Dawn itself and the lost Sun are constantly conquered out of the returning Night and the luminous herds rescued from the darkling cave of the Panis; by the sacrifice the rain of the abundance of heaven is poured out for us and the sevenfold waters of the higher existence descend impetuously upon our earth because the coils of the obscuring Python, the all-enfolding and all-withholding Vritra, have been cloven asunder by the God-Mind's flashing lightnings; in the sacrifice the Soma-wine is distilled and uplifts us on the stream of its immortalising ecstasy to the highest heavens.

Our sacrifice is the offering of all our gains and works to the powers of the higher existence. The whole world is a dumb and helpless sacrifice in which the soul is bound as a victim self-offered to unseen Gods. The liberating Word must be found, the illuminating hymn must be framed in the heart and mind of man and his life must be turned into a conscious and voluntary offering in which the soul is no longer the victim, but the master of the sacrifice. By right sacrifice and by the all-creative and all-expressive Word that shall arise out of his depths as a sublime hymn to the Gods man can achieve all things. He shall conquer his perfection; Nature shall come to him as a willing and longing bride; he shall become her seer and rule her as her King.

By the hymn of prayer and God-attraction, by the hymn of praise and God-affirmation, by the hymn of God-attainment and self-expression man, can house in himself the Gods, build in this gated house of his being the living image of their deity, grow into divine births, form within himself vast and luminous worlds for his soul to inhabit. By the word of the Truth the all-engendering Surya creates; by that rhythm Brahmanaspati evokes the worlds and Twashtri fashions them; finding the all-puissant Word in his intuitive heart, shaping it in his mind the human thinker, the mortal creature can create in himself all the forms, all the states and conditions he desires and, achieving, can conquer for himself all wealth of being, light, strength and enjoyment. He builds up his integral being and aids his gods to destroy the evil armies; the hosts of his spiritual enemies are slain who have divided, torn and afflicted his nature.

The image of this sacrifice is sometimes that of a journey or voyage; for it travels, it ascends; it has a goal -- the vastness, the true existence, the light, the felicity -- and it is called upon to discover and keep the good, the straight and the happy path to the goal, the arduous, yet joyful road of the Truth. It has to climb, led by the flaming strength of the divine Will, from plateau to plateau as of a mountain, it has to cross as in a ship the waters of existence, traverse its rivers, overcome their deep pits and rapid currents; its aim is to arrive at the far-off ocean of light and infinity.

And this is no easy or peaceful march; it is for long seasons a fierce and relentless battle. Constantly the Aryan man has to labour and to fight and conquer; he must be a tireless toiler and traveller and a stern warrior, he must force open and storm and sack city after city, win kingdom after kingdom, overthrow and tread down ruthlessly enemy after enemy. His whole progress is a warring of Gods and Titans, Gods and Giants, Indra and the Python, Aryan and Dasyu. Aryan adversaries even he has to face in the open field; for old friends and helpers turn into enemies; the kings of Aryan states he would conquer and overpass join themselves to the Dasyus and are leagued against him in supreme battle to prevent his free and utter passing on.

But the Dasyu is the natural enemy. These dividers, plunderers, harmful powers, these Danavas, sons of the Mother of division, are spoken of by the Rishis under many general appellations. There are Rakshasas; there are Eaters and Devourers, Wolves and Tearers; there are hurters and haters; there are dualisers; there are confiners or censurers. But we are given also many specific names. Vritra, the Serpent, is the grand Adversary; for he obstructs with his coils of darkness all possibility of divine existence and divine action. And even when Vritra is slain by the light, fiercer enemies arise out of him. Shushna afflicts us with his impure and ineffective force, Namuchi fights man by his weaknesses, and others too assail, each with his proper evil. Then there are Vala and the Panis, miser traffickers in the sense-life, stealers and concealers of the higher Light and its illuminations which they can only darken and misuse, -- an impious host who are jealous of their store and will not offer sacrifice to the Gods. These and other personalities, -- they are much more than personifications, -- of our ignorance, evil, weakness and many limitations make constant war upon man; they encircle him from near or they shoot their arrows at him from afar or even dwell in his gated house in the place of the Gods and with their shapeless stammering mouths and their insufficient breath of force mar his self-expression. They must be expelled, overpowered, slain, thrust down into their nether darkness by the aid of the mighty and helpful deities.

The Vedic deities are names, powers, personalities of the universal Godhead and they represent each some essential puissance of the Divine Being. They manifest the cosmos and are manifest in it. Children of Light, Sons of the Infinite, they recognise in the soul of man their brother and ally and desire to help and increase him by themselves increasing in him so as to possess his world with their light, strength and beauty. The Gods call man to a divine companionship and alliance; they attract and uplift him to their luminous fraternity, invite his aid and offer theirs against the Sons of Darkness and Division. Man in return calls the Gods to his sacrifice, offers to them his swiftnesses and his strengths, his clarities and his sweetnesses, -- milk and butter of the shining Cow, distilled juices of the Plant of Joy, the Horse of the Sacrifice, the cake and the wine, the grain for the God- Mind's radiant coursers. He receives them into his being and their gifts into his life, increases them by the hymn and the wine and forms perfectly, -- as a smith forges iron, says the Veda, -- their great and luminous godheads.

All this Vedic imagery is easy to understand when once we have the key, but it must not be mistaken for mere imagery. The Gods are not simply poetical personifications of abstract ideas or of psychological and physical functions of Nature. To the Vedic seers they are living realities; the vicissitudes of the human soul represent a cosmic struggle not merely of principles and tendencies but of the cosmic Powers which support and embody them. These are the Gods and the Demons. On the world- stage and in the individual soul the same real drama with the same personages is enacted.

To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered? Who shall be invoked to manifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead?

Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.

Indra, the Puissant next, who is the power of pure Existence self-manifested as the Divine Mind. As Agni is one pole of Force instinct with knowledge that sends its current upward from earth to heaven, so Indra is the other pole of Light instinct with force which descends from heaven to earth. He comes down into our world as the Hero with the shining horses and slays darkness and division with his lightnings, pours down the life-giving heavenly waters, finds in the trace of the hound, Intuition, the lost or hidden illuminations, makes the Sun of Truth mount high in the heaven of our mentality.

Surya, the Sun, is the master of that supreme Truth, -- truth of being, truth of knowledge, truth of process and act and movement and functioning. He is therefore the creator or rather the manifester of all things, -- for creation is outbringing, expression by the Truth and Will, -- and the father, fosterer, enlightener of our souls. The illuminations we seek are the herds of this Sun who comes to us in the track of the divine Dawn and releases and reveals in us night-hidden world after world up to the highest Beatitude.

Of that beatitude Soma is the representative deity. The wine of his ecstasy is concealed in the growths of earth, in the waters of existence; even here in our physical being are his immortalising juices and they have to be pressed out and offered to all the gods; for in that strength these shall increase and conquer.

Each of these primary deities has others associated with him who fulfil functions that arise from his own. For if the truth of Surya is to be established firmly in our mortal nature, there are previous conditions that are indispensable; a vast purity and clear wideness destructive of all sin and crooked falsehood, -- and this is Varuna; a luminous power of love and comprehension leading and forming into harmony all our thoughts, acts and impulses, -- this is Mitra; an immortal puissance of clear-discerning aspiration and endeavour, -- this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment of all things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering, -- this is Bhaga. These four are powers of the Truth of Surya.

For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy and enlightened and unmaimed condition of mind, vitality and body are necessary. This condition is given to us by the twin Ashwins; wedded to the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension.

Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants, his artisans, the Ribhus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their brilliant ascension to the high dwelling-place of the Sun have attained to immortality and help mankind to repeat their achievement. They shape by the mind Indra's horses, the Ashwins' chariot, the weapons of the Gods, all the means of the journey and the battle. But as giver of the Light of truth and as Vritra-slayer Indra is aided by the Maruts, who are powers of will and nervous or vital Force that have attained to the light of thought and the voice of se]f-expression. They are behind all thought and speech as its impellers and they battle towards the Light, Truth and Bliss of the supreme Consciousness.

There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the gods also are either activising souls or passively executive and methodising energies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the gods, comes first; and there are besides five powers of the Truth-Consciousness, -- Mahi or Bharati, the vast Word that brings us all things out of the divine source; Ila, the strong primal word of the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current and the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who descends into the cavern of the subconscient and finds there the concealed illuminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion. Each god, too, has his female energy.

All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother, Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, Master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, -- Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.

The development of all these godheads is necessary to our perfection. And that perfection must be attained on all our levels, -- in the wideness of earth, our physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as the Horse which must be brought forward to upbear our endeavour; in the perfect gladness of the heart of emotion and a brilliant heat and clarity of the mind throughout our intellectual and psychical being; in the coming of the supramental Light, the Dawn and the Sun and the shining Mother of the herds, to transform all our existence; for so comes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the Bliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being.

Three great Gods, origin of the Puranic Trinity, largest puissances of the supreme Godhead, make possible this development and upward evolution; they support in its grand lines and fundamental energies all these complexities of the cosmos. Brahmanaspati is the Creator; by the word, by his cry he creates, -- that is to say, he expresses, he brings out all existence and conscious knowledge and movement of life and eventual forms from the darkness of the Inconscient. Rudra, the Violent and Merciful, the Mighty One, presides over the struggle of life to affirm itself; he is the armed, wrathful and beneficent Power of God who lifts forcibly the creation upward, smites all that opposes, scourges all that errs and resists, heals all that is wounded and suffers and complains and submits. Vishnu of the vast pervading motion holds in his triple stride all these worlds; it is he that makes a wide room for the action of Indra in our limited mortality; it is by him and with him that we rise into his highest seats where we find waiting for us the Friend, the Beloved, the Beatific Godhead.

Our earth shaped out of the dark inconscient ocean of existence lifts its high formations and ascending peaks heavenward; heaven of mind has its own formations, clouds that give out their lightnings and their waters of life; the streams of the clarity and the honey ascend out of the subconscient ocean below and seek the superconscient ocean above; and from above that ocean sends downward its rivers of the light and truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus in images of physical Nature the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension.

That ascension has already been effected by the Ancients, the human forefathers, and the spirits of these great Ancestors still assist their offspring; for the new dawns repeat the old and lean forward in light to join the dawns of the future. Kanwa, Kutsa, Atri, Kakshiwan, Gotama, Shunahshepa have become types of certain spiritual victories which tend to be constantly repeated in the experience of humanity. The seven sages, the Angirasas, are waiting still and always, ready to chant the word, to rend the cavern, to find the lost herds, to recover the hidden Sun. Thus the soul is a battlefield full of helpers and hurters, friends and enemies. All this lives, teems, is personal, is conscious, is active. We create for ourselves by the sacrifice and by the word shining seers, heroes to fight for us, children of our works. The Rishis and the Gods find for us our luminous herds; the Ribhus fashion by the mind the chariots of the gods and their horses and their shining weapons. Our life is a horse that neighing and galloping bears us onward and upward; its forces are swift-hooved steeds, the liberated powers of the mind are wide-winging birds; this mental being or this soul is the upsoaring Swan or the Falcon that breaks out from a hundred iron walls and wrests from the jealous guardians of felicity the wine of the Soma. Every shining godward Thought that arises from the secret abysses of the heart is a priest and a creator and chants a divine hymn of luminous realisation and puissant fulfilment. We seek for the shining gold of the Truth; we lust after a heavenly treasure.

The soul of man is a world full of beings, a kingdom in which armies clash to help or hinder a supreme conquest, a house where the gods are our guests and which the demons strive to possess; the fullness of its energies and wideness of its being make a seat of sacrifice spread, arranged and purified for a celestial session.

Such are some of the principal images of the Veda and a very brief and insufficient outline of the teaching of the Forefathers. So understood the Rig-veda ceases to be an obscure, confused and barbarous hymnal; it becomes the high-aspiring Song of Humanity; its chants are episodes of the lyrical epic of the soul in its immortal ascension.

This at least; what more there may be in the Veda of ancient science, lost knowledge, old psycho-physical tradition remains yet to be discovered.

MANDALA ONE

MADHUCHCHHANDAS VAISHWAMITRA

SUKTA 1

1. I adore the Flame, the vicar, the divine Ritwik of the Sacrifice, the summoner who most founds the ecstasy.

2. The Flame adorable by the ancient sages is adorable too by the new. He brings here the Gods.

3. By the Flame one enjoys a treasure that verily increases day by day, glorious, most full of hero-power.

4. O Flame! the pilgrim-sacrifice on every side of which thou art with the environing being, that truly goes among the Gods.

5. The Flame, the summoner, the Seer-Will, true and most full of richly varied listenings, may he come a God with the Gods.

6. O Flame! the happy good which thou shalt create for the giver is that Truth and verily thine, O Angiras!

7. To thee, O Flame! we day by day, in the night and in the light, come, carrying by our thought the obeisance.

8. To thee, who reignest over our pilgrim-sacrifices, luminous guardian of the Truth, increasing in thy own home.

9. Therefore, be easy of access to us as a father unto his son, cling to us for our happy state.

MEDHATITHI KANWA

SUKTA 12

1. We choose Agni, the summoner, the all-knowing, the messenger, the will effective of this sacrifice.

2. To the Lord of the creatures, the bearer of our offerings, the beloved of Many, to every flame the sacrificers ever call with hymns that summon the Gods, One in whom are many dear things.

3. O Fire, thou being born hither bear the Gods for the sacrificer who spreads the holy seat, thou art our desirable summoning priest.

4. O Fire, when thou goest as our envoy, awaken them up who desire our offerings. Take thy seat with the Gods on the holy grass.

5. O Fire, thou who art called by the offerings of clarity, thou shining one, do thou oppose and burn down the haters that confine.

6. By the Fire is the fire perfectly kindled, the seer, the lord of the house, the youth, the bearer of offering whose mouth receives the offerings.

7. To the divine Flame, the seer, him whose law of being is the Truth, the shining one, the destroyer of all evils, approach and chant the hymn of praise.

8. O Flame, O divine messenger, the lord of the offerings who waits on thee, of him become the protector.

9. He who with the offerings approaches the divine force, for the Birth of the Gods, O Purifier, on him have grace.

10. O shining Flame, thou who purifiest, hither bear the Gods to our offerings and to our sacrifice.

11. Thou adored by our fresh Gayatri rhythms bring for us the felicity and force full of hero's strength.

12. O Fire, with thy lustres white, and all thy divine hymns that summon the Gods, come and accept this hymn that we affirm.

SUKTA 13

1. O Fire! perfectly kindled, bear the gods to him who has the offerings, O Thou who purifiest! Thou summoner! sacrifice to the gods.

2. O Son of the body! Now make the sacrifice honied for the gods (or full of honey among the gods) for their enjoyment, O seer.

3. Him, the beloved, I call hither to this sacrifice, he who creates the offerings, possessed of honied tongue.

4. O Fire! Thou who art adored, bring here the gods in thy happiest car; (for) thou art the summoner established by man.

5. O Thinkers! spread you the holy seat continuous and true in order, sprinkled with clear offerings (of clarified butter), to where is the vision of immortality.

SUKTA 14

1. With all these gods, O Agni, thou who art the activity of speech, arrive and do thy work.

2. On thee, O Agni, the Kanwas have called, for thee, O master of wisdom, their movements of understanding become articulate; arrive, O Agni, with the gods.

3. On Indra and Vayu, Brihaspati, on Mitra and Agni, Pushan, Bhaga, the Adityas and the Marut host.

4. For you the nectar streams are filled in, rapturous and maddening, dripping sweetness, into their vessel they settle down.

5. Thee the Kanwas protected adore, when they have manifested the Flame, hold the offering and have set their array.

6. Shining of flank, yoked to the mind, the bearers that bear thee and bear to us the gods to drink the Soma-wine,

7. make them active to the Yajna, O Agni, they increase by truth, they have with them their female powers; make them drink the sweetnesses, O keen of tongue.

8. Those that are active to Yajna, those that are adorable, let both of them drink with thy tongue, O Agni, the heady sweetness of the wine.

9. From the world of the lustre of the sun the seer, the priest of the offering bringeth the gods that wake to the dawn.

10. With all of them, O Agni, drink thou the sweetness of the Soma-wine, with Indra and Vayu and Mitra's lustres.

11. Thou, the priest of the oblation, thinker and friend, sittest, O Agni, at the Yajnas, therefore do thou set thyself to this action of sacrifice of ours.

12. Yoking, O God, in thy chariot the rosy and the green and the crimson, by these bear hither the gods.

KANWA GHAURA

SUKTA 36

l. The master of many peoples who labour towards the godhead, we seek for you with words of perfect expression, Agni whom others also everywhere desire.

2. Men hold Agni in them as the increaser of strength. With offerings we dispose the sacrifice for thee, do thou then become today to us perfect-minded and our keeper here in our havings, O thou who art of the truth of being.

3. Thee we choose out for our messenger, the priest of offering who hast universal knowledge; when thou art greatened in thy being thy flames range wide, thy lustres touch the heavens.

4. The gods even Varuna and Mitra and Aryaman light thee utterly, the ancient messenger; all wealth that mortal conquers by thee, O Agni, who to thee has given.

5. Thou art the rapturous priest of the sacrifice and master of this house and the envoy of creatures; in thee are met together all the steadfast laws of action which the gods have made.

6. It is in thee, O Agni, young and mighty, because thou art rich in joy that every offering is cast, therefore do thou today and hereafter, perfect of mind, offer to the gods perfected energies.

7. He it is, whom as the self-ruler men who have attained submission adore; by the greatness of the oblation men light entirely Agni when they have broken through their opposers.

8. They smite Vritra the coverer and pass beyond the two firmaments, and they make the wide kingdom their home. May the mighty One become in Kanwa a luminous energy fed with the offerings, the Steed of Life neighing in the pastures (stations) of the kine.

9. Take thy established seat; wide art thou, shine in thy purity revealing utterly the godhead; pour forth, O thou of the sacrifice, thy red active smoke of passion, thou wide-manifested, that full of vision.

10. Even thou whom the gods have set here for man most strong for the sacrifice, O bearer of the offering, whom Kanwa Medhyatithi has established as a seizer for him of his desired wealth, whom the mighty Indra and all who establish him by the song of praise;

11. even that Agni whom Medhyatithi Kanwa has kindled high upon the Truth, may his impulses blaze forth, him may these fulfilling Words, him, even Agni, may we increase.

12. Complete our felicities, O thou who hast the self-fixity; for with thee, O Agni, is effectivity in the gods; thou rulest over the wealth of inspired knowledge. Show thou then favour to us, great art thou.

13. Utterly high uplifted stand for our growth, like the god Savitri; it is from these heights that thou becomest the saviour of our store when we call on thee...

14. High-raised protect us from the evil by the perceiving mind, burn utterly every eater of our being; raise us too on high for action, for life; distribute among the gods our activity.

15. Protect us, O Agni, from the Rakshasa, protect us from the harm of the undelighting, protect us from him who assails and him who would slay us, O Vast of lustres, O mighty and young.

16. As with thick falling blows scatter utterly (or scatter like clouds to every side) all the powers of undelight, O devourer of their force (or destroyer of affliction), and him who would do us harm; whatsoever mortal being exceeds us by the keenness of his actions, may he not as our enemy have mastery over us.

17. Agni has won perfected energy for Kanwa and has won perfected enjoyment; Agni protects for him all friendly things, Agni keeps ever in safe being Medhyatithi who has confirmed him by the song of praise.

18. By Agni we call Turvasha and Yadu from the upper kingdoms; Agni has led to a new dwelling Brihadratha and Turviti (or Turviti of wide delight), a power against the foe.

19. Man establisheth thee within, O Agni, as a light for the eternal birth; mayest thou burn brightly in Kanwa manifested in the Truth and increased in being, thou to whom the doers of action bow down.

20. Impetuous, O Agni, and forceful are thy flames, terrible and not to be approached; always thou do burn utterly the powers who detain and the powers who are vessels of suffering, yea, every devourer.

NODHAS GAUTAMA

SUKTA 59

A HYMN OF THE UNIVERSAL DIVINE FORCE AND WILL

1. Other flames are only branches of thy stock, O Fire. All the immortals take in thee their rapturous joy. O universal Godhead, thou art the navel-knot of the earths and their inhabitants; all men born thou controllest and supportest like a pillar.

2. The Flame is the head of heaven and the navel of the earth and he is the power that moves at work in the two worlds. O Vaishwanara, the gods brought thee to birth a god to be a light to Aryan man.

3. As the firm rays sit steadfast in the Sun, all treasures have been placed in the universal godhead and flame. King art thou of all the riches that are in the growths of the earth and the hills and the waters and all the riches that are in men.

4. Heaven and Earth grow as if vaster worlds to the Son. He is the priest of our sacrifice and sings our words even as might a man of discerning skill. To Vaishwanara, for this most strong god who brings with him the light of the sun-world, its many mighty waters because his strength is of the truth.

5. O universal godhead, O knower of all things born, thy excess of greatness overflows even the Great Heaven. Thou art the king of the toiling human peoples and by battle madest the supreme good for the gods.

7. This is the universal godhead who by his greatness labours in all the peoples, the lustrous master of sacrifice, the Flame with his hundred treasures. This is he who has the word of the Truth.

PARASHARA SHAKTYA

SUKTA 65

1. He hides himself like a thief with the cow of vision in the secret cavern, he takes to himself our adoration, and thither he carries it. [[Or better, he takes to himself our surrender, he carries with him our surrender.]] The thinkers take a common joy in him, they follow him by his footprints; all the Masters of sacrifice come to thee, O Flame, in the secrecy.

2. The Gods follow after him the law of the workings of Truth. He stands encompassing all as heaven the earth. The Waters make him grow increasing in his bulk by their toil, [[Or, by their chant,]] the Flame well-born in their womb, in the abode of the Truth.

3. He is as if a delightful thriving, he is like the earth our wide dwelling-place. He is enjoyable like a hill and bliss-giving like fast-running water. He is like a charger in the battle rushing to the gallop and like a flowing river; [[Or, like a sea in its motion,]] who shall hedge in his course?

4. He is the close comrade of the Rivers as is a brother of his sisters. He devours the earth's forests as a king his enemies. When driven by the breath of the wind he ranges around the forests, the Flame tears asunder the hairs of Earth's body.

5. He breathes in the Waters like a seated swan. Waking in the dawn he has power by the will of his works to give knowledge to the peoples. He is like the God of the Wine, born of the Truth and a creator. He is like a cow with her newborn. He is wide-spreading and his light is seen from afar.

SUKTA 66

1. He is like a wealth richly diverse and like the all-seeing of the Sun. He is as if life and the breath of our existence, he is as if our eternal child. He is like a galloper bearing us. He clings to the forests: he is like a cow with her milk. He is pure-bright and wide is his lustre.

2. He holds all our good like a pleasant home; he is like ripe corn. He is a conqueror of men and like a chanting Rishi; there is word of him among the folk: he is as if our exultant steed of swiftness; he upholds our growth.

3. He is light in a house difficult to inhabit; [[Or, he is a light difficult to kindle;]] he is as a will ever active in us; he is like a wife in our abode and sufficient to every man. When he blazes wonderfully manifold, he is like one white in the peoples: he is like a golden chariot; he is a splendour in our battles.

4. He is like an army running to the charge and puts strength in us: he is like the flaming shaft of the Archer with its keen burning front. A twin he is born, a twin he is that which is to be born: he is the lover of the virgins and the husband of the mothers.

5. We by your movement, we by your staying, come to him when his light is kindled as the cows come home to their stall. He is like a river running in its channel and sends in his front the descending Waters: the Ray-Cows move to him in the manifesting of the world of the Sun. [[Or, when the Sun appears.]]

SUKTA 67

1. He is the conqueror in the forests; in mortals he is a friend: he chooses inspiration as a king an unaging councillor. He is as if our perfect welfare; [[Or, a perfecting good;]] he is like a happy will just in its thinking and becomes to us our Priest of the call and the bearer of our offerings.

2. He holds in his hands all mights: sitting in the secret cave he upholds [[Or, establishes]] the gods in his strength. Here men who hold in themselves the Thought come to know him when they have uttered the Mantras formed by the heart.

3. As the unborn he has held the wide earth, he has up-pillared heaven with his Mantras of truth. Guard the cherished footprints of the Cow of vision; O Fire, thou art universal life, enter into the secrecy of secrecies. [[Or, the secrecy of the secret Cave.]]

4. He who has perceived him when he is in the secret cave, he who has come to the stream of the Truth, those who touch the things of the Truth and kindle him, -- to such a one he gives word of the Riches.

5. He who in the growths of earth holds up his greatnesses, both the progeny born and what is in the mothers, he is Knowledge in the house of the Waters, and life universal; the thinkers have measured and constructed him like a mansion.

SUKTA 68

1. The carrier, burning, he reaches heaven. He unravels the nights and uncovers the stable and the moving; for this is the one God who envelops with himself the grandeurs of all the Gods.

2. All cleave to [[Or, take joy in]] thy will of works when, O God, thou art born a living being from dry matter. All enjoy the Name, the Godhead; by thy movements they touch Truth and Immortality.

3. He is the urgings of the Truth, the thinking of the Truth, the universal life by whom all do the works. He who gives to thee, he who gains from thee, [[Or, learns from thee,]] to him, for thou knowest, give the Riches.

4. He is the priest of the sacrifice seated in the son of Man: he verily is the lord of these riches. They desire the seed mutually in their bodies; the wise by their own discernings come wholly to know.

5. Those who listen to his teaching, those who are swift to the journey, serve gladly his will as sons the will of a father. He houses a multitude of riches and flings wide the doors of the Treasure. He is the dweller within who has formed heaven with its stars.

SUKTA 69

l. Blazing out brilliant as the lover of the Dawn, filling the two equal worlds [[Or, the two companions]] like the Light of Heaven, thou art born by our will and comest into being all around us; thou hast become the father of the Gods, thou who art the Son.

2. The Fire having the knowledge is a creator [[Or, ordainer of things]] without proud rashness; he is as if the teat of the Cows of Light, the sweetener [[Or ,taster of all foods]] of the draughts of the Wine. He is as one blissful in a man, one whom we must call in; he is seated rapturous in the middle of the house.

3. He is born to us as if a son rapturous in our house; like a glad horse of swiftness he carries safe through their battle the peoples: when I call to the beings who dwell in one abode with the Gods, [[Or, with men,]] the Flame attains all godheads.

4. None can impair the ways of thy workings when for these gods [[Or, these men]] thou hast created inspired knowledge. This is thy work that yoked with the Gods, thy equals, thou hast smitten, [[Or, that thou hast slain,]] that thou hast scattered the powers of evil.

5. Very bright and lustrous is he like the lover of Dawn. May his form be known and may he wake to knowledge for this human being, may all bear him in themselves, part wide the Doors and move into the vision of the world of the Sun. [[Or, come to the seeing of the Sun.]]

SUKTA 70

1. May we win the many Riches, may the Fire, flaming high with his light, master by the thinking mind, take possession of all things that are, he who knows the laws of the divine workings and knows the birth of the human being.

2. He is the child of the waters, the child of the forests, the child of things stable and the child of things that move. Even in the stone he is there for man, he is there in the middle of his house, -- he is as one universal in creatures; he is the Immortal, the perfect thinker.

3. The Fire is a master of the nights, he gives of the Riches to him who prepares for him the sacrifice with the perfect words. O thou who art conscious, guard, as the knower, these worlds, and the birth of the Gods, and mortal men.

4. Many nights of different forms have increased him, the Fire who came forth from the Truth, who is the stable and the moving: the Priest of the call, he is achieved for us, seated in the sun-world, [[Or, the sun,]] making true all our works.

5. Thou establishest word of thee in the Ray-Cow and in the forests; it is as if all were bringing the sun-world as offering. Men in many parts serve thee and gather in knowledge as from a long-lived father.

6. He is like one efficient in works and hungry to seize, heroic like one shooting arrows, terrible like an assailant charging, he is a splendour in our battles.

SUKTA 71

1. The Mothers who dwell in one abode, desiring came to him who desired them and gave him pleasure as to their eternal spouse: the sisters took joy in him as the Ray-Cows in the Dawn when she comes dusky, flushing red, then shining out in rich hues.

2. Our fathers by their words broke the strong and stubborn places, the Angiras seers shattered the mountain rock with their cry; they made in us a path to the Great Heaven, they discovered the Day and the sun-world and the intuitive ray and the shining herds.

3. They held the Truth, they enriched the thought of this human being; then, indeed, had they mastery and understanding bearing wide the Flame, the powers at work go towards the gods making the Birth to grow by delight.

4. When the Life-Breath borne pervadingly within has churned him out in house and house he becomes white and a conqueror. Then, indeed, he becomes the Flaming Seer and companioning us goes on an embassy as for a powerful king.

5. When he had made this sap of essence for the great Father Heaven, he came slipping downward, one close in touch, having knowledge. The Archer loosed violently on him his arrow of lightning, but the god set the flaming energy in his own daughter.

6. He who kindles the light for thee in thy own home and offers obeisance of surrender day by day and thy desire is towards him, mayst thou in thy twofold mass, increase his growth, he whom thou speedest in one car with thee, may he travel with the riches.

7. All satisfactions cleave to the Fire as the seven mighty rivers join the ocean. Our growth of being has not been perceived by thy companions, but thou who hast perceived, impart to the gods thy knowledge. [[Or, gain for us knowledge in the Gods.]]

8. When a flame of energy came to this King of men for impelling force, when in their meeting Heaven was cast in him like pure seed, the Fire gave birth to a might, [[Or, a host. It may mean the army of the life-gods, marutam sardhah.]] young and faultless and perfect in thought and sped it on its way.

9. He who travels the paths suddenly like the mind, the Sun, ever sole is the master of the treasure: Mitra and Varuna, the Kings with beautiful hands, are there guarding in the Rays [[Gosu, in the Ray-Cows, the shining herds of the Sun]] delight and immortality.

10. O Fire, mayst thou not forget [[Or, neglect or wipe out]] ancient friendships, thou who art turned towards us as the knower and seer. As a mist dims a form, age diminishes us; before that hurt falls upon us, arrive. [[Or, give heed, before that assault comes upon us.]]

SUKTA 72

1. He forms within us the seer-wisdoms of the eternal Creator holding in his hand many powers [[Or, many Strengths]] of the godheads. May Fire become the treasure-master of the riches, ever fashioning all immortal things. [[Or, fashioning together all immortal things.]]

2. All the immortals, the wise ones, desired but found not in us the Child who is all around; turning to toil on his track, upholding the Thought, they stood in the supreme plane, they reached the beauty of the Flame.

3. When for three years, O Fire, they worshipped thee, the pure ones thee the pure, with the clarity of the light, they held too the sacrificial Names, their bodies came to perfect birth and they sped them on the way.

4. The masters of sacrifice discovered and in their impetuous might bore the Vast Earth and Heaven, then the mortal knew them and by his holding of the upper [[ Nema, the half, referring apparently to the Great Heaven, "brhad dyauh", the upper half beyond which is the supreme plane.]] hemisphere perceived the Fire, standing in the supreme plane.

5. Utterly knowing him they with their wives came and knelt before him and adored with obeisance the adorable. They made themselves empty and formed their own bodies guarded in his gaze, friend in the gaze of friend.

6. When the masters of sacrifice have found hidden in thee the thrice seven secret planes, by them they guard with one mind of acceptance Immortality. Protect the Herds, those that stand and that which is mobile.

7. O Fire, thou art the knower of our knowings, ordain for the people an unbroken succession of strengths that they may live. The knower within of the paths of the journey of the gods, thou hast become a sleepless messenger and the carrier of the offerings.

8. The seven mighty Rivers from Heaven, deep-thinking, knowers of the Truth, knew the doors of the treasure; Sarama discovered the mass of the Ray-Cow, the strong place, the wideness, and now by that the human creature enjoys bliss.

9. These are they who set their steps on all things that have fair issue, making a path towards immortality. Earth stood wide in greatness by the Great Ones, the Mother infinite with her sons came to uphold her.

10. When the immortals made the two eyes of Heaven, they set in him the splendour and the beauty. Then there flow as if rivers loosed to their course; downward they ran, his ruddy mares, and knew, O Fire.

SUKTA 73

1. He is like an ancestral wealth that founds our strength, perfect in his leading like the command [[ Or, the teaching]] of one who knows, he is like a guest lying happily well-pleased, he is like a priest of invocation and increases the house of his worshipper.

2. He is like the divine Sun true in his thoughts and guards by his will all our strong places; he is like a splendour manifoldly expressed, he is like a blissful self and our support. [[Or, he is one to be meditated on (upheld in thought), blissful like the self.]]

3. He is like a God upholding the world and he inhabits earth like a good and friendly king: he is like a company of heroes sitting in our front, dwelling in our house; he is as if a blameless wife beloved of her lord.

4. Such art thou, O Fire, to whom men cleave, kindled eternal in the house in the abiding worlds of thy habitation. They have founded within upon thee a great light; become a universal life holder of the riches.

5. O Fire, may the masters of wealth enjoy thy satisfactions, the illumined wise Ones givers of the whole of life: may we conquer the plenitude from the foe in our battles [[Or, warriors in the battles may we conquer the plenitude]] holding our part in the Gods for inspired knowledge.

6. The milch-cows of the Truth, enjoyed in heaven, [[Or, shared by heaven,]] full uddered, desiring us, have fed us with their milk: praying for right-thinking from the Beyond the Rivers flowed wide over the Mountain.

7. O Fire, in thee praying for right-thinking, the masters of sacrifice set inspired knowledge in heaven: they made night and dawn of different forms and joined together the black and the rosy hue.

8. The mortals whom thou speedest to the Treasure, may we be of them, the lords of riches and we. Filling earth and heaven and mid-air thou clingest to the whole world like a shadow.

9. O Fire, safeguarded [[Or, upheld]] by thee may we conquer the war-horses by our war-horses, the strong men by our strong men, the heroes by our heroes; may our illumined wise ones become masters of the treasure gained by the fathers, and possess them living a hundred winters.

10. O ordainer of things, O Fire, may these utterances be acceptable to thee, to the mind and to the heart; may we have strength to control with firm yoke thy riches, holding in thee the inspired knowledge enjoyed by the gods. [[Or, distributed by the gods.]]

KUTSA ANGIRASA

SUKTA 94

1. This is the omniscient who knows the law of our being and is sufficient to his works; let us build the song of his truth by our thought and make it as if a chariot on which he shall mount. When he dwells with us, then a happy wisdom becomes ours. With him for friend we cannot come to harm.

2. Whosoever makes him his priest of the sacrifice, reaches the perfection that is the fruit of his striving, a home on a height of being where there is no warring and no enemies; he confirms in himself an ample energy; he is safe in his strength, evil cannot lay its hand upon him.

3. This is the fire of our sacrifice! May we have strength to kindle it to its height, may it perfect our thoughts. In this all that we give must be thrown that it may become a food for the gods; this shall bring to us the godheads of the infinite consciousness who are our desire.

4. Let us gather fuel for it, let us prepare for it offerings, let us make ourselves conscious of the jointings of its times and its seasons. It shall so perfect our thoughts that they shall extend our being and create for us a larger life.

5. This is the guardian of the world and its peoples, the shepherd of all these herds; all that is born moves by his rays and is compelled by his flame, both the two-footed and the four-footed creatures. This is the rich and great thought-awakening of the Dawn within.

6. This is the priest who guides the march of the sacrifice, the first and ancient who calls to the gods and gives the offerings; his is the command and his the purification; from his birth he stands in front the vicar of our sacrifice. He knows all the works of this divine priesthood, for he is the Thinker who increases in us.

7. The faces of this God are everywhere and he fronts all things perfectly; he has the eye and the vision: when we see him from afar, yet he seems near to us, so brilliantly he shines across the gulfs. He sees beyond the darkness of our night, for his vision is divine.

8. O you godheads, let our chariot be always in front, let our clear and strong word overcome all that thinks the falsehood. O you godheads, know for us, know in us that Truth, increase the speech that finds and utters it.

9. With blows that slay cast from our path, O thou Flame, the powers that stammer in the speech and stumble in the thought, the devourers of our power and our knowledge who leap at us from near and shoot at us from afar. Make the path of the sacrifice a clear and happy journeying.

10. Thou hast bright red horses for thy chariot, O Will divine, who are driven by the storm-wind of thy passion; thou roarest like a bull, thou rushest upon the forests of life, on its pleasant trees that encumber thy path, with the smoke of thy passion in which there is the thought and the sight.

11. At the noise of thy coming even they that wing in the skies are afraid, when thy eaters of the pasture go abroad in their haste. So thou makest clear thy path to thy kingdom that thy chariots may run towards it easily.

12. This dread and tumult of thee, is it not the wonderful and exceeding wrath of the gods of the Life rushing down on us to found here the purity of the Infinite, the harmony of the Lover? Be gracious, O thou fierce Fire, let their minds be again sweet to us and pleasant.

13. God art thou of the gods, for thou art the lover and friend; richest art thou of the masters of the Treasure, the founders of the home, for thou art very bright and pleasant in the pilgrimage and the sacrifice. Very wide and far-extending is the peace of thy beatitude; may that be the home of our abiding!

14. That is the bliss of him and the happiness; for then is this Will very gracious and joy-giving when in its own divine house, lit into its high and perfect flame, it is adored by our thoughts and satisfied with the wine of our delight. Then it lavishes its deliciousness, then it returns in treasure and substance all that we have given into its hands.

15. O thou infinite and indivisible Being, it is thou ever that formest the sinless universalities of the spirit by our sacrifice; thou compellest and inspirest thy favourites by thy happy and luminous forcefulness, by the fruitful riches of thy joy. Among them may we be numbered.

16. Thou art the knower of felicity and the increaser here of our life and advancer of our being! Thou art the godhead!...

SUKTA 97

1. Burn away from us the sin, flame out on us the bliss. Burn away from us the sin!

2. For the perfect path to the happy field, for the exceeding treasure when we would do sacrifice, -- burn away from us the sin!

3. That the happiest of all these many godheads may be born in us, that the seers who see in our thought may multiply, -- burn away from us the sin!

4. That thy seers, O Flame divine, may multiply and we be new-born as thine, -- burn away from us the sin!

5. When the flaming rays of thy might rush abroad on every side violently, -- burn away from us the sin!

6. God, thy faces are everywhere! thou besiegest us on every side with thy being. Burn away from us the sin!

7. Let thy face front the Enemy wherever he turns; bear us in thy ship over the dangerous waters. Burn away from us the sin!

8. As in a ship over the ocean, bear us over into thy felicity. Burn away from us the sin!

PARUCHCHHEPA DAIVODASI

SUKTA 127

1. I meditate on the Fire, the priest of the call, the giver of the Treasure, the son of force, who knows all things born, the Fire who is like one illumined and knowing all things born.

The Fire who perfect in the pilgrim-sacrifice, a God with his high-lifted longing [[Or, high-uplifted lustre seeking for the Gods]] hungers with his flame for the blaze of the offering of light, for its current poured on him as an oblation.

2. Thee most powerful for sacrifice, as givers of sacrifice may we call, the eldest of the Angiras, the Illumined One, call thee with our thoughts, O Brilliant Fire, with our illumined thoughts, men's priest of the call, [[Or, the priest of the call for men who see,]] who encircles all like heaven, the Male with hair of flaming-light whom may these peoples cherish for his urge.

3. Many things illumining with his wide-shining energy he becomes one who cleaves through those who would hurt us, like a battle-axe he cleaves through those who would hurt us, he in whose shock even that which is strong falls asunder, even what is firmly fixed falls like trees; overwhelming with his force he toils on and goes not back, like warriors with the bow from the battle he goes not back.

4. Even things strongly built they give to him as to one who knows: one gives for safeguarding by his movements of flaming-power, gives to the Fire that he may guard us. Into many things he enters and hews them with his flaming light like trees, even things firmly fixed he tears by his energy and makes his food by his energy even things firmly fixed.

5. We meditate on [[or, we hold]] that fullness of him on the upper levels, this Fire the vision of whom is brighter in the night than in the day, for his undeparting life brighter than in the day. Then does his life grasp and support us like a strong house of refuge for the Son, -- ageless fires moving towards the happiness enjoyed and that not yet enjoyed, moving his ageless fires.

6. He is many-noised like the army of the storm-winds hurrying over the fertile lands full of our labour, hurrying over the waste lands. [[Or, in the esoteric sense, the army of the Life-Powers moving with fertilising rain over our tilled and our waste lands.]] He takes and devours the offerings, he is the eye of intuition of the sacrifice in its due action; so all men follow with pleasure the path of this joyful and joy-giving Fire, as on a path leading to happiness.

7. When in his twofold strength, bards with illumination upon them, the Bhrigu-flame-seers have made obeisance and spoken to him the word, when they have churned him out by their worship, -- the Flame-Seers, the Fire becomes master of the riches, he who in his purity holds them within him, wise he enjoys the things laid upon him and they are pleasant to him, he takes joy of them in his wisdom.

8. We call to thee, the Lord of all creatures, the master of the house common to them all for the enjoying, the carrier of the true words for the enjoying, -- to the Guest of men in whose presence stand as in the presence of a father, all these Immortals and make our offerings their food -- in the Gods they become their food.

9. O Fire, thou art overwhelming in thy strength, thou art born most forceful for the forming of the Gods, as if a wealth for the forming of the Gods; most forceful is thy rapture, most luminous thy will. So they serve thee, O Ageless Fire, who hear thy word serve thee, O Ageless Fire!

10. To the Great One, the Strong in his force, the waker in the Dawn, to Fire as to one who has vision, let your hymn arise. When the giver of the offering cries towards him in all the planes, in the front of the wise he chants our adoration, the priest of the call of the wise who chants their adoration.

11. So, becoming visible, most near to us bring, O Fire, by thy perfect consciousness, the Riches that ever accompany the Gods, by thy perfect consciousness the Great Riches., O most strong Fire, create for us that which is great for vision, for the enjoying; for those who hymn thee, O Lord of plenty, churn out a great hero-strength as one puissant by his force.

DIRGHATAMAS AUCHATHYA

SUKTA 140

1. Offer like a secure seat that womb to Agni the utterly bright who sits upon the altar and his abode is bliss; clothe with thought as with a robe the slayer of the darkness who is pure and charioted in light and pure bright [[Or, white; sukra, a white brightness.]] of hue.

2. The twice-born Agni moves (intense) about his triple food; it is eaten and with the year it has grown again; with the tongue and mouth of the one [[Or, with his tongue in the presence of the one]] he is the strong master and enjoyer, with the other he engirdles and crushes in his embrace [[Mrs is used of the sexual contact; varanah from vr to cover, surround.]] his delightful things.

3. He gives energy of movement to both his mothers on their dark path, in their common dwelling and both make their way through to their child [[Or, following their child]] for his tongue is lifted upward, he destroys and rushes swiftly through and should be chosen, increasing his father. [[Expl. Heaven and Earth, Mind and Body dwelling together in one frame or in one material world move in the darkness of ignorance, they pass through it by following the divine Force which is born to their activities. Kupaya is of doubtful significance. The father is the Purusha or else Heaven in the sense of the higher spiritual being.]]

4. For the thinker becoming man his swift hastening impulsions dark and bright desire freedom; active, rapid, quivering, they are yoked to their works, swift steeds and driven forward by the Breath of things.

5. They for him destroy and speed lightly on [[Or, speed and pervade]] creating his dark being of thickness and his mighty form of light; when reaching forward he touches the Vast of Being, he pants towards it and, thundering, cries aloud. [[Mahimavanim might mean the vast earth, but avani and even prthivi are not used in the Veda invariably, the former not usually, to mean earth, but stray or return to their original sense -- sapta avanayah]]

6. He who when he would become in the tawny ones, bends down and goes to them bellowing as the male to its mates, -- putting out his forces he gives joy to their bodies [[Or, he makes blissful the forms of things]] and like a fierce beast hard to seize he tosses his horns. [[Babhrusu, the cows, arunayah of a later verse -- knowledge in the mortal mind.]]

7. He whether contracted in being or wide-extended seizes on them utterly; he knowing, they knowing the eternal Agni enjoys [[Or, lies with]] them, then again they increase and go to the state divine; uniting, another form they make for the Father and Mother.

8. Bright with their flowing tresses they take utter delight of him, they who were about to perish, stand upon high once more for his coming; [[Mamrusih is uncertain. It may be dead or dying. Rebhire = delight, is here perfectly proved.]] for he loosens from them their decay and goes to them shouting high, he creates supreme force and unconquerable life.

9. Tearing about her the robe that conceals the other he moves on utterly to the Delight with the creatures of pure Being who manifest the Force; he establishes the wideness, he breaks through to the goal for this traveller, even though swift-rushing, he cleaves always to the paths. [[Rihan, rerihat are uncertain.]]

10. Burn bright for us, O Agni, in our fullnesses, henceforth be the strong master and inhabit in us with the sisters; casting away from thee those of them that are infant minds thou shouldst burn bright encompassing us all about like a cuirass in our battles. [[Svasi is the Greek Kasis and an old variant of svasr, wife or sister. Therefore it is coupled with vrsa like patni.]]

11. This, O Agni, is that which is well-established upon the ill placed; even out of this blissful mentality may there be born to thee that greater bliss. By that which shines bright and pure from thy body, thou winnest for us the delight.

12. Thou givest us, O Agni, for chariot and for home a ship travelling with eternal progress of motion that shall carry our strong spirits and our spirits of fullness across the births and cross the peace.

13. Mayest thou, O Agni, about our Word for thy pivot bring to light for us Heaven and Earth and the rivers that are self-revealed; may the Red Ones reach to knowledge and strength and long days of light, may they choose the force and the supreme good.

MANDALA TWO

GRITSAMADA BHARGAVA

SUKTA 1

1. O Fire, thou art born with thy lights, flaming out on us in thy effulgence; thou art born from the waters and around the stone, thou art born from the forests and born from the plants of the earth. Pure art thou in thy birth, O Master of man and his race.

2. O Fire, thine are the call and the offering, thine the purification and the order of the sacrifice, thine the lustration; thou art the fire-bringer for the seeker of the Truth. The annunciation is thine, thou becomest the pilgrim-rite: [[Or, thou art the priest of the pilgrim-rite:]] thou art the priest of the Word and the master of the house in our home.

3. O Fire, thou art Indra the Bull of all that are and thou art wide-moving [[Or, wide-sung]] Vishnu, one to be worshipped with obeisance. O Master of the Word, thou art Brahma, the finder of the Riches: O Fire, who sustainest each and all, closely thou companionest the Goddess of the many thoughts. [[Or, the Goddess tenant of the city.]]

4. O Fire, thou art Varuna the king who holds in his hands the law of all workings and thou art Mitra the potent and desirable Godhead. Thou art Aryaman, master of beings, with whom is complete enjoying; O Godhead, thou art Ansha who gives us our portion in the winning of the knowledge.

5. O Fire, thou art Twashtri and fashionest fullness of force for thy worshipper; thine, O friendly Light, are the goddess-Energies and all oneness of natural kind. Thou art the swift galloper and lavishest good power of the Horse; thou art the host of the gods and great is the multitude of thy riches.

6. O Fire, thou art Rudra, the mighty one of the great Heaven and thou art the army of the Life-Gods and hast power over all that fills desire. Thou journeyest with dawn-red winds to bear thee and thine is the house of bliss; thou art Pushan and thou guardest with thyself thy worshippers.

7. O Fire, to one who makes ready and sufficient his works thou art the giver of the treasure; thou art divine Savitri and a founder of the ecstasy. O Master of man, thou art Bhaga and hast power for the riches; thou art the guardian in the house for one who worships thee with his works.

8. O Fire, men turn to thee the master of the human being in his house; thee they crown, the king perfect in knowledge. O strong force of Fire, thou masterest all things; thou movest to the thousands and the hundreds and the tens.

9. O Fire, men worship thee with their sacrifices as a father and thee that thou mayst be their brother by their achievement of works when thou illuminest the body with thy light. Thou becomest a son to the man who worships thee; thou art his blissful friend and guardest him from the violence of the adversary.

10. O Fire, thou art the craftsman Ribhu, near to us and to be worshipped with obeisance of surrender; thou hast mastery over the store of the plenitude and the riches. All thy wide shining of light and onward burning is for the gift of the treasure; thou art our instructor in wisdom and our builder of sacrifice.

11. O Divine Fire, thou art Aditi, the indivisible Mother to the giver of the sacrifice; thou art Bharati, voice of the offering, and thou growest by the word. Thou art Ila of the hundred winters wise to discern; O Master of the Treasure, thou art Saraswati who slays the python adversary.

12. O Fire, when thou art well borne by us thou becomest the supreme growth and expansion of our being, all glory and beauty are in thy desirable hue and thy perfect vision. O Vastness, thou art the plenitude that carries us to the end of our way; thou art a multitude of riches spread out on every side.

13. O Fire, the sons of the indivisible Mother made thee their mouth, the pure Gods made thee their tongue; O Seer, they who are ever close to our giving are constant to thee in the rites of the Path; the Gods eat in thee the offering cast before them.

14. O Fire, all the Gods, the Immortals unhurtful to man, eat in thee and by thy mouth the offering cast before them; by thee mortal men taste of the libation. Pure art thou born, a child of the growths of the earth.

15. O Fire that hast come to perfect birth, thou art with the Gods and thou frontest them in thy might and thou exceedest them too, O God, when here the satisfying fullness of thee becomes all-pervading in its greatness along both the continents, Earth and Heaven.

16. When to those who chant thee, the luminous Wise Ones set free thy gift, O Fire, the wealth in whose front the Ray-Cow walks and its form is the Horse, thou leadest us on and leadest them to a world of greater riches. Strong with the strength of the heroes, may we voice the Vast in the coming of knowledge.

SUKTA 2

1. Make the Fire that knows all things born to grow by your sacrifice; worship him with thy offering and thy body and thy speech. Worship in his kindling Fire with whom are his strong delights, the male of the sun-world, the Priest of the Call, the inhabitant of Heaven [[Or, who dwells in the Light]] who sits at the chariot yoke in our battles.

2. The Nights and the Dawns have lowed to thee as the milch-cows low towards a calf in their lairs of rest. O Fire of many blessings, thou art the traveller of Heaven through the ages of man and thou shinest self-gathered through his nights. [[Or, self-gathered thou illuminest his nights.]]

3. The Gods have sent into the foundation of the middle world this great worker and pilgrim of earth and of heaven, whom we must know, like our chariot of white-flaming light, Fire whom we must voice with our lauds like a friend in the peoples.

4. They have set in the crookedness, set pouring his rain like gold in the beauty of his light, [[Or, like a thing of delight in his shining beauty,]] in the middle world and in his own home, the guardian of the dappled mother who awakens us to knowledge with his eyes of vision, the protector of our path along either birth.

5. Let Fire be the priest of your call, let his presence be around every pilgrim-rite; this is he whom men crown with the word and the offering. He shall play in his growing fires wearing his tiara of golden light; like heaven with its stars he shall give us knowledge of our steps along both the continent-worlds.

6. O Fire, opulently kindling for our peace, let thy light arise in us and bring its gift of riches. Make Earth and Heaven ways for our happy journeying and the offerings of man a means for the coming of the Gods.

7. O Fire, give us the vast possessions, the thousandfold riches; open to inspiration like gates the plenitude; make Earth and Heaven turned to the Beyond by the Word. The Dawns have broken into splendour as if there shone the brilliant world of the Sun.

8. Kindled in the procession of the beautiful Dawns, he shall break into roseate splendour like the world of the Sun. O Fire, making effective the pilgrim-rite by man's voices of offering, thou art the King of the peoples and the Guest delightful to the human being.

9. O pristine Fire, even thus the Thought has nourished our human things in the immortals, in the great Heavens. The Thought is our milch-cow, of herself she milks for the doer of works in his battles and in his speed to the journey the many forms and the hundreds of the Treasure.

10. O Fire, let us conquer a hero-strength by the War-Horse, or let us awake to knowledge beyond men by the Word; [[Or, wake in ourselves a strength of heroes beyond men's scope by the power of the War=Horse or by the Word;]] let our light shine out in the Five Nations high and inviolable like the world of the Sun.

11. Awake, O forceful Fire, one to be voiced by our lauds; for thou art he in whom the luminous seers come to perfect birth and speed on their way. O Fire, thou art the sacrifice and to thee the Horses of swiftness come there where thou shinest with light in the eternal son and in thy own home.

12. O Fire, O God who knowest all things born, may we both abide in thy peace, those who hymn thee and the luminous seers. Be forceful for the opulence of the Treasure with the multitude of its riches and its many delights and its issue and the offspring of the Treasure.

13. When to those who hymn thee the luminous Wise set free, O Fire, the gift in whose front the Ray-Cow walks and whose form is the Horse, thou leadest us on and leadest them to a world of greater riches. Strong with the strength of the Heroes, may we voice the Vast in the coming of the knowledge.

SUKTA 3

l. The Fire that was set inward in the earth is kindled and has arisen fronting all the worlds. He has arisen, the purifying Flame, the priest of the call, the wise of understanding, the Ancient of Days. Today let the Fire in the fullness of his powers, a god to the gods, do sacrifice.

2. Fire who voices the godhead, shines revealing the planes, each and each; high of ray he reveals, each and each, the triple heavens by his greatness. Let him flood the oblation with a mind that diffuses the light and manifest the gods on the head of the sacrifice.

3. O Fire, aspired to by our mind, putting forth today thy power do sacrifice to the gods, O thou who wast of old before aught that is human. Bring to us the unfallen host of the Life-Gods; and you, O Powers, sacrifice to Indra where he sits on the seat of our altar.

4. O Godhead, strewn is the seat on this altar, the hero-guarded seat that ever grows, the seat well-packed for the riches, [[Or, made strong to bear for the riches,]] anointed with the Light. O all Gods, sit on this altar-seat, sons of the indivisible Mother, princes of the treasure, kings of sacrifice.

5. May the divine Doors swing open, wide to our call, easy of approach with our prostrations of surrender; may they stretch wide opening into vastnesses, the imperishable Doors purifying the glorious and heroic kind.

6. Milch-cows, good milkers, pouring out on us may Night and Dawn, the eternal and equal sisters, come like weaving women full of gladness, weaving out the weft that is spun, the weft of our perfected works into a shape of sacrifice.

7. The two divine Priests of the call, the first, the full in wisdom and stature, offer by the illumining Word the straight things in us; sacrificing to the Gods in season, they reveal them in light in the navel of the Earth and on the three peaks of Heaven.

8. May Saraswati effecting our thought and goddess Ila and Bharati who carries all to their goal, the three goddesses, sit on our altar-seat and guard by the self-law of things our gapless house of refuge.

9. Soon there is born a Hero of golden-red form, an aspirant to the Godheads, a mighty bringer of riches and founder of our growth to wideness. Let the Maker of forms loosen the knot of the navel in us, let him set free the issue of our works; then let him walk on the way of the Gods. [[Or, let the way of the Gods come to us.]]

10. The Plant is with us streaming out the Wine. Fire speeds the oblation by our thoughts. Let the divine Achiever of works, understanding, lead the offering triply revealed [[Or, triply anointed]] in his light on its way to the Godheads.

11. I pour on him the running light; for the light is his native lair, he is lodged in the light, the light is his plane. According to thy self-nature, bring the Gods and fill them with rapture. O Male of the herd, carry to them our offering blessed with svaha. [[Or, made into svaha.]]

SOMAHUTI BHARGAVA

SUKTA 4

1. I call to you the Fire with his strong delights and his splendours of light, Fire who strips all sin from us, the guest of the peoples. He becomes like a supporting friend, he becomes the God who knows all things born in the man with whom are the Gods. [[Or, in all from men to the Gods.]]

2. The Bhrigus worshipping in the session of the Waters set him a twofold Light in the peoples of Man. May he master all planes prevailing vastly, Fire the traveller of the Gods with his rapid horses.

3. As men who would settle in a home bring into it a beloved friend, the Gods have set the Fire in these human peoples. Let him illumine the desire of the billowing nights, let him be one full of discerning mind in the house for the giver of sacrifice.

4. Delightful is his growth as if one's own increase, rapturous is his vision as he gallops burning on his way. He darts about his tongue mid the growths of the forest and tosses his mane like a chariot courser.

5. When my thoughts enjoying him chant his mightiness, he shapes hue of kind as if to our desire. He awakes to knowledge in men that have the ecstasy by the rich diversity of his light; old and outworn he grows young again and again.

6. Like one who thirsts he lifts his light on the forests; his roar is like the cry of waters on their path, he neighs like a chariot war-horse. Black is his trail, burning his heat; he is full of rapture and awakes to knowledge: he is like Father Heaven smiling with his starry spaces.

7. He starts on his journey to burn through all wide earth and moves like a beast that wanders at will and has no keeper; Fire with his blazing light and his black affliction assails the dry trunks with his heat as if he tasted the vastness.

8. Now in our mind's return on thy former safe-guarding, our thought has been spoken in the third session of the knowledge. O Fire, give us the treasure with its children; give us a vast and opulent plenitude where the heroes assemble.

9. To the luminous Wise Ones and to him who voices thee, O Fire, be the founder of their growth and expansion, that the Gritsamadas strong with the strength of the Heroes and overcoming the hostile forces may conquer the higher worlds by thy force and take delight of [[Or, win]] the secret inner spaces.

SUKTA 5

1. A conscious Priest of the call is born to us; a father is born to his fathers for their safeguard. May we avail to achieve by sacrifice the wealth that is for the victor, [[Or, the wealth that has to be conquered,]] and to rein the Horse of swiftness.

2. The seven rays are extended in this leader of sacrifice; there is a divine eighth that carries with it the human. The Priest of the purification takes possession of [[Or, travels to (reaches)]] That All.

3. When a man has firmly established this Fire, he echoes the Words of knowledge and comes to [[Or, and comes to know]] That: for he embraces all seer-wisdoms as the rim surrounds a wheel.

4. Pure, the Priest of the annunciation is born along with the pure will. The man who knows the laws of his workings that are steadfast for ever, climbs them one by one like branches.

5. The milch-cows come to and cleave to the hue of Light [[Or, the hue of kind]] of this Priest of the lustration, the Sisters who have gone once and again to that Supreme over the three. [[The fourth world, Turiyam above the three, so called in the Rig-veda, turiyam svid.]]

6. When the sister of the Mother comes to him bringing the yield of the Light, the Priest of the pilgrim-sacrifice rejoices in her advent as a field of barley revels in the rain.

7. Himself for his own confirming let the Priest of the rite create the Priest; let us take joy of the laud and the sacrifice, for then it is complete, [[Or, for then it is complete, we have moved (on the way),]] what we have given. [[Or, let us take full joy of the laud and the sacrifice; for we have given.]]

8. Even as one who has the knowledge let him work out the rite for all the lords of the sacrifice. On thee, O Fire, is this sacrifice that we have made.

SUKTA 6

1. O Fire, mayst thou rejoice in the fuel I bring thee, rejoice in my session of sacrifice. Deeply lend ear to my words.

2. O Fire, who art brought to perfect birth, Child of Energy, Impeller of the Horse, we would worship thee with this oblation, we would worship thee with this Word well-spoken.

3. We would wait with our Words on thy joy in the Word; O Treasure-giver, we would wait on the seeker of the Treasure. Let us serve thee, all whose desire is thy service.

4. O Wealth-Lord, Wealth-giver, awake, a seer and a Master of Treasures; put away from us the things that are hostile.

5. For us, O Fire, the Rain of Heaven around us; for us, O Fire, the wealth immovable; [[Or, free from all littleness;]] for us, O Fire, the impulsions that bring their thousands!

6. O Messenger, O youngest Power, come at our word for him who aspires to thee and craves for thy safeguard; arrive, O Priest of the call, strong for sacrifice.

7. O Fire, O seer, thou movest within having knowledge of both the Births; [[Or, as one who has knowledge between both Births;]] thou art like a messenger from a friendly people. [[Or, like a friendly universal messenger.]]

8. Come with thy knowledge, O Conscious Fire, and fill us; perform the unbroken order of the sacrifice. Take thy seat on the sacred grass of our altar.

SUKTA 7

1. O Fire, O Youngest Power! Fire of the Bringers, Prince of the Treasure, bring to us a wealth, the best, made all of light and packed with our many desires.

2. Let not the Force that wars against us master the God and the mortal; [[Or, against us, God and mortal, overmaster us;]] carry us beyond that hostile power.

3. And so by thee may we plunge and pass beyond all hostile forces as through streams of rushing water.

4. O cleansing Fire, thou art pure and adorable; vast is the beauty of thy light fed with the clarities.

5. O Fire of the Bringers, thou art called by [[Or, fed with]] our bulls and our heifers and by our eight-footed Kine. [[Or, by our bulls and by our barren and pregnant kine. Astapadi, literally eight-footed.]]

6. This is the eater of the Tree for whom is poured the running butter of the Light; this is the Desirable, the ancient, the Priest of the call, the Wonderful, the son of Force.

GRITSAMADA BHARGAVA

SUKTA 8

1. As if to replenish [[Or, as one seeking for plenitude]] him chant now the chariots of Fire and his yokings, Fire the lavish and glorious Godhead.

2. He brings his perfect leading to the man who has given; he is invulnerable and wears out with wounds the foe. Fair is the front of him fed with the offerings.

3. He is voiced in his glory and beauty at dusk and dawn in our homes. Never impaired is the law of his working.

4. He shines rich with diverse lustres like the heavens of the Sun [[Or, like the Sun]] in his illumining splendour, shines wide with his ray, putting forth on us a revealing light with his ageless fires.

5. Our words have made the Fire to grow, made the Traveller to grow in the way of self-empire; he holds in himself all glory and beauty.

6. May we cleave to the safeguardings of the Fire and Soma and Indra and of the Gods, meeting with no hurt overcome those that are embattled against us.

SUKTA 9

1. The Priest of the call has taken his seat in the house of his priesthood; he is ablaze with light and vivid in radiance, he is full of knowledge and perfect in judgment. He has a mind of wisdom whose workings are invincible and is most rich in treasures: Fire with his tongue of purity is a bringer of the thousand.

2. Thou art the Messenger, thou art our protector who takest us to the other side; O Bull of the herds, thou art our leader on the way to a world of greater riches. For the shaping of the Son and the building of the bodies [[Or, in the offspring of the son of our bodies]] awake in thy light, a guardian, and turn not from thy work, O Fire.

3. May we worship thee in thy supreme Birth, O Fire; may we worship thee with our chants in the world of thy lower session: I adore with sacrifice thy native lair from which thou hast arisen. The offerings have been cast into thee when thou wert kindled and ablaze.

4. O Fire, be strong for sacrifice, do worship with my oblation; swiftly voice my thought towards the gift of the Treasure. For thou art the wealth-master who hast power over the riches, thou art the thinker of the brilliant Word.

5. Both kinds of wealth are thine, O potent Godhead and because thou art born from day to day, neither can waste and perish. O Fire, make thy adorer one full of possessions; make him a master of the Treasure and of wealth rich in progeny.

6. O Fire, shine forth with this force [[ Or, form]] of thine in us, one perfect in knowledge, one who worships the Gods and is strong for sacrifice. Be our indomitable guardian and our protector to take us to the other side, flame in us with thy light, flame in us with thy opulence.

SUKTA 10

1. Fire is to us as our first father and to him must rise our call when he is kindled by man in the seat of his aspiration. He puts on glory and beauty like a robe; he is our Horse of swiftness full of inspiration to be groomed by us, he is the immortal wide in knowledge.

2. May Fire in the rich diversity of his lights, the immortal wide in knowledge, hearken to my cry in all its words. Two tawny horses bear him or two that are red or ruddy in glow: Oh, one widely borne has been created.

3. They have given him birth in one laid supine who with happy delivery bore him; the Fire became a child in mothers of many forms. This thinker and knower by the greatness of his lights dwells [[Or, shines]] even in the destroying Night unenveloped by the darkness.

4. I anoint the Fire with my oblation of light, where he dwells fronting all the worlds; wide in his horizontal expansion and vast, he is most open and manifest by all he has fed on, seen in the impetuosity of his force. [[Or, in the violence of his rapture.]]

5. I anoint him where he moves fronting all things on every side; let him rejoice in That with a mind that withholds not the riches. [[Or, with a mind without the will to injure.]] None can touch the body of the Fire where he plays in his desire of the hues of light, [[Or, with his desire waking hue,]] in his strong and glorious beauty.

6. Mayst thou take knowledge of thy portion putting forth thy force with thy supreme flame; may we speak as the thinking human being with thee for Messenger. I am one who would conquer the Treasure and I call to the Fire with my power of speech and my flame of offering, Fire in whom is no insufficiency, and he brings to us the touch of the sweetness. [[Or, he fills us with the wine of sweetness.]]

MANDALA THREE

GATHINA VISHWAMITRA

SUKTA 1

1. Bear me that I may be strong to hold the wine, O Fire, for thou hast made me a carrier flame of sacrifice in the getting of knowledge: I shine towards the gods, I put the stone to its work, I accomplish the labour; [[Or, I attain to the peace;]] O Fire, take delight in my body.

2. We have made the sacrifice with its forward movement, may the word increase in us, with the fuel, with the obeisance they have set the Fire to its work. The heavens have declared the discoveries of knowledge of the seers and they have willed a path for the strong and wise.

3. Full of understanding, pure in discernment, close kin from his birth to earth and heaven he has founded the Bliss. The gods discovered the seeing Fire within in the waters, in the work of the sisters.

4. The seven mighty rivers increased the blissful flame, [[Or, increased him in his beauty,]] white in his birth, ruddy glowing in his mightiness: the Mares went up to him as to a new born child; the gods gave body to Agni in his birth.

5. With his bright limbs he has built wide the mid world purifying the will by his pure seer powers; wearing light like a robe around the life of the waters he forms his glories vast and ample.

6. He moved all round the seven mighty Ones of heaven: undevouring, inviolate, neither were they clothed nor were they naked: here young and eternal in one native home the seven Voices held in their womb the one Child.

7. Wide strewn, compact, taking universal forms are his energies in the womb of the light, in the streaming of the sweetnesses: here the milch cows stand nourished and growing; two great and equal companions [[Or, vast and whole]] are the mothers of the Doer of works.

8. Upborne, O Son of Force, thou shinest out wide holding thy bright and rapturous bodies; there drip down streams of the light and the sweetness, there where the Bull has grown by the seer wisdom.

9. At his birth he discovered the teat of abundance of the Father, he loosed forth wide his streams, wide his nourishing rivers; [[Or, he loosed forth the milch cows;]] he discovered him moving in the secrecy with his helpful comrades, with the mighty Rivers of Heaven, but himself became not secret in the cave.

10. He carried the child of the father who begot him; one, he sucked the milk of many who nourished him with their overflowing. Two who have one lord and kinsman, for this pure male of the herds guard both in the human being.

11. Vast was he in the unobstructed wideness and grew, for the waters many and glorious fed the flame; in the native seat of the Truth the Fire lay down and made his home, in the work of the companions, the sisters.

12. Like a height upbearing all [[Or, like one moving and upbearing all]] in the meeting of the great waters, eager for vision for the Son, straight in his lustres, he is the Father who begot the shining Ray herds, the child of the Waters, the most strong and mighty Fire.

13. One desirable and blissful gave birth to him in many forms, a visioned child of the waters and a child of the growths of earth: the gods too met with the Mind the Fire, strong at his birth and powerful to act [[Or, most admirable]] and set him to his work.

14. Vast sun blazings cleave like brilliant lightnings to this Fire, straight in his lustres, growing as in a secret cave within in his own home in the shoreless wideness, and they draw the milk of immortality.

15. Making sacrifice with my offerings for thee I pray, and pray for thy friendship and true mindedness with an utter desire. Fashion with the Gods protection for thy adorer and guard us with thy flame forces that dwell in the house.

16. We who come to thee to dwell with thee in thy home, O perfect leader of the way, holding all opulent things, may we, overflowing [[Or, smiting]] them with the full stream of inspiration, overwhelm the hostile army of the undivine powers.

17. O Fire, thou becomest in us the rapturous ray of intuition of the gods that knows all seer wisdoms; established in thy home thou settlest mortals in that dwelling place, as their charioteer achieving their aim thou journeyest in the wake of the gods.

18. In the gated house of mortals the immortal sat as King accomplishing the things of knowledge: the Fire shone out in his wideness with his luminous front, knower of all seer-wisdoms.

19. Come to us in a rapid approach with thy happy befriendings, mighty, come with thy mighty protectings; in us the abundance of the delivering riches, for us our glorious high- worded portion create.

20. O Fire, these are thy eternal births which I have declared to thee, ever new births for the ancient flame: great are the offerings of the Wine we have made for the mighty one. He is the knower of all births set within in birth and birth.

21. The knower of all births set within in birth and birth is kindled by Vishwamitra, an unceasing flame; in the true thinking of this lord of sacrifice, in a happy right mindedness may we abide.

22. O forceful God, O strong Will, establish this sacrifice of ours in the gods and take in it thy delight: O Priest of the call, extend to us the vast impulsions; O Fire, bring to us by sacrifice the great Treasure.

23. O Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech, the many-actioned, the lasting conquest of the Light. May there be for us a Son of our begetting pervading in his birth; [[Or, himself a begetter]] O Fire, may there be created in us that true thinking of thine.

SUKTA 2

1. We create an understanding like pure light for the Fire that makes the Truth to grow, for the universal godhead. The priests of the word fashion twofold by the thought of the human being [[Or, the human priest of the word by their thought]] this priest of the call, as the saw carves a chariot, and join him into a whole.

2. He from his birth illumined both the firmaments, he became the desirable son of the Father and Mother. The ageless and inviolable Fire, firmly founded in bliss, with his riches of the Light, is the carrier of offering and the guest of the peoples.

3. By the will, in the order and law of a delivering discernment, the gods brought the Fire into being by their perceptions of the Knowledge. In his greatness shining forth with his blazing light I invoke him as the Horse so that I may conquer the plenitude.

4. To conquer the supreme bliss of the rapturous godhead, the undeviating plenitude full of the word of illumination, we accept the gift of the Flame Seers, [[Or, the Bhrigus,]] the Fire that aspires, the Seer Will shining with heavenly light.

5. Having gathered the sacred grass, stretching out the ladle of offering, men have set here in their front the Fire for the happiness, in his plenitude of inspiration, the Violent, the universal in godhead, the bright and beautiful, one who accomplishes the seekings of sacrifice of the doers of the works.

6. O Fire, O purifying light, O Priest of the call, men in their sacrifices having gathered the sacred grass, desiring the work, sit around thy house which we must obtain as ours; found for them the Treasure.

7. He filled the two firmaments, he filled the vast sun world, when he was born and held by the doers of the work. He is led around for the pilgrim sacrifice, the Seer founded in the Bliss, as the Horse for the conquest of the plenitude.

8. Bow down to the giver of the offering, set to his work the perfect in the pilgrim rite, the knower of all the births who dwells in the house: for he is the all seeing charioteer of the vast Truth, the Fire has become the priest of the gods set in front.

9. Triple is the fuel of the mighty and pervading Fire purified by the aspiring immortals; one of three they have set in the mortal, the fuel of the enjoyment, two have gone to that companion world.

10. This seer and lord of creatures human impulsions have perfected everywhere like an axe for sharpness. He goes overrunning the high and the low places; he holds the child born in these worlds.

11. The male of the herds has been born in different wombs and he stirs abroad like a roaring lion, the universal godhead, the immortal wide in his might bestowing the riches and the ecstasies on the offerer of sacrifice.

12. Universal godhead as in the ancient days has ascended glad by high thoughts to the firmament, to the back of heaven, even as of old he creates the riches for the creature born; wakeful he travels ever over the same field of movement.

13. The sacrificial Fire whose home is in heaven and who possesses the Truth, the illumined seer with his utterance of the word whom life that grows here in the mother has set, him with his diverse journeying, his tawny hair of flame we desire, the deep thinking Fire for a new and happy movement.

14. Pure bright, rapid of impulsion in his journeying, Fire that looks upon the sun world, heaven's ray of intuition, standing in the luminous planes, waking in the Dawn, Fire, head of heaven, whom no darkness can cover, him we desire with obeisance of surrender, the Fire of the plenitudes who is the Vast.

15. The pure and rapturous Priest of the call in whom is no duality, the dweller in the house, the speaker of the word, the all seeing, the visioned Fire set in the thinking human being who is like a many hued chariot in his embodiment, him ever we desire and his riches.

SUKTA 3

1. For the universal godhead, wide in his might, his illuminations [[Or, the illumined Ones]] create the ecstasies to make a path on the foundations of things: because the immortal Fire sets the gods to their work none can corrupt the eternal Laws.

2. He travels as the Messenger between earth and heaven, the doer of works, man's Priest of the call, seated within him, the vicar set in his front; with his light he envelops the Vast Home, the Fire missioned by the gods, rich with the Thought.

3. Ray of intuition of their sacrifices, effective means of the finding of knowledge, the illumined seers greatened the Fire by their awakenings to Wisdom; the Fire in whom his words have built into a harmony his works, in him the doer of sacrifice desires the things of his happiness.

4. The Fire is the father of sacrifice, the Mighty Lord of the wise, he is the measure and the manifestation of knowledge for the priests of the word: he enters into earth and heaven with his manifold shape, many delightful things are in him, he is the seer who has gladness of all the planes.

5. The gods have set in this world in his beauty and glory the delightful Fire, with his chariot of delight, luminous in the way of his workings, the universal godhead, who is seated in the waters, who is the discoverer of the sun world, who enters into the depths and is swift to cross beyond, who is rapt in his mights, who bears in himself all things.

6. The Fire with the gods and creatures born builds by the thought of man the sacrifice in its many forms, he moves between earth and heaven as their charioteer bearing them to the achievement of their desires; he is the swift in motion and he is a dweller in the house who drives off every assailant.

7. O Fire, come near to us in a life rich with offspring, nourish us with energy, illumine our impulsions, animate in us the expanding powers of the Vast, O wakeful Flame; thou art the aspirant strong in will for the gods and the illumined seers.

8. Men ever with obeisance, with swift urgings, give expression for their growth, to the knower of all births, the mighty one, the lord of the peoples, the Guest, the driver of our thoughts, the aspirant in those who speak the word, the wakener to consciousness in the pilgrim sacrifice.

9. Fire, the wide shining godhead, joyful in his happy chariot, has enveloped in his might our abodes; [[Or, the worlds of our habitation;]] with complete purification may we obey [[Or, may we approach with reverence]] in the house the laws of work of this giver of our manifold increase.

10. O universal godhead, I desire thy lights [[Or, seats or planes]] by which thou becomest, O all seeing, [[Or, clear seeing,]] the knower of the sun world: born, thou hast filled the worlds and earth and heaven, thou art there enveloping them all with thyself, O Fire.

11. Fire the One Seer by his seeking for perfect works [[Or, by his skill in works]] released out of the actions [[Or, detached from the actions]] of the universal godhead, the Vast: the Fire greatening both the parents, earth and heaven, was born from a mighty seed. [[Or, the Fire was born greatening both the parents, earth and heaven. with his mighty stream.]]

SUKTA 4

1. Aflame and again aflame in us awake with thy truth of mind, with light upon light grant us right understanding from the shining One. A god, bring the gods for the sacrifice; right minded, a friend do sacrifice to the friends, O Fire.

2. O thou whom the gods, even Varuna, Mitra and the Fire, thrice in the day worship with sacrifice from day to day, O Son of the body, make this sacrifice of ours full of the sweetness, so that it may create the native seat of the light.

3. The Thought in which are all desirable things comes to this first and supreme Priest of the call to offer our aspirations as a sacrifice, towards the mighty one to adore him with our prostrations; missioned, strong to sacrifice, may he do worship to the gods.

4. In the pilgrim sacrifice a high path for you both has been made which departs to the high lustres, the mid worlds; the Priest of the call has taken his seat in the navel centre of heaven. We spread wide the sacred grass, a space of wideness of the gods.

5. Accepting with the mind the seven invocations, taking possession of all that is by the Truth, they went towards their goal. Many powers born in the finding of knowledge and wearing the forms of gods move abroad to this sacrifice.

6. May night and dawn differently formed in their body be joined close and smile upon us in their gladness, so that Mitra may take pleasure in us and Varuna or with his greatness Indra too with the life gods. [[Or, may they so shine with their lights that Mitra may take pleasure in us and Varuna and Indra with the life gods.]]

7. I crown the two supreme Priests of the invocation. The seven pleasures take their rapture by the self law of their nature; the Truth they express, the Truth only they speak, guardians of the law of its action according to that law they shine.

8. In unison may Bharati with her Muses of invocation, Ila with gods and men and Fire, Saraswati with her powers of inspiration come down to us, the three goddesses sit upon this seat of sacrifice.

9. O divine maker of forms who hast the utter rapture, cast upon us that supreme transcendence cause of our growth, from which is born in us the hero ever active with wise discernment, the seeker of the gods who sets to work the stone of the wine pressing.

10. O tree, release thy yield to the gods; Fire the achiever of the work speeds the offering on its way. It is he who does worship as the Priest of the call, the more true in his act because he knows the birth of the gods.

11. Come down to us, O Fire, high kindled, in one chariot with Indra and swiftly journeying gods; let Aditi, mother of mighty sons, sit on the sacred grass, let the gods, the immortals, take rapture in svaha.

SUKTA 5

1. The Fire is awake fronting the dawns; one illumined, he becomes aware of the paths of the seers: kindled into a wide might by the seekers of godhead, the upbearing flame opens the gates of the Darkness.

2. Ever the Fire increases by the lauds, the words of those who hymn him by their utterances, one to be adored with prostrations; the Messenger who desires the many seeings of the Truth has shone out in the wide flaming of the Dawn.

3. The Fire has been set in the human peoples, child of the Waters, the Friend who achieves by the Truth; luminous, [[Or, beloved and adorable,]] a power for sacrifice, he has risen to the summits; he has become the illumined seer who must be called by our thoughts.

4. The Fire when he has been kindled high becomes Mitra, the Friend Mitra the Priest of the call, Varuna, the knower of the births, Mitra, the Friend, the Priest of the pilgrim- sacrifice, one rapid in his impulsions, the dweller in the house, the friend of the Rivers, the friend of the Mountains.

5. He guards from hurt the beloved [[Or, delightful]] summit seat of the being, mighty, he guards the course [[Or, movement]] of the Sun; Fire guards in the navel centre the seven headed thought, sublime, he guards the ecstasy of the gods.

6. A skilful craftsman, a god knowing all the manifestations of knowledge, he forms the beautiful and desirable Name, the luminous seat of the being in the movement of the peace; that the Fire guards, not deviating from his work.

7. Desiring it as it desired him, the Fire entered into that luminous native abode wide in its approach; shining forth, pure, purifying, sublime, again and again he makes new the father and the mother.

8. Suddenly born he is carried by the growths of the earth when the mothers who bore him make him grow by the light. The Fire in the lap of the father and the mother is as one who defends the waters gliding happily [[Or, gliding brightly]] down a slope.

9. Lauded by us mighty he shone with his high flaming in the largeness [[Or, height]] is Mitra the Friend, the desirable one, he is life growing in the mother; [[Or, life that breathes in the mother;]] may he as our messenger bring the gods for the sacrifice.

10. The Fire with his high flaming up-pillared, sublime, the firmament and became the highest of the luminous kingdoms, [[Or, highest of all lights,]] when for the flame-seers life, that grows in the mother, kindled all around the carrier of the offerings who was hidden in the Secrecy.

11. O Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech the many-actioned, the lasting conquest of the Light. May there be for us a Son of our begetting pervading in his birth; [[Or, himself a begetter;]] O Fire, may there be created in us that true thinking of thine.

SUKTA 6

1. The Doers of the work, seekers of godhead, who find expression by the thought, lead it on turned godwards; full of the plenitude, luminous, carrying the Understanding, it journeys moving forwards, bringing the offering to the Fire.

2. Even in thy birth thou hast filled earth and heaven, and now thou hast exceeded them, O Flame that carriest on the sacrifice; by the greatness of earth and heaven may thy seven tongues find utterance, carriers of the word, O Fire.

3. Heaven and earth and the lords of sacrifice set thee within as the Priest of the call for the house when human beings, seeking godhead, having the delight, ask for the resplendent Ray.

4. Mighty, he is seated steadfast in the world of his session, rejoicing between the two mightinesses of earth and heaven, the united wives of one wide moving lord, ageless and inviolate, the two milch-cows giving their rich yield of milk.

5. Great art thou, O Fire, and great the law of thy workings, by thy will thou hast built out earth and heaven; in thy very birth thou becamest the Messenger, O mighty lord, and, thou the leader of men that see.

6. Set under the yoke with the straps of the yoking the two maned steeds of the Truth red of hue, dripping Light: thou, O God, bring all the gods; O knower of the births, make perfect the ways of the pilgrim-sacrifice.

7. From heaven itself thy lights blazed forth, thou shinest in the wake of many outshinings of the Dawn [[Or, in the wake of many wide-shining Dawns]] when, O Fire, passionately burning [[Or, flaming as dawn]] in the woods, the gods set the waters [[Apas, work, would make a clearer sense; it would then mean "set in action the work of the rapturous Priest of the call".]] to their work for the rapturous Priest of the call.

8. The gods who take their rapture in the wide mid-world, or those who are in the luminous world of heaven, or those lords of sacrifice who are helpful and ready to the call, them thy chariot-horses have borne towards us.

9. Come down to us with them in one chariot or in many chariots for thy horses pervade and are everywhere; ac cording to thy self-law bring here with their wives the gods thirty and three and give them to drink of the rapture.

10. He is the Priest of the call for whose growing even wide earth and heaven speak the word at sacrifice on sacrifice; facing each other, fixed like two ends of the pilgrim-way, the Truth they keep in his truth who from the Truth was born.

11. O Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech the many actioned, the lasting conquest of the Light. May there be for us a Son of our begetting pervading in his birth; [[Or, himself a begetter;]] O Fire, may there be created in us that true thinking of thine.

SUKTA 7

1. They who have climbed from the dark-backed foundation have entered the Father and Mother, have entered into the seven voices. The Father and Mother who dwell encompassing all move abroad and go forward to give by sacrifice long-extended the Life.

2. He reached the milch-cows that dwell in heaven, the Mares of the male, the divine rivers that carry in their flow the sweetness. The one Light moves on the way around thee when thou seekest thy dwelling in the house of the Truth.

3. On every side he ascends them and they become easy to control, he awakes to knowledge and is the lord and discoverer of the riches. Fire with his blue back and many diverse faces brings them from the ever-moving foundation to a settled dwelling.

4. The rivers energised and bear his mighty force of formation firmly fixed and undecaying; he shines out wide with his limbs in the world of his session and has entered earth and heaven as if they were one.

5. They knew the bliss of the ruddy-shining bull and they rejoice in the rule of the Great One; they are the lights of heaven luminously blazing and the Word of Revelation is their mighty common speech.

6. And great by the knowledge of the great Father and Mother they led his strength in the wake of its proclaiming call, where the bull bears his worshipper round the hold of night towards its own seat.

7. Seven illumined seers guard by the five priests of the pilgrim rite the beloved [[Or, delightful]] seat of the being that is set within: moving forward the imperishable bulls take joy; the gods move according to the law of the workings of the gods.

8. I crown the two supreme Priests of the invocation. The seven pleasures take their rapture by the self-law of their nature; the Truth they express, the Truth only they speak, guardians of the law of its action according to that law they shine.

9. The many Rays well governed in their course, grow passionate for the great Horse, the many-hued Bull. O divine Priest of the call, rapturous, awaking to knowledge, bring here the great gods and earth and heaven.

10. The swift-running dawns have shone opulently bringing us our satisfactions, with their true speech, their rays of intuition. And do thou, O Fire, by the greatness of the earth cut away for the Vast even the sin that has been done.

11. O Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech, the many actioned, the lasting conquest of the Light. May there be for us a Son of our begetting pervading in his birth; [[Or, himself a begetter;]] O Fire, may there be created in us that true thinking of thine.

SUKTA 9

1. Mortals we have chosen thee, a god, for our comrade to protect us, the Child of the Waters, full of happiness and light, victorious, [[Or, strong to break through,]] to whom no hurt can come.

2. When leaving the woods thou goest to thy mother waters, that retreat turns not to oblivion of thee, [[Or, to thy destruction,]] O Fire, for even though thou art far thou hast come into being here.

3. When thou hast carried beyond the rough ground [[Or, beyond thirst]] then hast thou truth of mind: some depart, [[Or, move forward,]] others remain seated around thee in whose comradeship thou art lodged.

4. When he has passed beyond the forces that make to err, beyond those that cling perpetual, the long-lasting who have no hurt have followed and found him like a lion who has taken refuge in the Waters.

5. As if one who of himself has sped away and utterly disappeared, this Fire Life growing in the mother led from the Beyond, churned out on every side, for the gods.

6. This is thou upon whom mortals have seized for the gods, O carrier of the offerings, because thou guardest all sacrifices by thy will, O Flame in man, O most youthful god!

7. O Fire, thy action covers That Bliss from the ignorant when the Animals sit together around thee, kindled against the night.

8. Offer the oblation to the Fire intense with its purifying light, who does perfectly the pilgrim-rite, the swift messenger, with his rapid pace; wait soon upon the ancient and desirable godhead.

9. Gods three thousand and three hundred and thirty and nine waited upon the Fire. They anointed him with streams of the clarity, they spread for him the seat of sacrifice, and seated him within as Priest of the call.

SUKTA 10

1. Thee, O Fire, men who have the thinking mind kindle in the sacrifice, an emperor over those who see, mortals set alight a godhead.

2. Thee, O Fire, they pray in the sacrifices as the sacrificant of the rite, the Priest of the call; shine out the guardian of the Truth in thy own home.

3. He who gives to thee with the fuel, to the knower of the births, holds the hero-energy, he ever grows.

4. He is the ray of intuition in the sacrifices; may he, the Fire, come with the gods, anointed by the seven priests of oblation, to him who holds the offerings.

5. Bring forward for the Fire, for the Priest of the call, the vast and supreme word [[Or, ancient word]] as for the creator and me who bring the lights of illuminations.

6. May our words make the Fire to grow when he is born, the Fire that carries the utterance, visioned for the great plenitude, for the treasure.

7. O Fire, most strong to sacrifice in the pilgrim-rite, worship the gods for the seeker of the godhead; as the rapturous Priest of the call thou shinest wide, beyond the forces that make us err.

8. So, do thou, O purifying Flame, kindle in us the luminous hero-energy, to those who laud thee become most close for their weal.

9. This is thou whom the illumined seers who have the light, ever wakeful, kindle, the immortal bearer of the offering, increaser of our force.

SUKTA 11

1. Fire is our all-seeing Priest of the call, our vicar set in front in the pilgrim-rite; he knows the uninterrupted course of the sacrifice.

2. He is the immortal, the carrier of the offering, the aspirant, the messenger settled in the rapture; the Fire joins with our Thought.

3. Agni wakes to knowledge companioning our Thought, he is the supreme [[Or, ancient]] ray of intuition in the sacrifice; it is he who crosses through to man's goal.

4. Fire, the Son of Force, who hears the things that are eternal, [[Or, who has the inspired knowledge of things eternal,]] knower of the births, the gods created as a carrier flame.

5. The inviolable who goes in front of the human peoples the Fire is a swift chariot that is ever new.

6. Overpowering all assailants the Fire is the will of the gods never crushed, filled with the multitude of his inspirations.

7. By this bringer of delights the mortal who gives, reaches and possesses the house of the purifying light.

8. May we by our thought possess around us well-established all the things of the Fire, may we be illumined seers who know all things born. [[Or, in whom knowledge is born.]]

9. O Fire, we shall win all desirable things in thy plenitudes, in thee have moved towards us the gods.

SUKTA 12

1. O Indra, O Fire, come to the offering of the wine, by our words, your supreme desirable ether; drink of it you who are missioned by the Thought.

2. O Indra, O Fire, the conscious sacrifice journeys taking with it the worshipper: by this word drink of this offered wine.

3. I choose by the swift impulse of the sacrifice Indra and the Fire whose pleasure is in the seer; take here your content of the Soma-wine.

4. The smiters, the slayers of the coverer I call, the unvanquished, the companions in victory, Indra and the Fire, most strong to win the plenitudes.

5. Your adorers, speakers of the word, they who know the ways of the guidance hymn you: O Indra, O Fire, I accept your impulsions.

6. Indra and Fire shook down the ninety cities possessed by the destroyers, together by one deed.

7. O Indra, O Fire, all around our work our thoughts go for ward towards you along the paths of the Truth.

8. O Indra, O Fire, your mights are companions and your delights; in you is founded all swiftness in the work.

9. O Indra, O Fire, you encompass the luminous kingdom of heaven in the plenitudes; it is your strength that is manifested there. [[Or, that is your strength which wakes to knowledge.]]

RISHABHA VAISHWAMITRA

SUKTA 13

1. Sing out some mightiest hymn to this divine Fire; may he come to us with the gods and, strong to sacrifice, sit upon the sacred grass.

2. He is the possessor of the Truth to whom belong earth and heaven and their guardings accompany his mind of discernment; for him the givers of the oblation pray, for him for their protection when they would win the riches.

3. He is the illumined seer and regent of these sacrifices, he and always he; that Fire set to his work who shall win and give the plenitude.

4. May he, the Fire, give us all happy peace for our journeying there whence are rained the riches in heaven, from all the planes, in the Waters.

5. Men who have the light kindle into his flaming, incomparable, by the opulent thinkings of this being Fire, the Priest of the call, the lord of all the peoples.

6. Do thou, strong to call the gods, protect us in the Word, in all our utterances; increasing the life-powers powerful to win the thousands. Flame out blissfully for us, O Fire.

7. Now give us a thousandfold riches bringing the Son, bringing our growth, luminous, a hero-strength, abundant, inexhaustible.

SUKTA 14

1. The rapturous Priest of the call has reached the things of knowledge; he is the true, doer of sacrifice, a great seer, a creator. Fire the son of force, with his chariot of lightning and his hair of flaming light has attained to a massive strength on the earth.

2. 1 come to thee, accept my word of obeisance, O master of Truth and strength, to thee who givest knowledge. As the knower, bring those who know and sit in the midst on the sacred grass, O lord of sacrifice.

3. Let dawn and night full of their plenitude come running towards thee on paths of the wind, O Fire, when all around they anoint with oblation thee the first and supreme, as if two sides of a chariot-front they enter into the gated house.

4. To thee, O Forceful Fire, Mitra and Varuna and all the life-powers chant a hymn of bliss, when with thy flame of light, O son of Force, thou standest as the sun above the peoples shining wide upon men.

5. Today we give to thee thy desire, approaching thee with outstretched hands and with obeisance; worship the gods with a mind strong for sacrifice, an illumined seer, with thy unerring thought, O Fire.

6. For, from thee, O son of Force, go forth the many protections of the godhead, and his plenitudes. Do thou give us the thousandfold treasure, give by the word that betrays not the truth, O Fire.

7. O understanding mind, O Seer-Will! now that all these things we who are mortals have done for thee, O god, in` the pilgrim-sacrifice, do thou awake to the whole well-charioted action and taste all That here, O immortal Fire.

UTKILA KATYA

SUKTA 15

1. Flaming out in a wide mass of strength press back the hostile powers that hurt and afflict. May I abide in the bliss of the all-blissful Vast, in the leading of the Fire who is swift to our call.

2. Thou in the dawning of this dawn, thou when the Sun has arisen wake for us and be our protector. Take pleasure in the Son as if in an eternal birth. Accept my affirmation of thee, O Fire, perfectly born in thy body.

3. Thou art the male with the divine vision, in the wake of many dawns shine out luminous in the black nights, O Fire. O prince of the riches, lead and carry us over beyond the evil; O youthful god, make us aspirants for the treasure.

4. Shine out, O Fire, the invincible male, conquering all the cities, all the felicities; thou art the knower of the births, O perfect guide on the way, thou art the leader of the first, the Vast all-protecting sacrifice.

5. O Fire of worship, towards homes of bliss many and without a gap, towards the gods shining out wise in understanding, like a conquering chariot bring the plenitude; O Fire, do thou make earth and heaven firmly established for us.

6. O Bull of the herds, nourish us, move towards us with plenitudes, make heaven and earth good milk-cows for us, O Fire; O god, come with the gods glowing in the beauty of thy splendour. Let not the evil mind of mortal besiege us.

7. O Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech the many actioned, the lasting conquest of the Light. May there be for us a Son of our begetting pervading in his birth; [[Or, himself a begetter;]] O Fire, may there be created in us that true thinking of thine.

SUKTA 16

1. This is the Fire that is lord of the hero-energy and the great felicity, lord of the wealth of the shining herds, and of good progeny who has power for the slaying of the coverers.

2. O gods, O life-powers, you cleave to this Fire of increase, in whom are the treasures that make our happiness to grow. Through all the days they have destroyed the enemies, the evil-thoughted who attack us in our battles.

3. So do thou, O bounteous Fire, with thy many lights bestow on us the greatest and griefless wealth, full of the hero-strength, of progeny and of force.

4. He who puts forth his force and is the doer in all the worlds, he who is the doer of works in the gods, labours in the gods and in all mights and in the self-expression of men.

5. O Fire, deliver us not to unconsciousness, nor to the lack of the strength of the hero, nor to the absence of the Light, [[Literally, "the Cow",]] nor to the bondage, [[Or, to the Censurer,]] O son of force, put away from us the hostile powers.

6. O felicitous Fire, have power in the pilgrim-rite for the fruitful plenitude, for the Vast; O thou of the many lights, join us to the large and glorious riches that create the Bliss.

KATA VAISHWAMITRA

SUKTA 17

1. He is kindled and blazes out according to the first and supreme laws and is united with the Rays, he in whom are all desirable things, Fire with his tresses of flame and his raiment of light, the purifier, perfect in sacrifice, for sacrifice to the gods.

2. O Fire, as thou hast accomplished in sacrifice thy priesthood for the earth, awaking to knowledge, O knower of the births, as thou hast accomplished it for heaven, [[Or, as thou hast offered in sacrifice the oblation of the earth, as thou hast offered the oblation of heaven,]] so with this oblation do sacrifice to the gods, carry yet further beyond the sacrifice with the human being today.

3. Three are thy lives, O knower of all things born, three are the dawns that are thy births, O Fire; [[Or, that gave thee birth, O Fire;]] by them win through sacrifice the protection of the gods, thou as the knower become for the doer of sacrifice the peace and the movement.

4. We hymn thee by our words, O knower of all things born, as the Fire perfect in light, perfect in vision, the object of our prayer and offer to thee our obeisance; thee the gods made the Messenger, the Traveller, the carrier of offerings, the navel-centre of Immortality.

5. O Fire, he who was before thee and was the Priest of the call and mighty for sacrifice and was dual entity and by the law of his nature the creator of the Bliss, by his law of action carry on the sacrifice, thou who art awake to knowledge, thou establish our pilgrim-rite in the advent of the gods.

SUKTA 18

1. O Fire, in our coming to thee become right-minded accomplishing our aim as a friend to a friend, as father and mother to their child; for these worlds of beings born are full of harm: burn to ashes the hostile forces that come against us.

2. Wholly consume our inner foes, consume the self-expression of the enemy who would war against us, O lord of the riches, consume, conscious in knowledge, the powers of ignorance; let them range wide thy ageless marching fires.

3. I desire and offer the oblation, O Fire, with the fuel, with > of heaven, in the navel centre of earth. The Fire the pouring of the clarity, for speed, for strength. Until I have the mastery, [[Or, as long as I have the power,]] adoring with the Word I lift to thee for the conquest of the hundreds this thought divine.

4. Affirmed by our lauds rise up with thy flame of light, O son of force, found the vast expansion in us who labour at the work, found opulently in the Vishwamitras the peace and the movement, O Fire. We make bright many times over thy body.

5. O conqueror of the riches, create for us the ecstasy, such thou becomest when thou art high kindled. Opulently in the gated house of thy felicitous adorer thou upholdest thy gliding bodies streaming their radiance.

GATHIN KAUSHIKA

SUKTA 19

1. Fire I choose the Priest of the call in the sacrifice, the wise, the seer, the omniscient, free from ignorance: he shall do worship for us strong for sacrifice, in the formation of the godheads; for the wealth, for the plenitude he wins all kinds of amassings.

2. O Fire, I mission towards thee a power of giving bearing my oblation, luminous, full of lustres. May he come to the sacrifice with his givings, with his treasures turning round it and widening the formation of the godheads.

3. So, am I guarded by thee with a mind of shining energy; then do thou teach us of the riches that teach and that give us good children of our works. O Fire, may we become affirmers of thee by our lauds and rich in the power of a wealth most full of the strength of the gods.

4. For, many flame-forces they have founded in thee, O Fire, men who have the will to sacrifice to the godhead. So, bring to us the formation of the godhead, O youthful god, when thou worshippest with sacrifice the divine host today.

5. Since the gods seating thee for sacrifice have anointed thee as Priest of the call in the rite, so do thou, O Fire, awake here as our protector and found thy inspirations in our bodies.

SUKTA 20

1. Fire and dawn and the two riders of the horse and Dadhikravan the Carrier of the offerings calls by his words in the dawnings. May the gods full of the Light hear us; may they desire and accept with a common pleasure our sacrifice.

2. O Fire, three are thy steeds, three the worlds of thy session; three are thy tongues, O thou born from the Truth, they are many: three too are thy bodies desired by the gods, with them protect undeviatingly our words.

3. Many are the names of thee, the Immortal, O Fire, O knower of the births, O god who bearest with thee the self-law of nature; all the manifold magic of the Lords of magic they have combined in thee, O all-ruler, O builder of the levels.

4. The Fire is as the Enjoyer the leader of the divine worlds, he is the divine guardian of the fixed time of things, and with him is the Truth. He is the slayer of the Coverer, the Eternal, the Omniscient; may he carry one who hymns him with the word beyond all the difficulty and stumbling.

5. Dadhikravan, I call here, and the Fire, and the divine dawn, Brihaspati and the god Savitri, the two riders of the horse, and Mitra and Varuna and Bhaga, the Vasus, the Rudras, the Adityas.

SUKTA 21

l. Found this our sacrifice in the immortals, accept these offerings, O knower of things born. O Priest of the call sitting as first and supreme, taste of the drops of understanding [[Or, strength]] and light.

2. O purifying Fire, full of light there drip for thee drops of understanding; give us the supreme desirable thing in thy self-law for the advent of the gods.

3. To thee, the illumined seer, come these drops dripping light, O right and true, O Fire; then thou blazest up as the supreme Rishi. Become the protector of our sacrifice.

4. On thee they fall, the drops of understanding and light, O unseizable [[Or, uncontrollable]] Ray! O thou with whom is the puissance! Declared by the seers of truth thou hast come with the vast light. Accept our offerings, O wise intelligence!

5. Most full of energy is the understanding held up in the middle for thee, this is our gift to thee. The drops drip over thy skin, O shining one, [[Or, Lord of riches,]] take them to thee in the way of the gods.

SUKTA 22

1. This is that Fire in which Indra, desiring the wine, held it in his belly; our laud rises to thee because thou hast won the thousandfold plenitude as if a steed of swiftness, O knower of all things born!

2. O Fire, that splendour of thine which is in heaven and which is in the earth and its growths and its waters, O lord of sacrifice, by which thou hast extended the wide mid-air, it is a brilliant ocean of light in which is divine vision.

3. O Fire, thou goest towards the ocean of the sky, thou speak est towards the gods who are masters of knowledge, [[Or, the gods of the planes (seats),]]towards the waters that abide above in the luminous world of the sun and the waters that are below.

4. Let thy Fires that dwell in the waters joining with those that descend the slopes accept the sacrifice, mighty impelling forces, in which there is no harm nor any distress.

5. O Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech the many actioned, the lasting conquest of the Light. May there be for us a Son of our begetting pervading in his birth; [[Or, himself a begetter;]] O Fire, may there be created in us that true thinking of thine.

DEVASHRAVAS, DEVAVATA -- BHARATAS

SUKTA 23

1. Churned out and well-established in the house of his session, the Youth, the Seer, the leader of the pilgrim-sacrifice, imperishable in the perishing woodlands, the Fire, the knower of all things born, has founded here immortality.

2. The sons of the Bringer, god-inspired and god-beloved, have churned out Fire of the perfect discernment. O Fire, look widely on us with the vast riches, become the leader of our impulsions throughout the days.

3. The ten who throw the Light have brought to birth all around the Ancient One well-born in his mothers and well-beloved. Affirm with lauds, O god-inspired, the Fire lit by the god-beloved, that he may be the controller of men.

4. One has set thee in the supreme seat of the earth, in the seat of the Word of Revelation, in the happy brightness of the days: O Fire, opulently shine in the human being, in the river of rocks, in the stream of flowing waters, in the stream of inspiration. [[Or, in the river Drishadwati, in Apaya and in Saraswati.]]

5. O Fire, achieve at my call the Revealing Speech the many- actioned, the lasting conquest of the Light. May there be for us a Son of our begetting pervading in his birth; [[Or, himself a begetter;]] O Fire, may there be created in us that true thinking of thine.

GATHINA VISHWAMITRA

SUKTA 24

1. O Fire, overpower the hostile armies, hurl them from us; hard to pierce, pierce the enemy-powers, found thy splendour in him who carries through the sacrifice.

2. O Fire, thou art kindled by the word of revelation, the immortal who comes to the offering, accept wholly our pilgrim-sacrifice.

3. O Fire, ever-wakeful with thy light, O son of force, invoked sit on my seat of sacrifice.

4. O Fire, with all thy divine fires greaten in our sacrifices the word that has sight.

5. O Fire, give to the giver a wealth full of hero-strengths enclosing us; intensify the force in us having with us the Son.

SUKTA 25

1. O Fire, thou art the son of heaven by the body of the earth, the conscious knower, even the omniscient. Sacrifice to each god in turn, O thou who knowest.

2. Fire the knower wins the hero-energies, wins the plenitudes striving towards immortality. So do thou bring to us the gods, O giver of the manifold plenty.

3. The Fire, free from all ignorance, illumines Earth and Heaven the divine and immortal mothers of all things; possessing all he is manifold in his delights by his plenitudes and his dispensations.

4. O Fire, and O Indra, here in the gated house of the giver who offers the wine, come to the sacrifice, gods unforgetting, for the drinking of the Soma-wine.

5. O Fire, thou shinest high, eternal in the house of the waters, O son of force, O knower of all things born, greatening under thy guard the worlds of thy session.

SUKTA 26

1. We the Kushikas, bringing the offering, desiring the Treasure, call by our words Fire, the universal godhead, discerning him by the mind, as the follower of the truth, who finds the world of the sun, the great giver, the divine and rapturous charioteer.

2. We call to guard us that brilliant Fire, the universal godhead, who grows in the mother, the master of the word, the speaker and the hearer, for the human being's forming of the god head, the illumined Seer, the Guest, the swift Traveller.

3. As if the neighing Horse by the mothers, the universal godhead is kindled high by the Kushikas from generation to generation; may that Fire wakeful in the Immortals give to us the hero-strength and good power of the Horse and the ecstasy.

4. Let them go forward, the plenitudes with the strengths, thy Fires; they have yoked the dappled mares mingled together to reach bliss and make the mountains tremble, before them the life-gods, omniscient, pouring the Vast, inviolable.

5. The life-gods with their glory of fire, universal in the peoples, [[Or, dragging all with them,]] we desire as our brilliant and forceful guard; great givers are they, thunderous and terrible, clothed as if in raiment of rain, they are like roaring lions.

6. Host upon host, troop upon troop with their proclaimings of the Fire we desire the luminous energy of the life-gods; they come to the sacrifice driving their dappled horses, their achievement cannot be taken from them, they are wise thinkers in the discoveries of knowledge.

7. I am the Fire, I am from my birth the knower of all things born; light is my eye, in my mouth is immortality; I am the triple Ray, I am the measurer of the mid-world, I am the unceasing illumination, I am the offering.

8. He has purified through the three filters the Ray, following the thought with the heart he has reached knowledge of the light; he has created by the self-laws of his nature the supreme ecstasy and his sight has embraced earth and heaven.

9. He is a fountain with a hundred streams that is never exhausted, with his illumined consciousness he is the father and accorder of all that must be spoken; he takes his rapture in the lap of the Father and Mother and earth and heaven fill him full, the speaker of truth.

SUKTA 27

1. Forward move the luminous plenitudes bearing the offering with the ladle of light; the seeker of bliss travels to the gods.

2. I pray by the word the Fire with its illumined consciousness, who accomplishes the sacrifice, who has the inspiration, who has the firm holding.

3. O Fire, may we have the power to rein thee, the divine steed of swiftness, may we cross through the hostile forces.

4. Fire high-blazing in the rite of the path, Fire whom we must pray, who purifies, with his tresses of flame -- him we desire.

5. He is the immortal, wide in might, clothed in raiment of light; well-fed with the oblation, Fire is the carrier of the offerings in the sacrifice.

6. Assailed by the opponent the doers of sacrifice, setting to work the ladle, keeping the true thought, have made the Fire to guard them.

7. The immortal, the godhead, the Priest of the call goes in our front with his mage-wisdom, impelling the discoveries of knowledge.

8. He is held as the Horse in the plenitudes, he is led along in the rites of the path, he is the illumined Seer who accomplishes the sacrifice.

9. He was made by the Thought, one Supreme; [[Or, the desirable one;]] it held the child of beings, the father of the Understanding in the body. [[Or, the daughter of the Understanding set him in us the child born from creatures and their father.]]

10. The word of revelation born from the understanding sets thee within, one supreme, O thou forcefully created, O Fire, the perfect thinker and the aspirant.

11. Fire the swift in motion, who crosses through the waters, the illumined seers desiring to conquer in the union with the Truth set ablaze by the plenitudes.

12. l pray Fire, the Seer-Will, the Son of Energy flaming out in heaven in the rite of the path.

13. One to be prayed, to be worshipped with obeisance, one who sees [[Or, is seen]] through the darkness, the Fire is kindled high, the male of the herd.

14. Mighty and male the Fire is kindled high, he is like a horse that carries the gods, him they pray who bring the offerings.

15. Thee, mighty and male, we male and mighty kindle high, O Bull of the herds, O Fire, and thou illuminest the Vast.

SUKTA 28

1. O Fire, accept our offering, the frontal oblation in the dawn pressing of the wine, O knower of the births, O rich in thought.

2. O Fire, for thee is the frontal offering prepared and dressed, that accept, O youthful god.

3. O Fire, come to [[Or, devour]] the frontal offering that is cast to thee with the disappearance of day; O son of force, thou art established in the rite of the path.

4. In the noonday pressing of the wine, O seer, knower of all things born, accept the frontal offering. O Fire, the wise thinkers in their discoveries of knowledge impair not thy portion, who art the mighty one.

5. O Fire, in the third pressing also thou hast desire of the frontal offering cast to thee, O son of force; do thou by the illumination establish in the gods the pilgrim-sacrifice full of ecstasy and wakeful in the immortals.

6. O Fire, increasing accept the frontal offering, the oblation cast with the disappearance of the day, O knower of all things born.

SUKTA 29

1. This is the churning out, this the bringing to birth that is done; bring the Queen of the peoples, let us churn out the Fire as of old.

2. The knower of all births is set in the two tinders, like an unborn child well-placed in the womb of the mothers, Fire who is to be prayed from day to day by men wakeful and bearing their offering.

3. Waking to knowledge bring him down in her lying supine; at once penetrated she has brought to birth the male of the herd: a ruddy pile of strength his might shines forth, the son of the Word of revelation is born in the manifestation of knowledge.

4. We in the seat of the Word of revelation, on the navel-centre of the earth, set thee within, O knower of all things born, for the carrying of the oblations.

5. Churn out, O men, the seer who creates no duality, the immortal thinker and knower with his fair front; Fire who is the supreme intuition in the sacrifice, the blissful one, bring to birth in your front, O men.

6. When they churn him out by the strength of their arms wide he shines, he is like a horse of swiftness, he is luminous in the woodlands; he is like a richly hued chariot in the journeying of the two riders, none can impede him; burning around the rocks he tears the grasses.

7. Agni when he is born shines waking to knowledge, he is the Horse, the illumined who is declared by the seers, the great giver, whom the gods have set in the pilgrim-sacrifices as the carrier-of the offerings, the one to be prayed, the omniscient.

8. Sit, O Priest of the call, in that world which is thy own waking to knowledge, accomplish the sacrifice in the native seat of deeds well done; manifesting the godheads [[Or, bringing the gods]] thou sacrificest to the gods with the offering, -- O Fire, found in the sacrificer the vast expansion.

9. O Friends, create his mighty smoke, go with unerring steps towards the plenitude; this is the Fire conqueror in the battle, by whom the gods overcame the destroyers.

10. This is thy native seat where is the order of the Truth whence born thou shonest forth, know it and take there thy session, then give increase to our words.

11. A mighty child in the womb he is called the son of the body; when he is born he becomes one who voices the godhead: when as life who grows in the mother he has been fashioned in the mother he becomes a gallop of wind in his movement.

12. Churned out with the good churning the seer set within with a perfect placing, -- O Fire, make easy the paths of the sacrifice, offer sacrifice to the gods for the seeker of godhead.

13. Mortals have brought to birth the Immortal, Fire with his strong tusk, the unfailing deliverer. [[Or, one who unfailing crosses through all.]] The ten sisters who move as companions passion over the male that is born.

14. He shone out from the eternal with his seven priests of the call when he blazed on the lap of the mother, in her bosom of plenty. He is full of joy and closes not his eyes from day to day, once he has been born from the belly of the Almighty One.

15. Fighting down the unfriendly powers like the marching hosts of the life-gods the first-born of the Word come to know all that is: the Kushikas have sent forth the luminous word, one by one they have kindled the Fire in the house.

16. Because here today in the going forward of this sacrifice we have chosen thee, O Priest of the call, O thou who wakest to knowledge, thou hast moved to the Permanent, thou hast achieved by thy toil the Permanent; knowing, come as one possessed of knowledge to the Soma-wine.

MANDALA FOUR

VAMADEVA GAUTAMA

SUKTA 1

1. Thee, O Fire, ever with one passion the gods have sent inwards, the divine Traveller; [[Or, worker; this root seems to have indicated originally any strong motion, action or work.]] with the will they sent thee in; O master of sacrifice, they brought to birth the immortal in mortals, the divine who brings in the divinity, the conscious thinker, they brought to birth the universal who brings in the divinity, the conscious thinker.

2. Then do thou, O Fire, turn towards the godheads with the right thinking Varuna, thy brother who delights in the sacrifice, the eldest who delights in the sacrifice, -- even him who keeps the truth, son of the infinite Mother who up holds seeing-men, the king who upholds seeing-men.

3. O Friend, turn towards and to us in his motion the Friend as two rapid chariot-horses turn a swift wheel, for us, O strong worker, like galloping horses; O Fire, mayst thou be with us and find for us bliss in Varuna and in the Life powers who carry the universal light; for the begetting of the Son, O thou flaming into lustre, create for us peace, for us, O strong worker, create the peace.

4. Do thou, O Fire, for thou knowest, labour away from us the wrath of divine Varuna, flaming into lustre, strongest to sacrifice, mightiest to bear, unloose from us all hostile powers.

5. Do thou, O Fire, be most close to us with thy protection, be most near in the dawning of this dawn: rejoicing in us put away from us Varuna [[i.e. the pressure of the wrath of Varuna against our impurity. The prayer to put Varuna away sounds strange. But if the inner sense is grasped it becomes cogent and apposite. The sacrificer -- the seeker -- is praying Agni to be close to him, to protect him. He is aspiring that the Divine Fire should be his protector when the Dawn of the higher light comes to his soul, Varuna being the Lord of wisdom.]] by the sacrifice; reach the bliss, be ready to our call.

6. Most glorious is the vision of this Godhead, most richly bright in mortals; as if the pure and warm butter of the milch-cow that cannot be slain, her desirable gift is the vision of the Godhead. [[Here the connection between Fire and Ray-Cow and Aditi comes out; so also the psychological nature of the clarified butter and its connection with the vision of the Sun. Who is this cow that "cannot be slain" if not the cow aditi -- the Infinite Mother -- the supreme Divine Consciousness creative of the cosmos, of the gods and the demons, of men and of all that is?]]

7. Three are they, his supreme truths, the desirable births of the divine Fire; within in the infinite he is spread wide every where and has come to us pure and brilliant and noble, shining in his beauty. [[These three births of Fire are not, as usually explained, its three physical forms -- which even if accepted (taken) shows the Vedic people far from the mere primitive barbarian -- His birth is connected with Truth -- His births are "within in the Infinite" -- saccidananda. These are the three levels of the earthly evolution on each of which this Divine Fire takes his birth, parivitah, on the plane of matter and life and mind.]] One who has spread wide within in the infinite; he in his luminous beauty comes to us.

8. He is a messenger, a Priest of the call, whose yearning is towards all the planes, golden is his chariot, red are his horses, ecstatic his tongue of flame, beautiful his body, [[Or, great is his body,]]wide his lustre, ever is he rapturous like a banquet hall full of the wine. [[Or, well-stored with food.]]

9. He makes men conscious of the knowledge and is the friend of their sacrifice; they lead him on with a mighty cord; he dwells in the gated house of the being accomplishing his aims; divine, he accepts companionship in the riches of the mortal.

10. Let this Fire taking knowledge of all things lead us towards the ecstasy. That is enjoyed by the Gods, which all the immortals created by the thought, and Father Heaven was its begetter raining the truth. [[This joy -- ratna -- in its origin is created by the immortals with the help of their "thought" -- and it was the raining down upon the lower hemisphere of the Truth that gave birth to the joy here.]]

11. He was born first and supreme in the Rivers, [[Or, in our habitations,]] in the foundation of the vast mid-world, in his native seat; without head, without feet, concealing his two ends he joins them in the lair of the Bull. [[The same Fire joins his two extremities of the superconscient and the spirit and the inconscient matter -- in the lair of the Bull. This is the Bull which represents the Purusha.... The lair of the Bull is the original status of Him called at other places,visnoh paramam padam, sada pasyanti surayah.]]

12. He came forth with a vibrancy of light, the first and supreme force, in the native seat of Truth, in the lair of the Bull, desirable and young and beautiful of body [[Or, great in body]] and wide in lustre; the seven Beloved brought him to birth for the Bull. [[Or, brought to birth the Bull (but the case is Dative).]]

13. Here, our human fathers went forward on their way towards the Truth desiring to possess it; they drove upwards the luminous ones, the good milk-cows in their stone (rocky) pen within the hiding cave, calling to the Dawns. [[This Rik makes the connection between the hidden cows and the Truth, also the Cows and the Dawn.]]

14. They rent the hill, they made themselves bright and pure, others around them proclaimed that work of theirs; drivers of the herd, [[Literally, having the control over the animal or animals, or, the "instruments of control",]] they sang the chant of illumination to the Doer of the work; they found the Light, they shone with their thoughts. [[Or, they did work by their thoughts. This is Sayana's interpretation.]]

15. By a mind seeking the Rays they rent the firm massed hill which encircled and repressed the shining herds; men desiring laid open the strong pen full of the Ray-Cows by the divine word.

16. They meditated [[Or, held in their thought]] on the first name of the Milk-cow, they discovered the thrice seven supreme planes [[Or, names]] of the mother; That knowing the herds lowed towards it, the ruddy Dawn became manifest by the glory of the Cow of Light.

17. The darkness was wounded and vanished, Heaven shone out, up arose the light of the divine Dawn, the Sun entered into the fields of the Vast, looking on the straight and crooked things in mortals.

18. Then, indeed, they awoke and saw [[Then, indeed, and after waking they wholly saw]] all behind and wide around them, then, indeed, they held the ecstasy that is enjoyed in heaven. In all gated houses were all the gods. O Mitra, O Varuna, let there be the Truth for the Thought.

19. May my speech be towards the upblazing Fire, the Priest of the call, the bringer of all things, strong to sacrifice. It is as if one drank from the pure udder of the cows of light, the purified juice of the Plant of Delight poured on all sides.

20. The indivisibility of all the gods, the guest of all human beings, may the Fire draw to us the protection of the gods and be blissful to us, the knower of all things born.

SUKTA 2

1. He who is immortal in mortals and with him is the Truth, who is the God in the gods, the Traveller, [[Or, fighter or worker,]] has been set within as the Priest of the call, most strong for sacrifice, to blaze out with the might of his flame, to give men speed on the way by the power of their offerings.

2. O Son of Force, here today art thou born for us and movest as a messenger between those born of both the Births, yoking, O sublime Flame, thy males straight and massive and bright in lustre.

3. I hold in thought with my mind thy two red gallopers of the Truth, swiftest, raining increase, raining light; yoking the ruddy-shining pair thou movest between you Gods and the mortal peoples.

4. Aryaman for them and Mitra and Varuna, Indra, Vishnu and the Maruts and the Ashwins do thou well-horsed, well-charioted, great in the joy of achievement, bring now, O Fire, for the giver of good offerings.

5. O Fire, ever inviolable is this sacrifice and with it is the Cow, the Sheep and the Horse, it is like a human friend, [[Or, it is a comrade with whom are the gods,]] and with it, O mighty Lord, are the word and the offspring; it is a long felicity of riches with a wide foundation, and with it is the hall.

6. To him who brings to thee thy fuel with the sweat of his labour and heats his head with thee, be a protector in thy self-strength, O Fire, and guard him from all around that would do him evil.

7. He who when thou desirest thy food brings thy food to thee, who whets thy flame and sends upwards the rapturous guest, he who as seeker of the godhead kindles thee in his gated house, in him may there be the abiding and bounteous riches.

8. He who in the dusk, he who in the dawn would give expression to thee, or bringing his offering makes thee a beloved friend, as the Horse with golden trappings in his own home mayst thou carry that giver beyond the evil.

9. He who gives to thee, O Fire, to the Immortal, and does in thee the work outstretching the Ladle, may he not in his labour be divorced from the riches, let not the sin of one who would do evil surround him.

10. He in whose pilgrim-rite thou takest pleasure and, divine, takest delight in the well-founded work of a mortal, may the Power of the Call be pleased with him, O most young Fire, of whom worshipping may we bring about the increase.

11. Let the knower discriminate the Knowledge and the Ignorance, the straight open levels and the crooked that shut in mortals; O God, for the riches, for the right birth of the Son, [[Or, for the riches with the fair offspring,]] lavish on us the finite and guard the Infinite. [[Diti and Aditi, the divided and the undivided Consciousness, the Mother of division and the Indivisible Mother.]]

12. Seers unconquered proclaimed the seer, they established him [[Or, commanded the seer, they upheld him]] within in the gated house of the human being. Then, O Flame, mayst thou reach with thy journeying feet and, exalted, see those transcendent [[Or, wonderful]] ones who must come into our vision. [[Or, made visible; the word means either "visible" or "to be seen".]]

13. O Fire, ever most young, mayst thou giving thy good leading to the singer of the word who has pressed the wine and performed the sacrifice, bring to him in his labour, luminous one, an ecstasy wide in its delight, filling the seeing man for his safeguard.

14. O Fire, as we have done with our hands, with our feet, with our bodies in our desire of thee, like men who make a chariot with the toil of their two arms, so, the wise thinkers have laboured out the Truth and possess it. [[Or, desiring to possess it.]]

15. Now may we be born as the seven illumined seers of the Dawn, the mother, supreme creators creating the Gods with in us; may we become the Angirasas, sons of Heaven and, shining with light, break the hill that has within it the riches.

16. Now, too, O Fire, even as our supreme and ancient fathers, desiring to possess the Truth, speakers of the word, reached the very purity, reached the splendour of the Light; [[Or, entered into meditation and reached the very purity;]] as they broke through the earth and uncovered the ruddy herds.

17. Perfect in action, perfect in lustre, desiring the godhead, becoming gods, they smelted and forged the Births as one forges iron, flaming with light they made the Fire to grow, surrounding Indra they reached the wide mass of the Ray-Cows.

18. There was seen as if herds of the Cows in an opulent place, that which, seen near, was the birth of the gods, [[Or, there was seen like herds of the Cow in an opulent place that which is near to the birth of the godheads,]] O Forceful Fire; they both illumined [[Or, achieved the wide illuminations of mortals]] the widenesses of mortals and were aspirants for the growth [[Or, warriors for the growth]] of the higher being.

19. For thee we worked and became perfect in our works, the Dawn shone out and illumined the Truth; we lit the unstinted Fire in the multitude of its kinds, in the fullness of his delight, brightening the beautiful eye of the Godhead.

20. These are the utterances, O creator, O Fire, we have spoken to thee the seer, in them take pleasure. Flame upwards, make us move full of possessions; O thou of many boons, give us the Great Riches.

SUKTA 3

1. Create for yourselves the King of the pilgrim-rite, the Terrible, the Priest of the invocation who wins by sacrifice the Truth in earth and heaven, [[Or, who worships with sacrifice the Truth for earth and heaven,]] create Fire golden in his form for your protection before the outspreading of the Ignorance. [[Or, before the thunder-crash from the unknown.]]

2. This is thy seat which we have made for thee, even as, desiring, a wife richly robed for her lord; thou art turned towards us and wide-extended around, sit here within: O once far distant Fire, these are fronting thee, O Fire, perfect in wisdom.

3. O ordinant of sacrifice, to Fire that hears, inviolate, the strong in vision, the happy, the immortal Godhead speak the Thought, the word expressing him, whom I pray as with the voice of the stone of the pressing when it presses out the honey-wine.

4. Thou, too, O Fire, turn towards our labour, become aware of this word, in perfect answer of thy thought, Truth-Conscious, become aware of the Truth. When shall there be thy utterances that share in our ecstasy, when thy acts of companionship in the house?

5. How dost thou blame it, O Fire, to Varuna, to Heaven, what is that sin we have done? How wouldst thou speak of us to Mitra, the bountiful, how to earth? What wilt thou say to Aryaman, what to Bhaga?

6. What, O Fire, growing in thy abodes, wouldst thou say for us, what to the wind most forceful, to the seeker of the Good, the all-pervading, to the lord of the journey, to the earth? What, O Fire, to Rudra the slayer of men?

7. How wilt thou speak of us to Pushan, the mighty bringer of increase, what to Rudra great in sacrifice, giver of the offering? What seed of things to wide-striding Vishnu, or what, O Fire, to vast doom?

8. How when they question thee wouldst thou answer to the host of the Life-Gods in their Truth, or to the Sun in his vastness, to the mother indivisible, to the swift traveller? O knower of all things born, thou knowest the Heaven, for us accomplish.

9. I ask for the truth governed by the Truth, together the unripe things of the Cow of light and that of her which is sweet and ripe, O Fire. Even black of hue, she nourishes with a luminous supporting, with a kindred milk. [[The Cow (the Vedic symbol of knowledge) even in the Ignorance where it is black still nourishes us with a truth which is still luminous and governed by the Greater Truth which is hers on higher levels where she is the radiant Cow of Light.]]

10. For the Fire the Bull, the Male, is inundated with the Truth, with milk of the heights: unstirred he ranges abroad establishing the wideness, the dappled Bull has milked out the bright udder.

11. By the Truth the Angiras-seers broke the hill, they parted it asunder, they moved [[Or, came]] together with the Ray-Cows; men sat happily around Dawn, the Sun-world [[Or, the Sun]] was manifested when the Fire was born.

12. By the Truth, divine, immortal and inviolate, the Waters with their honied floods, Fire, like a steed of swiftness pres sing forward [[Or, urged forward]] in its gallopings, raced ever on to their flow.

13. Mayst thou never pass over to the Power [[The word means supernatural or occult Power which captures the force of Agni, the lord of Tapasya, to use it for harm.]] of one who is a thief, or of a neighbour or one intimate who would do us injury, [[Or, diminishes us,]] mayst thou not incur the debt of a brother who is crooked, may we not suffer by evil thought from [[Or, by the skill of; here, again, it is skill in an occult working, or an occult and hostile direction of thought that is feared.]] friend or foe.

14. O Fire, strong in sacrifice, protect us ever guarding us with thy keepings, taking pleasure in us; burst out in flame, break the strong evil, slay the (Rakshasa) demon even when he is increasing into greatness.

15. O Fire, become great of mind by these hymns of illumination, by our thinkings touch these plenitudes, O heroic Flame, so take joy in the words of knowledge, O Angiras, let our speech expressing thee come close to thee, enjoyed by the gods.

16. Thus have I, an illumined sage, by my thoughts and utterances spoken to thee, who knowest, O Fire, O creator, secret words of guidance, seer-wisdoms that speak out their sense to the seer. [[Or, all these in my thoughts and utterances I have spoken to thee, I, an illumined sage, to thee the knower, O Fire, O creator, words of guidance, secret words, seer-wisdoms that speak out their meaning to the seer.]]

SUKTA 4

1. Make thy mass like a wide marching, go like a king full of strength with his following, running in the rapid passage of thy march; thou art the Archer, pierce the demons with thy most burning shafts.

2. Swiftly rush thy wanderings; blazing up follow and touch with thy violence; O Fire, spread by thy tongue thy burning heats and thy winged sparks; unleashed, scatter on every side thy meteors.

3. Swiftest to act, spread abroad thy scouts to their places, and become the indomitable protector of this being: he who would bring evil by speech against us from afar or one from near, let not any such bringer of anguish do violence to thee, O Fire!

4. Arise, O Fire, spread out towards us, consume utterly the unfriendly, O sharp-missiled Flame; O high-kindled! whoever has done enmity against us burn him down like a dry log.

5. High-uplifted be, piercing through reveal in us the things divine, O Fire; lay low what the demon forces [[Or, demon impulsions]] have established: companion or single, crush the foe.

6. He knows thy right-mindedness, O youngest of the Gods, who hastens the journey [[Or, who drives the path]] for the Word in its march. For him the high doer of works has made to shine about his doors all brightness of the day, all treasures and splendours of the light.

7. May he, O Fire, be fortunate and munificent who with the eternal offering, who with his utterances, seeks to satisfy thee in his own life, in his gated house; may there be for him all brightnesses of the day, may such be his sacrificing. [[Or, may all that sacrifice of his be bright in its days.]]

8. I make to shine thy right thought in me, may this word diffused in its peal approach close to thee. Rich in horses and chariots may we make all bright and pure for thee, mayst thou hold up thy mights in us from day to day.

9. Here in this world should one largely act from one's self in the presence of thee as day by day thou shinest out in morn and in dusk: right-minded may we touch thee as we play, taking our stand on the luminous inspirations [[Or, luminous energies]] of men.

10. He who comes to thee, O Fire, with strong horses, with fine gold, with his chariot full of riches, thou becomest his deliverer, his friend and comrade, -- he who takes joy in thy uninterrupted guesthood.

11. I break great ones by my words, by my friendship with thee; that came down to me from Gotama, my father: domiciled in the house do thou become conscious of this word of ours, O youngest God! O Priest of the call! O strong Will!

12. Undreaming, ever in movement, blissful, undrowsing, untorn, untired may thy guardian powers sitting linked together guard us, O thou untouched by ignorance, O Fire!

13. Thy guardian powers, O Fire, which protected the son of Mamata from evil, for they saw and he was blind, omniscient guarded them in their good work; the foe who would have hurt them could not hurt.

14. By thee as thy companions, guarded by thee, by thy leading, may we win the plenitudes; impel to their way both annunciations, O builder of Truth: straightaway, confident, create.

15. With the fuel may we do thee worship, O Fire, accept the hymn which we utter, burn the demons who speak not the word of blessing, guard us from the doer of harm, from the censurer and his blame, O friendly Light!

SUKTA 5

1. How should we give, one in our joy in him, vast in light, [[Or, shining with the light of the vast,]] to the bounteous Universal Fire? With his vast and ample upbearing he props up the firmament like a pillar.

2. Blame not him who in his self-law has given this gift, divine to me the mortal, the wise to the ignorant, the immortal, the wide in consciousness, the most strong and mighty Universal Fire.

3. In his twofold mass [[Or, force]] may the puissant Bull with his thousandfold seed, with his keen blaze discovering the great Possession, the deeply hidden seat of the Cow, declare to me that Mind of wisdom.

4. May the Fire sharp-tusked with his most burning flame of light, he who is full of felicity, [[Or, he who is ever happy in achievement,]] consume them, they who impair the domain of Varuna and the beloved and abiding things of Mitra the conscious knower.

5. Going they go on their way like women who have no brothers, like wives [[Or, mothers]] with evil movements who do hurt [[Or, deceive]] to their lord, sinful, and untrue and full of falsehood they have brought into being this profound plane.

6. For me who howso small, impair not the heavy burden of this thought, O purifying Fire, uphold with the violence of thy delight this vast and profound and mighty sevenfold plane. [[Or, plane with its seven layers.]]

7. Him, now may the purifying Thought reach and possess by the will, like attaining to its like; in the movement [[Or, the action]] of the peace, over the form of the dappled Mother figured out on the summit in its might and its beauty.

8. What of this word do they say to me, what that has to be declared and is mysterious and hidden in the secrecy? [[Or, cave?]] What was as if a covering defence of the rays [[Or, the shining Cows]] they have uncovered, -- he guards the beloved form, the summit plane of the being. [[Or, the Bird.]]

9. This which is that great front of the Great Ones to which as its supreme place adheres the shining Cow, he came to know flaming in the plane of the Truth, hastening in its speed in the secrecy. [[Or, cave.]]

10. Now shining in union with the two Parents, close to him, he perceived the beautiful and secret abode of the dappled Cow. There was the tongue of the Bull of flame intent on its action, it was near the Cow of Light, in the supreme plane of the Mother.

11. Asked with obeisance I voice the Truth, this which I have won by thy declaring of it, [[Or, by thy wish,]] O knower of all things born; thou possessest all this that is, the treasure which is in heaven and that which is on the earth.

12. What is the treasure of this Truth, what the delight of it, wholly declare to us, O knower of the births, for thou art aware. That supreme plane in the secrecy which is the high est goal of our path, which is over and above all, that we have reached, free from bondage.

13. What is its boundary, its manifestation of knowledge, what the joy of it towards which we must move like gallopers towards the plenitude? When have the divine Dawns, wives of the immortal, woven it into shape by the hue of light of the sun?

14. Those who live undelighted with the word that is languid and scanty, narrow and dependent on their belief, what now and here can they say to thee, O Fire? Uninstrumented let them remain united with the unreal.

15. For the glory and beauty of the Bull in his high burning the flame-force of the master of riches glowed in its splendour; clothing himself with brilliance in his form of perfect vision, he has shone out full of many boons like a dwelling with its treasure.

SUKTA 6

1. O Fire, summoner Priest of the pilgrim-rite, stand up very high for us, strong for sacrifice in the forming of the gods: thou art the ruler over every Thought and thou carriest forward the mind of thy worshipper.

2. Free from ignorance, Fire, the rapturous Priest of the Call has taken his seat in creatures, the conscious thinker in their findings of knowledge. He enters into a high lustre like a creator Sun, like a pillar he makes his smoke a prop to heaven.

3. A luminous force of giving, swift and put forth into action, he widens the formation of the gods as he turns round it; new-born he stands up high [[Greek: akra.]] like an arrow-shaft well-planted and firm and shows by his light the herds. [[Or, a sun-beam fixed and constant. Or, it may possibly mean, a pole, banner well-planted and firm he shows (the place of) the herds.]]

4. When the sacred grass is strewn and kindled burns the flame, the leader of the pilgrim-rite stands up to high rejoicing in his work; Fire, the Priest of the call, like a guardian of the herds thrice moves round them, the Ancient of days, ever widening his circle.

5. He goes round in his self-motion with measured run, Fire, the rapturous Priest of the call, sweet of word, possessing the Truth; his flames gallop like horses, all the worlds are in fear when he blazes.

6. O Fire of the fair front! happy is thy vision; even when thou art terrible and adverse great is thy beauty: for they hem not in thy flame with the darkness, for the destroyers cannot set evil in thy body.

7. He is the begetter of things and his conquest cannot be held back, not even the father and the mother can stay him any longer in his impulsion. Now like a friend well-established, the purifying Fire has shone out in the human peoples.

8. The twice five sisters who dwell together have given birth to the Fire in the human peoples, the waker in the dawn, like a tusk of flame, brilliant and fair of face, like a sharp axe.

9. Bay-coloured are those horses of thine, dripping light, or they are red, straight is their motion, swift is their going, males, ruddy-shining, straight and massive, great in their deeds they are called to our forming of the Gods.

10. These are thy rays, O Fire, that put forth overwhelming force, moving, impetuous in their blaze, they move towards the goal like hawks in their action, with many voices of storm like an army of the life-god.

11. O high-kindled Fire, the Word has been formed for thee, one voices the utterance, one sacrifices, -- now ordain: men set the Fire within as the Priest of the call, making to him their prostration of surrender, aspirants to the self-expression of the human being.

SUKTA 7

1. This is he who was established as chief and first by the Founders of things, the Priest of the call, most strong for sacrifice, to be prayed in the pilgrim-rites, -- he whom the doer of works and the flame-seers [[Apnavan and the Bhrigus]] set shining wide in the forests, rich in light, all-pervading, for man and man.

2. O Fire, when shall the conscious waking of thy godhead be come uninterrupted? For, now mortals have laid hold on thee as one desirable in human creatures.

3. For they see thee, possessor of the Truth and wide in knowledge like waking heaven with its stars, the smile of light of all these pilgrim-sacrifices in house and house, --

4. The swift messenger of the illumining Sun who comes to all the seeing people; men hold him as the ray of intuition and he shines as the Bhrigu-flame-seer for each being.

5. This is the Priest of the call whom they set within, who uninterruptedly wakes to knowledge, rapturous with his purifying flame, most strong to sacrifice by his seven seats. [[Or, with his seven lights.]]

6. Him in the many mothers linked together, wide-spread and unapproached in the forest, abiding in the secret Cave and rich with many lights, full of knowledge or moving to some unknown goal.

7. When in the separation from sleep the Gods have joy in that udder of the Cow, in the plane of the Truth, great becomes the Fire by the offering given with prostration and journeys for the pilgrim-sacrifice and the Truth is ever with him.

8. He journeys knowing the embassies of the pilgrim-sacrifice between both the firmaments, utterly awakened to know ledge. A messenger, the Ancient of days, ever widening, ever greater in knowledge, thou travellest the mounting slopes of heaven. [[Or, thou travellest to the inmost places of heaven.]]

9. Black is the path of thy shining, thy light goes in front, a journeying ray, the one supreme of all thy bodies; when one unimpregnated bears thee as the child of her womb, in the sudden moment of thy birth thou art already the messenger.

10. The moment he is born his might becomes visible when the wind blows behind his flame; he turns his sharp tongue round the trunks and tears his firm food with his jaws of flame.

11. When quickly he carries his foods on his rapid tongue, this mighty Fire fashions himself into a swift messenger; consuming all he clings to the mad course [[Or, to the roar]] of the wind, as a driver a swift horse he sets it to gallop for the seeker of the plenitude.

SUKTA 8

1. Array with your word the messenger, the carrier of your offerings, most strong to sacrifice, the omniscient, the Immortal.

2. For, he knows the place of the possession of the riches, he knows the ascending slope of heaven, he shall bring here the gods.

3. A God, he knows for the seeker of the Truth his way of submission to the gods in the house of Truth, and he gives the beloved treasures.

4. He is the Priest of the call, it is he who travels between, aware of his embassy, knowing the ascending slope of heaven.

5. May we be of those who have given to the Fire with the gift of their offerings, who kindle him and increase.

6. They by the treasure, by the hero-strengths have conquered and have heard who have upheld their work in the Fire.

7. In us may the riches move from day to day bringing the multitude of our desires, may we receive the impulsion of the plenitudes.

8. An illumined seer, by the might of seeing human beings he pierces beyond like a swift arrow.

SUKTA 9

1. O Flame, be gracious, for great art thou who comest to the seeker of the godheads to sit on his seat of sacrifice.

2. He becomes manifest in human beings, [[Or, he becomes in human beings a protector,]] invincible, [[Or, indestructible,]] immortal, the messenger of all.

3. He is borne round the house, a rapturous Priest of the call in our heavenward urges; he takes his seat as the Priest of the purification.

4. The Fire is the Goddess-powers in the pilgrim-rite and he is the master of the house in his home, he sits too as the Priest of the word.

5. Thou comest to the offerings as the speaker of the sanction for human beings when they would perform the pilgrim-sacrifice.

6. Thou comest to be his envoy to him in whose sacrifice thou takest pleasure to carry the offerings of the mortal.

7. Take pleasure in our pilgrim-rite, in our sacrifice, O Angiras, hear our call.

8. Let thy invincible car reach us and move round us on every side by which thou guardest the givers of the offering.

SUKTA 10

1. O Fire, let us today make thee affluent with our lauds as thy vehicles to bear thee, -- even that of thee which is as if the Horse, as if a happy will touching the heart.

2. For now, O Fire, thou hast become the charioteer of a happy Will, of an all-accomplishing Discernment, of the Vast Truth.

3. Become close to us, O Fire, by these hymns of illumination, right-minded with all thy flame-powers, thy light like the sun-world.

4. Today uttering thee with these utterances may we give to thee, O Fire; thy strengths thunder forth like the heavens. [[Or, like the strength of heaven.]]

5. Most sweet is thy vision, now in the day, now in the night; it shines out close to us like gold for its beauty and splendour.

6. Free from evil is thy body; it is like pure clarified butter, it is pure gold; that in thee is golden in its shining, for such is thy self-law.

7. Even the lasting hostility done, O thou who possessest the Truth, thou drivest away perfectly from the mortal sacrificer. [[Or, away from the mortal who is exact in his sacrifice.]]

8. O Fire, auspicious may be all our friendship and brotherhood with you Gods. That is our centre, where is our home, where is that udder of the Cow of Light.

SUKTA 11

1. Happy is that flame-power of thine, O forceful Fire; it shines close to the Sun, glowing to vision it is seen even in the night, it is as if in its beauty [[Or, in its form]] there were an unarid feast for the eye.

2. O Fire, O thou with thy many births, even as we hymn thee force open the heavens [[Or, the door or entrance]] with thy quivering lustre [[Or, with thy lustre of knowledge]] for him who utters the mind of wisdom; O Brilliant, O glorious Flame, what thou with all the gods hast won, that give to us, that mighty thought.

3. O Fire, from thee are born the seer-wisdoms, from thee the mind of knowledge, from thee the utterances that achieve; from thee come the riches that take the hero's form to the mortal giver who has the true thought.

4. From thee is born the steed of swiftness that carries the plenitude, that has the force of Truth, that makes the great approach, that has the vastness; from thee is the treasure sent by the gods that creates the bliss, from thee the rapid speeding war-horse, O Fire.

5. Thee, O Fire, O immortal, first and chief of the godheads, mortals who are seekers of the godheads illumine by their thoughts, Fire with the rapturous tongue who pushest away the hostiles, the one domiciled within, the master of our house untouched by ignorance.

6. Far from us all unconsciousness, sin and evil mind when thou art on guard, a benignant Power in the night, O Fire, O son of force, over him to whom thou cleavest for his weal.

SUKTA 12

1. He who kindles thee, O Fire, and with his ladle in action creates food for thee thrice in the day may he, awakened to knowledge, be ever with thy illuminations and wholly put forth his force and overcome by thy will, O knower of all things born.

2. He who labours and brings to thee thy fuel serving the flame-force of thy greatness, O Fire, he kindling thee every day and night ever grows and cleaves to the Treasure slaying the unfriendly Powers.

3. The Fire is the master of the vast might, the Fire is master of the supreme plenitude and riches, ever young, faithful to his self-law, he founds wholly uninterruptedly the ecstasy for the mortal who worships him.

4. If at all in our humanity by our movements of ignorance we have done any evil against thee, O Fire, make us wholly sinless before the mother indivisible; O Fire, mayst thou loosen from us the bonds of our sins to every side.

5. Even though our sin be great before gods and men, even though it be wide, O Fire, may we not come ever to harm from it who are thy friends and comrades; give to our Son, our begotten, the peace and the well-doing.

6. Even as that was done when the Masters of Riches, the Lords of sacrifice released the bright cow tethered by her foot, so release us utterly from evil; mayst thou carry for ward our life so that it crosses beyond, O Fire.

SUKTA 13

1. The Fire facing the front of the dawns as they shine out has revealed the founding of ecstasy; the two Riders of the horse are coming to the gated house of the doer of good works; the divine Sun is rising up with its light.

2. The divine creator Sun has reached his high shining, he is like a warrior seeker of the Light brandishing his flag. There is Varuna, there is Mitra, all follow the working of the Law when they make the Sun to rise up in heaven.

3. Him whom, firm in their foundation, never ceasing from their aim they have made for the removing of the darkness, this Sun seven mighty brilliant mares bear as the scouts of the whole world.

4. O God, thou goest with steeds most strong to bear separating the weft woven, unweaving the black garment; the streaming rays of the Sun cast the darkness like a covering skin down within the waters.

5. Unextended, unbound, facing downwards, facing upwards, how does he not sink? By what self-law does he go on his journey? Who has seen when he joins heaven and is its pillar and guards the firmament?

SUKTA 14

1. Fire, the godhead has been revealed, the knower of all things born, fronting the dawns as they gleam with the greatness of their lustres; wide-moving, lords of the journey, come moving in their chariot towards this our sacrifice.

2. The creator Sun is lodged in his high Ray of intuition fashioning the light for the whole world; the Sun in his universal knowledge has filled earth and heaven and the mid- world with his rays.

3. The Dawn bearing him has come with the Light, Dawn vast and rich in her lustres, knowing all by her rays; the divine Dawn awakening to the happy path is journeying in her well-yoked chariot.

4. May these horses and chariots, strong to bear, bring you both in the shining out of the dawn: for, here for you are the juices of the Wine for the drinking of the sweetness; O strong Ones, may you take rapture of them in this sacrifice.

5. Unextended, unbound, facing downwards, facing upwards how does he not sink? By what self-law does he go on his journey? Who has seen when he joins heaven and is its pillar and guards the firmament?

SUKTA 15

1. The Fire is our Priest of the call in the pilgrim-sacrifice; he is led around as the horse, he is the godhead in the gods who is lord of the sacrifice.

2. The Fire goes thrice around the pilgrim-sacrifice and is like one driving a chariot, he founds our delight in the gods.

3. The Fire moves around the offerings, a seer, a master of the plenitudes and founds for the giver the ecstasies.

4. This is he who is kindled in the front in Srinjaya, son of Devavata, he is luminous and a destroyer of foes.

5. The mortal who is a hero can have mastery over the Fire in its march, the sharp-tusked bountiful Fire.

6. They make him bright from day to day like a conquering war-horse, like a shining babe of heaven.

7. When the prince, the son of Sahadeva, woke me with his two bay horses, though called towards him I was not ready to rise.

8. Even so, I took at once from the prince, the son of Sahadeva, those two sacred horses he gave.

9. O divine Riders, here before you is the prince Somaka, son of Sahadeva; long-lived may he be!

10. Even him the prince, the son of Sahadeva, O divine Riders, make long of life.

SUKTA 40

1. Dadhikravan is he of whom now we must do the work; may all the Dawns speed me on the path! For the Waters and for the Dawn and the Sun and Brihaspati, he of the puissance, the Victor.

2. May this Power of being who seeks the full-bringing and seeks the Light and who abides in all activity turn into inspiration the impulsions of the Dawn, may he abide in their speed that carries us beyond. Dadhikravan who is the truth in his running, -- yea, he gallops and he flies, -- brings into being the impulsion, the abundant force, the heavenly light.

3. When he runs, when he speeds in his passage, as the wing of the Bird is a wind that blows about him in his greed of the gallop; as the wing that beats about the breast of the rushing Eagle, so about the breast of Dadhikravan when with the Force he carries us beyond.

4. For the abundance of his strength he carries his impeller beyond, a rein binds his neck and a rein holds him about the chest and a rein is in his mouth. Dadhikravan puts forth his energy according to the will in the mind and gallops along the turning of the path.

5. This is the swan that dwells in the purity, the lord of substance in the middle world, the Priest of the offering whose seat is upon the altar, the guest in the gated house. He dwells in the Man, he dwells in the Truth, he dwells in the wide Ether; he is born of the Waters, he is born of the Light, he is born of the Law, he is born of the Hill of Substance, he is the Law of the Truth.

MANDALA FIVE

THE ATRIS

BUDHA AND GAVISHTHIRA

SUKTA 1

1. Fire is awake by the kindling of the peoples, he fronts the dawn that comes to him like a fostering milch cow; like the mighty ones casting upward their branching his lustres spread towards heaven.

2. The Priest of the call is awake for sacrifice to the gods, Fire with his right thinking has stood up high ablaze. The red glowing mass of him is seen: a great god has been delivered out of the darkness.

3. When he put out the long cord of his troop, Fire in his purity reveals all by the pure herds of his rays; the goddess of understanding is yoked to her works, she supine he standing high, he has drunk from her breasts with his tongues of flame.

4. The minds of men who seek the godhead converge towards the flame even as their seeings converge in the sun; when two dawns of different forms give birth to this Fire the white Horse is born in front of the days.

5. He was born victorious in front of the days, established in established things, ruddy bright in the woodlands of our pleasure; in house and house founding the seven ecstasies the Fire took up his session as a Priest of the call strong for sacrifice.

6. Strength has taken his seat as the Priest of the offering mighty for sacrifice in the lap of the Mother, in that rapturous other world, the youth, the seer, manifold in his fixed knowledge, possessed of the Truth, the upholder of the peoples; in between too, is he kindled.

7. Men pray with their prostrations of surrender that illumined seer, who achieves perfection in the pilgrim sacrifices, Fire, the Priest of the call, for he has extended earth and heaven by the Truth, they rub bright with the Light the eternal Horse of power.

8. The purifier he is rubbed bright and pure, he who is proclaimed by the seers, one who is the dweller in his own house, and is our benignant guest; the bull of the thousand horns because thou hast the strength of That, O Fire, thou precedest in puissance all others.

9. At once thou goest forward, O Fire, and overpassest all others in whomsoever thou hast become manifest in all the glory of thy beauty; adorable, great of body, wide of light thou art the beloved guest of human beings.

10. To thee, O ever youthful Fire, all the worlds and their peoples bring the offering from near and from far; awake to that right-mindedness of man's happiest state: vast and great and happy is that peace of thee, [[Or, is thy house of refuge,]] O Fire.

11. Today, O luminous one, mount the luminous wholeness of thy car with the lords of sacrifice, thou knowest the wide mid world with all its paths, bring here the gods to partake of our sacrifice.

12. To the seer, the understanding one, we have uttered the word of our adoration, to the Bull, the male; the Steadfast in Light has taken refuge in his laud as in a far reaching mass of gold.

KUMAR ATREYA OR VRISHA JANA

SUKTA 2

1. The young Mother carries the boy suppressed in the secret cavern and she gives him not to the father; his force is undiminished, men see him in front established inwardly in the movement.

2. Who is this boy, O young mother, whom thou carriest in thyself when thou art compressed into form, but when thou art vast thou hast given him birth? Through many years grew the child in the womb, I saw him born when the mother brought him forth.

3. I saw him in a distant field, one golden-tusked and pure-bright of hue shaping his weapons: to him I am giving immortality in my several parts and what shall they do to me who possess not Indra and have not the word?

4. In that field I saw ranging apart what seemed a happy herd in its many forms of beauty; none could seize on them, for he was born, even those of them who were grey with age became young again.

5. Who were they that divorced my strength from the herds of light? Against them there was no protector nor any fighter in this war. Let those who seized them release them back to me, he has become aware and is driving back to me my herds of vision.

6. The hostile powers have hidden within in mortals the king of those who dwell in creatures in whom all creatures dwell; let the wisdom words of Atri release him, let the binders themselves become the bound.

7. Shunahshepa too was bound to the thousandfold post of sacrifice, him didst thou release and he attained to calm; [[Or, he achieved the work;]] so do thou take thy seat here in us, O conscious knower, O Priest of the call, and loose from us the cords of our bondage.

8. Mayst thou not grow wroth and depart from me: he who guards the law of working of the gods declared it to me; Indra knew and sought after and saw thee, and taught by him, O Fire, I have come to thee.

9. This Fire shines with the Vast Light and makes all things manifest by his greatness. He overpowers the workings of knowledge that are undivine and evil in their impulse, he sharpens his horns to gore the Rakshasa.

10. May the voices of the Fire be sharp weapons to slay the Rakshasa. In his ecstasy his angers break down, all the Maniktalab undivine obstructions that besiege us cannot hem him in.

11. O thou of the many births, I the sage, the thinker, the man of perfect works have fashioned for thee this laud like a chariot. If, indeed, O god, thou shouldst take an answering joy in it, by this we could conquer the waters that carry the light of the sun world.

12. The bull with the neck of might, whom no enemy can oppose, grows and comes driving from the foe the riches of knowledge. So have the immortals spoken to this Fire that he may work out peace for man when he prepares the sacred seat, work out peace for man when he brings the offering.

VASUSHRUTA

SUKTA 3

1. Thou art Varuna, O Fire, when thou art born, thou becomest Mitra when thou blazest high; in thee are all the gods, O son of Force, thou art Indra for the mortal giver.

2. O holder of the self law, thou becomest Aryaman when thou bearest the secret name of the Virgins; they reveal thee with the Rays as Mitra firmly founded when thou makest of one mind the Lord of the house and the Spouse.

3. For the glory of thee, O Rudra, the life powers make bright thy birth into a richly manifold beauty. When that highest step [[The supreme plane of the three.]] of Vishnu is founded within, thou guardest by it the secret name of the Ray cows.

4. By the glory of thee who hast the true seeing, the gods hold a multiple completeness and taste [[Or, touch]] immortality; men take up their session with Fire, the Priest of the call, aspiring, making a gift of the self expression of the human being.

5. There is none who precedes thee as priest of the call, O Fire, none mightier for sacrifice, there is none supreme over thee in the seer wisdoms, O master of the self law, and of what soever man thou becomest the guest, he conquers by sacrifice, O godhead, those who are mortals.

6. May we who seek the Riches win them by the offering, we guarded by thee and awakened, O Fire, we in the clash of the battle, in our discoveries of knowledge through days, we by the Treasure overcome mortal men, O son of Force.

7. He who brings sin and transgression upon us, on him who gives expression to evil, on himself may there be put that evil; O thou who art conscious, slay this hostile assault, O Fire, even him who oppresses us with the duality. [[The division or the twofoldness of the nature divided between good and evil.]]

8. Thee in the dawning of this night, O godhead, the ancients made their messenger and gave sacrifice with their oblations; for thou art the godhead kindled by mortals who have the light [[Or, the riches]] and thou travellest to the House of the Treasures.

9. Rescue thy father, in thy knowledge keep him safe, thy father who becomes thy son and bears thee, O son of Force. O conscious knower, when wilt thou look upon us? When with thy Truth Consciousness wilt thou set us to our journey?

10. The father adores and establishes the mighty name because thou, O shining one, bringest him to accept and take pleasure in it; once and again, the Fire increases and desiring the bliss of the godhead he conquers it by force.

11. O youthful god, thou, indeed, carriest safe thy adorer beyond all stumblings, O Fire; for the hostile beings are seen, the thieves, even they who know not the light of intuitive knowledge and turn to crookedness.

12. These journeys have turned towards thee, that evil in us has been declared to the Shining One, O this Fire as he grows will not deliver us to the assailant and the hurter.

SUKTA 4

1. O Fire, O king, towards thee the Wealth master of the riches I turn and delight in thee in the pilgrim sacrifice, replenishing thee may we conquer the plenitude, may we overcome the battle hosts of mortals.

2. The ageless Fire that carries the offering is the father of us, he in us is pervasive in his being, extended in light, perfect in vision. Accomplished in the works of the master of the house blaze out thy forces, form and turn towards us thy inspirations.

3. The seer, the master of men, lord of the human peoples, Fire, pure and purifying with its back of light set within you as the omniscient priest of the call; he shall win our desirable things in the godheads.

4. Of one mind with the goddess of revelation take pleasure in us, O Fire, labouring with the rays of the sun; accept with pleasure our fuel, O knower of all things born, and bring the gods to us to partake of our sacrifice.

5. A cherished guest domiciled in our gated house come to this sacrifice of ours as the knower; O Fire, slaying all who assail us bring to us the enjoyments of those who make themselves the enemy.

6. Drive away from us the Destroyer with thy stroke making free space for thy own body; when thou carriest the gods over safe, O son of Force, us, O Fire, strongest godhead, guard in the plenitude.

7. O Fire, may we worship thee with our words, thee with our offerings, O purifier, O happy light; into us bring the treasure in which are all desirable things, in us establish substance of every kind of riches.

8. Accept our pilgrim sacrifice, O Fire, accept, O son of Force, O holder of the triple world of thy session, our offering. May we be doers of good deeds before the godheads, protect us with a triple armour of peace.

9. O knower of all things born, carry us through all difficult passages, through all calamities as a ship over the ocean. O Fire, voiced by us with our obeisance even as did Atri, awake and be the guardian of our bodies.

10. I think of thee with a heart that is thy bard and mortal I call to thee immortal; O knower of all things born, establish the glory in us, by the children of my works, O Fire, may I win immortality.

11. The doer of great deeds for whom thou shalt make that happy other world, O knower of all things born, reaches in peace a wealth in which are the Horses of swiftness, the Ray Cows, the Son, the Heroes.

SUKTA 5

1. On the high kindled flame pour as offering a poignant clarity, to Fire, the knower of all things born.

2. The spokesman of the godhead, the inviolable hastens the sacrifice on its way, for this is the seer who comes with the wine of sweetness in his hands.

3. O Fire, we have sought thee with our adoration, bring hither Indra the rich in light, the beloved with his happy chariots to protect us.

4. Spread wide, O seat, soft as wool the songs of illuminations sound high; O bright one, be with us for the conquest.

5. Swing wide, O divine doors; be easy of approach that you may be our guard: lead further further and fill full our sacrifice.

6. Dawn and night we seek with desire the two mighty Mothers of the Truth with their fair front to us who increase our being's space.

7. O worshipped twain, O divine priests of man's call, arrive on the path of the wind to this our sacrifice.

8. May Ila, Saraswati, and Mahi, [[Ila, goddess of revelation; Saraswati, goddess of inspiration; Mahi, goddess of the Vast Truth, Mahas or rtam brhat.]] the three goddesses who create the bliss sit on the sacred seat, they who never err.

9. O maker of forms, hither benignant arrive all pervading in thy fostering to us and in thyself; in sacrifice on sacrifice us upward guard.

10. O Tree, [[Or, O master of delight,]] there where thou knowest the secret names of the gods make rich our offerings.

11. Swaha to the Fire and to Varuna, Swaha to Indra and the Life powers, Swaha to the gods be our offering.

SUKTA 6

1. I meditate on the Fire who is the dweller in things, [[Or, who is the Shining One,]] to whom the milch cows go as to their home, to their home the swift war horses, to their home the eternal steeds of swiftness. [[Or, steeds of the plenitude.]] Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

2. This is the Fire who is the dweller in things voiced by me, in whom meet the milch cows, and in him the swift galloping war horses and in him the illuminates who have come to the perfect birth. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

3. The all seeing Fire gives the steed of the plenitude to man, Fire the horse that comes swiftly to him for the riches; when he is pleased he journeys to the desirable good. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

4. O Fire, we kindle thy luminous and ageless flame; when the fuel of thee becomes more effective in its labour, it blazes up in heaven. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

5. O Fire, O Master of the brilliant Light, the offering is cast to thee with the word of illumination, O bearer of the offering, O master of the creature, achiever of works, O delightful Flame. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

6. In thy fires those greater fires of thee nurse every desirable good; they, they race, they run, they drive on in their impulse without a break. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

7. O Fire, those rays of thine, thy steeds of plenitude greaten the Vast; they gallop with tramplings of their hooves to the pens of the ray cows. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

8. Bring to us who laud thee, O Fire, new impelling forces that lead to happy worlds; may we be of those who with thee for their messenger sing the hymn of illumination in home and home. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

9. O delightful Flame, thou turnest both the ladles of the streaming clarity towards thy mouth; then mayst thou carry us high beyond in the utterances, O Master of might. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

10. Thus have they driven and controlled the Fire without a break by their words and their sacrifices; may he found in us the perfect hero might and the perfect power of the Horse. Bring to those who laud thee the force of thy impulse.

ISHA

SUKTA 7

l. O comrades, in you an integral force and complete laud to Fire the most powerful among the peoples, to the mighty child of energy.

2. Whom wheresoever they come into contact with, him men who have the power rapturously set alight in this house of man and all beings born strive to bring to birth.

3. Whenso we win completely the impulsions of force, completely the offerings human beings must give, then he gathers to himself the Ray of the light and the might and the Truth.

4. Yea, he creates the light of intuition even for one who is far off in the night, the purifying and imperishable Fire ravages the trees of the forest.

5. When in his service men cast down their sweat on the paths, they ascend to a self born ground as if to wide levels.

6. Him mortal man must come to know as one who holds the multitude of his desires so that he may establish in him all; he moves towards the sweet taste of the draughts of the wine and to the building of the house for man.

7. Pure and bright, verily, is he and he tears our desert dwelling place, [[Or, the solid ground on which we dwell,]] like a beast who tears, a beast with golden beard and tusks of bright purity, he is like a smith whose force is unafflicted by the heat of the Fire.

8. Yes, he is pure and bright and he is as one whose axe is like an eater and ever enters deeper; with a happy delivery his mother bore him, for he is an achiever of the work and wins enjoyment of the bliss.

9. O Fire, to whom is poured the running stream of the offering of light, the man who is a happy ground for establishing thee, in such mortals found the light, and the inspiration and the knowledge.

10. Even so, irresistible born, I receive the force of mind, the cow of vision given by thee. O Fire, then may Atri overcome the destroyers who satisfy thee not, may he overcome forces and men.

SUKTA 8

1. O Fire, created by our force, thee the Ancient One, the ancient seekers of Truth set blazing for their guard the master of sacrifice with his many delights who establishes all, Fire who dwells in the house, master of the house, the supremely desirable.

2. Thee, O Fire, men seated within as the ancient guest, the master of the house with his tresses of light, vast is his intuition, many are his forms, he brings out the riches, he is a giver of perfect peace and protection and a destroyer of the foe.

3. Thee the human people pray, O Fire, who knowest the word of invocation, who hast the just discernment, who art strong est to found the ecstasy, thee who dwellest in the secret cave, O happy Flame, and hast the vision of all things, the perfect sacrificer with the multitude of thy voices and the glory and beauty of thy light.

4. Thee, O Fire, who upholdest all things in every way we voicing thee with our words have approached with obeisance; so do thou accept us, O Angiras, a godhead kindled by the glory of a mortal and by his high illuminings.

5. O Fire, thou takest many forms for man and man and thou foundest for him his growth as of old, O thou lauded by many voices; many are the things on which thou feedest and thou illuminest them all with thy force, and none can do violence to the fury of thy blaze when thou blazest up in thy might.

6. Thee, O youthful Fire, in thy high kindling the gods have made a messenger and a carrier of the offerings; thee of whom light is the native seat and wide are the spaces through which thou movest, they have set when thou hast received the offerings as a keen burning eye that urges the thought.

7. Thee, O Fire, fed with offerings of light from the higher heaven the seekers of bliss [[Or, from of old; or, the ancient seekers of bliss]] kindled with an entire kindling, so now growing on the herbs to thy full might thou spreadest over wide earth spaces.

GAYA

SUKTA 9

1. Thee, O Fire, men bringing offerings pray, mortals the godhead; I meditate on thee as the knower of all things born and as such thou carriest our offerings without a break.

2. Fire is the priest of the call in the house of the giver who has plucked the grass for the seat of sacrifice and in him our sacrifices meet and our plenitudes of inspired knowledge.

3. Verily, the two tinders have brought to birth as if a new born infant Fire who does aright the pilgrim sacrifice, to be the upholder of the human beings.

4. Verily, thou art hard to seize like a son of crookednesses; many are the trees of the forest thou consumest, O Fire, like a beast in his pasture.

5. Now, verily, his rays with their smoke meet perfectly together when Trita, the triple one, blows upon him in heaven like a smelter, it is as if in the smelter that he whets his flame.

6. I by thy guardings, O Fire, and by thy utterances as the friend like men beset by hostile powers so may we pass beyond the stumbling places of mortals.

7. O forceful Fire, bring to us, to men, the treasure; may he cast his shafts, may he foster us, may he be with us for the conquest of the plenitude. Be with us in our battles that we may grow.

SUKTA 10

1. O Fire, bring to us a light full of energy, O unseizable Ray; for us by thy opulence pervading on every side cut out in our front a path to the plenitude.

2. O Fire, O Wonderful, come to us with thy will and the growth of the judgment; in thee the sacrificial Friend, achiever of the work can climb to almightiness.

3. Increase for us, O Fire, the acquisition and the growth of these who are men that are illuminates and by their laudings of thee have attained to the plenitudes of the riches,

4. who, O delightful Fire, have achieved the power of the horse and make beautiful their words of thee, strong men with their strength whose is the Vast that is greater even than heaven, for in them that glory by itself awakes.

5. These are those flaming rays of thine, O Fire, and they go blazing and violent, like lightnings that run over all quarters, like the voice of a chariot seeking the plenitude.

6. Soon, O Fire, may alike those of us who are opposed and obstructed attain to protection and the giving of the riches and our illuminates break through all directions and beyond.

7. Thou, O Fire, O Angiras, after and during the laud bring to us riches of a far reaching force, O Priest of the call, for those who laud thee and for our further laud. Be with us in our battles that we may grow.

SUTAMBHARA

SUKTA 11

1. Fire the guardian of men has been born, wakeful and discerning for a new happy journey; luminous is his front and with his heaven touching vast he shines out full of light and brilliant in his purity for the Bringers.

2. Fire the supreme intuition of the sacrifice, the representative priest, men have kindled high in the triple world of his session; let him come in one chariot with Indra and the gods and take his seat on the sacred grass, the Priest of the call, strong in will to sacrifice.

3. Unoppressed thou art born brilliant pure from the mothers twain, a rapturous Priest of the call thou hast risen up from the sun; they have increased thee with the offering of light, O Fire, fed with the oblation and thy smoke has become a ray of intuition lodged in heaven.

4. May the Fire come to our sacrifice with power to accomplish, men carry the Fire severally in house and house; the Fire has become the messenger and carrier of our offering; when men accept the Fire it is the seer will that they accept.

5. For thee, O Fire, this word most full of the honey sweetness, for thee this Thinking, let it be a happiness to thy heart; thee our words fill with force as the great rivers fill the sea and make thee grow.

6. Thee, O Fire, the Angiras sought and found hidden in the secrecy lodging in tree and tree; by our pressure on thee thou art born a mighty force, the Son of Force they call thee, O Angiras!

SUKTA 12

1. To Fire, the vast sacrificial Flame, to the Bull of the Truth, to the mighty lord I bring my thought as if the offering of light in the sacrifice, purified in the mouth I bring the word turned to meet him for the master of the herds.

2. O thou conscious of the Truth, of the Truth alone be conscious, cut out in succession many streams of the Truth; I know not how to travel by force or by division to the Truth of the shining lord.

3. By what thought of ours seeking the Truth by the Truth shalt thou become for us, O Fire, a new discoverer of the word? The god who is guardian of the order and laws of the Truth knows me but I know him not, the master of the conquering riches.

4. O Fire, who are these that are binders of the Adversary, who are the guardians, the luminous ones that shall possess and conquer? who keep the foundation of the Falsehood, O Fire? who are the guardians of the untrue Word?

5. These were thy comrades, O Fire, who have turned away from thee, they were benignant and have become malign; they have done violence to themselves by their words speaking crooked things to the seeker after straightness.

6. But he, O Fire, who desires with obeisance the sacrifice, guards the Truth of the luminous lord; let there come to him his wide and perfect habitation, the last state of man as he advances on his journey.

SUKTA 13

1. Singing the word of illumination we call to thee, singing the word of illumination we kindle, singing the word of illumination, O Fire, that thou mayst be our guard.

2. Seekers of the riches we meditate today the all achieving laud of the divine, heaven touching Fire.

3. May Fire accept our words, he who is the priest of the call in men; may he sacrifice to the divine kind.

4. Great is thy wideness, O Fire, our priest of the call, beloved and supremely desirable; by thee men carry out the sacrifice.

5. Thee high lauded, O Fire, the strong conqueror of the plenitudes, the illumined wise increase; so do thou give us the gift of a complete hero might.

6. As the rim of a wheel the spokes, so dost thou encompass the gods; thou shalt arrange for us our rich achievement.

SUKTA 14

1. Awake by the laud the Fire, let the immortal be kindled and let him set our offerings in the godheads.

2. Him they pray in the pilgrim sacrifices, mortals the divine and immortal who is strong for sacrifice in human kind.

3. Him, the divine Fire, the perpetual generations pray with the ladle dripping the clarity for the carrying of their offerings.

4. Fire at his birth has shone out slaying the destroyers, darkness by the light, he found the Ray Cows, the Waters, the Sun World.

5. Serve Fire the supremely desirable, the seer with his back of Light; may he come, may he hear my call.

6. The Fire they have made to grow by the light, the all seeing by their lauds that place rightly the thought, that seek for the word.

DHARUNA ANGIRASA

SUKTA 15

1. I bring my word to the creator and seer, him whom we must know, the glorious, the ancient one; Fire the Mighty One seated in the light, full of bliss, the holder of the Treasure, the continent of the Riches.

2. By the Truth they held the Truth that holds all, in the might of the sacrifice, in the supreme ether, they who reached the gods seated in the law that is the upholder of heaven, reached by the godheads born the unborn.

3. They weave bodies that reject evil, they weave a vast expansion hard to cross for the ancient one; he new born can cross through the regions [[Or, breaks through his converging hunters]] though they stand around him as around an angry lion.

4. When growing wide thou bearest like a mother birth after birth for firm foundation, for vision, when thou holdest and wearest out manifestation after manifestation, taking many forms thou encompassest all things with thyself.

5. May thy plenitude guard the last limit of thy force, the wide continent of the riches that milks out its abundance, O godhead: like a thief thou holdest in the secrecy that plane, awakening him to the consciousness of the great riches thou hast rescued Atri.

PURU

SUKTA 16

1. Create by the illumining word a wide expansion for the Light, for the divine Fire, whom mortals by their proclaimings of him set in their front as Mitra the friend.

2. He is men's priest of the call who by his illuminations carries in his two arms of the Understanding the offerings wholly in a continuous order; as Bhaga, the enjoyer, he reaches our desirable good.

3. In the lauding of this master of plenty, in his friendship as his light grows, for all things are in this Fire of the many voices, men have founded their strength in him, the Noble One.

4. Now, indeed, O Fire, these have reached a plenitude of heroic strength, around him as around one mighty, earth and heaven have become an inspired knowledge.

5. Now, voiced by our word, come to us and bring to us our desirable good; we here and the illumined seers, let us together found our blissful state. And do thou be with us in our battles that we may grow.

SUKTA 17

1. Mortal man should pray thee, O God, by the sacrifices because thou hast the right strength for his guard; when well- done is the pilgrim sacrifice man must pray the Fire that he may protect him.

2. By his mouth, in his complete law, thou becomest greater in the self glory and holdest in mind that rapturous heaven manifoldly brilliant in its light beyond the thinking mind.

3. This, indeed, is he who by the ray of this Fire has become possessed of the force and the word and whose rays by the seed of heaven blaze into a vast light.

4. By the will of this completely conscious achiever of works the riches are there in his car; so now is the Fire the one to be called and he is proclaimed in all the peoples.

5. Now, indeed, by the mouth of the Fire, can the luminous seers cleave to that desirable good; O son of energy, protect us that we may enter in, have power for the happy state. And do thou be with us in our battles that we may conquer.

DWITA MRIKTAWAHAS

SUKTA 18

1. Let the Fire with his multitude of delightful things, the guest of man, receive the laud at dawn, he who is immortal in mortals and takes joy in all their offerings.

2. The plenitude of his own understanding for the twofold power that carries the purified offering; he holds uninterruptedly the moon wine and he too who lauds thee, holds it, O immortal.

3. I call him by the word who is the light of long extended life for you the lords of plenty, you whose chariot goes abroad without hurt, O giver of the Horse,

4. in whom is the richly brilliant light of thought and they guard the utterances in their mouths; spread is the sacred seat and they found the inspirations all around it in the Godhead of the sun world.

5. They who have given me in the moment of the laud the fifty steeds of swiftness create for those lords of plenty a great and luminous inspired knowledge, create for those gods the Vast, with its gods, O Immortal, O Fire.

VAVRI

SUKTA 19

1. State upon state is born, covering upon covering has be come conscious and aware, in the lap of the mother he sees.

2. Awaking to an entire knowledge they have called and guard a sleepless strength, they have entered the strong fortified city.

3. Creatures born, men who people the earth have increased the luminosity of the son of the white mother; his neck wears the golden necklace, he has the utterance of the Vast, and with his honey wine he is the seeker of the plenitude.

4. He is as if the delightful and desirable milk of the mother, he is that which is uncompanioned abiding with the two companions; he is the blaze of the light, and the belly of the plenitude, he is the eternal invincible and the all conqueror.

5. O Ray, mayst thou be with us and play with us, unifying thy knowledge with the shining of the breath of life; may those flames of him be for us violent and intense and keenly whetted, strong to carry and settled in the breast.

PRAYASWATS

SUKTA 20

1. O Fire, O thou who art most strong to conquer the plenitudes, the wealth which thou holdest in mind that make full of inspiration by the words and set it to work in the gods as our ally.

2. They have grown on thy forceful strength, O Fire, yet impel us not on the way, they fall away and cleave to the hostility, cleave to the crookedness of one who has a law alien to thine.

3. Thee, O Fire, the ancient one, we choose in our sacrifices as the Priest of the call, one who accomplishes a discerning knowledge, and bringing the pleasant offering we call thee by the word.

4. So rightly make it that we may live in thy protection and that we may grow towards the Truth day by day, O forceful Fire, O strong in will, together rejoicing in the light of the Ray Cow, together rejoicing in the strength of the Heroes.

SASA

SUKTA 21

1. As the human we set thee within us, as the human we kindle thee; O Fire, O Angiras, as the human offer sacrifice to the gods for the seeker of the godheads.

2. O Fire, thou art kindled in the human being and well- satisfied; unceasing ladles go to thee, O perfect in thy birth, O thou who receivest as oblation the stream of his clarities!

3. Thee all the gods with one mind of acceptance made their envoy; men serving thee pray thee as the godhead in their sacrifices, O seer.

4. Let mortal man with will to the divine sacrifice to you, pray to the divine Fire; O brilliant Flame, high kindled shine; mayst thou take thy seat in the native home of the Truth, take thy seat in the native home of the peace.

VISHWASAMAN

SUKTA 22

1. O thou of the universal peace, as the Atri sing the word of illumination to Fire of the purifying light who is to be prayed in the pilgrim sacrifices, the Priest of the call, most rapturous in man.

2. Set within you Fire, the knower of all things born, as the divine ordinant of the rite; let your sacrifice march forward today most strong to bring the epiphany of the gods.

3. Mortals we fix our minds on thee the godhead who hast the mind of conscious knowledge for the protection as we journey, for the guardian supremely desirable.

4. O Fire, become conscious of this in us, this is our word, O forceful Flame: O strong-jawed master of the house this is thou whom the Atris magnify with their lauds, whom the Atris glorify with their words.

DYUMNA VISHWACHARSHANI

SUKTA 23

1. O Fire, bring by the force of the light a forceful wealth which shall overcome by thy mouth in the plenitudes all the peoples.

2. O forceful Fire, bring that wealth which overcomes armies, for thou art the true, the wonderful, the giver of the plenitude of the Ray Cows.

3. All men who have plucked the sacred grass with one mind of acceptance approach thee, the beloved Priest of the call in their houses and reach in thee the multitude of desirable things.

4. This is the labourer in all man's works and he holds in himself an all besieging force. O pure brilliant Flame, shine out full of joy and opulence in these our habitations, shine out full of light, O our purifier.

GAUPAYANAS OR LAUPAYANAS

SUKTA 24

1 2. O Will, become our inmost inmate, become auspicious to us, become our deliverer and our armour of protection. Thou who art the lord of substance and who of that substance hast the divine knowledge, come towards us, give us its most luminous opulence.

3 4. Awake! hear our call! keep us far from all that seeks to turn us to evil. O shining One, O Flame of purest Light, thee for our comrades we desire that even now they may have the bliss and peace.

VASUYUS

SUKTA 25

1. Raise thy song towards the Will, towards the divine for thy increasing, for he is our lord of substance and he lavishes; he is the son of the seekers of knowledge; he is the keeper of the Truth who ferries us beyond the surge of our destroyers.

2. This is the true in his being whom the seers of old kindled, yea, the gods too kindled him with perfect outshinings into his wide substance of the light, the Priest of the oblation with his tongue of ecstasy.

3. O Flame supremely desirable, so by our supreme thinking, by our brightest perfected mentality, by its utter cleaving away of all evil, let thy light give unto us the bliss.

4. The Will is that which shines out in the gods, the Will is that which enters with its light into mortals, the Will is the carrier of our oblation; the Will seek and serve in all your thoughts.

5. The Will gives to the giver of sacrifice the Son [[The Son of the sacrifice is a constant image in the Veda. Here it is the godhead himself, Agni who gives himself as a son to man, a Son who delivers his father. Agni is also the War-Horse and the steed of the journey, the White Horse, the mystic galloping Dadhikravan who carries us through the battle to the goal of our voyaging.]] born of his works who teems with the many inspirations and many voices of the soul, the highest, the unassailable, the Master of things who opens our ears to the knowledge.

6. Yea, 'tis the Will that gives to us the Lord of existences who conquers in the battle by souls of power; Will gives to us our swift galloping steed of battle ever conquering, never conquered.

7. That which is strongest in us to upbear, we give it to the Will. Sing out the Vast, O thou whose wide substance is its light. Thy opulence is as if the largeness of the Goddess [[Aditi, the vast Mother.]] herself; upward is the rush of thy plenitudes.

8. Luminous are thy flaming radiances; there rises from thee a vast utterance like the voice of the pressing stone of delight; yea, thy cry of itself rises up like a thunder chant from the heavens.

9. Thus, desiring substance, we adore the Will who is forceful to conquer. May he who has the perfect power of his workings, carry us beyond all the forces that seek to destroy us, like a ship over the waters.

SUKTA 26

l. O Flame, O purifier, bring to us by thy tongue of rapture, O god, the gods and offer to them sacrifice.

2. Thou who drippest the clarity, thou of the rich and varied luminousness, we desire thee because thou hast the vision of our world of the Truth. Bring to us the gods for their manifesting. [[Or, "for the journeying" to the luminous world of the Truth, or "for the eating" of the oblations.]]

3. O Seer, we kindle thee in thy light and thy vastness in the march of our sacrifice who carriest the offerings on their Journey.

4. Come, O Will, with all the godheads for the giving of the oblation; thee we accept as the Priest of the offering.

5. For the sacrificer who presses the wine of his delight, bring, O Flame, a perfect energy. Sit with the gods on the seat of the soul's fullness.

6. O Flame, thou burnest high and increasest the divine laws and art the conqueror of a thousandfold riches; thou art the messenger of the gods who hast the word.

7. Set within you the Flame who knows the births, bearer of the offering, youngest vigour, divine sacrificer in the seasons of the Truth.

8.Today let thy sacrifice march forward unceasingly, thy sacrifice that shall bring the whole epiphany of the godheads. Strew the seat of thy soul that there they may sit.

9. There let the Life powers [[The Maruts.]] take their seat and the Riders of the Horse [[The twin Ashwins.]] and the Lord of Love [[Mitra.]] and the Lord of Wideness, [[Varuna.]] even the gods with all their nation.

TRYARUNA TRAIVRISHNA, TRASADASYU PAURUKUTSA, ASHWAMEDHA BHARATA

SUKTA 27

1. O Will, O Universal Power, [[Or, Godhead,]] the mighty One supreme in vision, master of his being, lord of his plenitudes has given me his two cows of the Light that draw his wain. He of the triple dawn, son of the triple Bull, [[The Triple Bull is Indra, lord of the three luminous realms of Swar, the Divine Mind; Tryaruna Trasadasyu is the half-god, man turned into the Indra type; therefore he is described by all the usual epithets of Indra, "Asura", "Satpati", "Maghavan". The triple dawn is the dawn of these three realms on the human mentality.]] has awakened to knowledge with the ten thousands [[Thousand symbolises absolute completeness. But there are ten subtle powers of the illumined mind each of which has to have its entire plenitude.]] of his plenitude.

2. He gives to me the hundred and twenty [[The symbolic figure of the illuminations of divine knowledge as the series of dawns (cows) of the twelve months of the year and twelve periods of the sacrifice. There are again ten times twelve to correspond to the ten subtle sisters, powers of the illumined mentality.]] of the cows of dawn; his two shining [[The two shining horses of Indra identical probably with the two cows of light of the first verse; they are the two vision-powers of the supramental Truth-Consciousness, right-hand and left-hand, probably direct truth-discernment and intuition. As cows symbolising light of knowledge they yoke themselves to the material mind, the wain; as horses symbolising power of knowledge to the chariot of Indra, the liberated pure mind.]] horses he gives, yoked to the car, that bear aright the yoke. O Will, O Universal Power, do thou rightly affirmed and increasing extend peace and bliss to the lord of the triple dawn.

3. For thus has he done desiring thy grace of mind, new-given for him, new-manifested, -- he, the disperser of the destroyers, [[Trasadasyu; in all things he reproduces the characteristics of Indra.]] the lord of the triple dawn who with attentive mind gives response to the many words of my many births. [[The seer by this self-fulfilment on the higher plane is born, as it were, into many realms of consciousness and from each of these there go up its words that express the impulses in it which seek a divine fulfilment. The Mind-Soul answers to these and gives assent, it supplies to the word of expression the answering word of illumination and to the Life that seeks the Truth it gives the power of intelligence that finds and holds the Truth.]]

4. May he who answers to me with assent give to the illumined giver of the Horse-sacrifice, [[The Horse-sacrifice is the offering of the Life-power with all its impulses, desires, enjoyments to the divine existence. The Life-soul (Dwita) is itself the giver of this sacrifice which it performs when by the power of Agni it attends to vision on its own vital plane, when it becomes, in the figure of the hymn, the illumined seer, asvamedha.]] by the word of illumination, possession of the goal of his journey; may he give power of intelligence to the seeker of the Truth.

5. A hundred strong bulls of the diffusion [[The complete hundred powers of the Life by whom all the abundance of the vital plane is showered upon the growing man. The vital forces being the instrument of desire and enjoyment, this diffusion is like the outpouring of the wine of delight that raises the soul to new and intoxicating joys.]] raise me up to joy; the gifts of the sacrificer of the steed are as outpourings of the wine of delight with their triple infusions. [[The delight extracted from existence is typefied by the honey-wine of the Soma; it is mixed with the milk, the curds and the grain, the milk being that of the luminous cows, the curds the fixation of their yield in the intellectual mind and the grain the formulation of the light in the force of the physical mind. These symbolic senses are indicated by the double meaning of the words used,go, dadhi, yava.]]

6. May the God-Mind and the God-Will uphold in the sacrificer of the Horse and giver of his hundred a perfect energy and a vast force of battle even as in heaven the Sun of Light indestructible. [[Perfect and vast energy in the vital being corresponding to the infinite and immortal light of the Truth in the mental being.]]

VISHWAWARA

SUKTA 28

1. The Flame of Will burning high rises to his pure light in the heaven of mind; wide he extends his illumination and fronts the Dawn. She comes, moving upward, laden with all desirable things, seeking the gods with the oblation, luminous with the clarity.

2. When thou burnest high thou art king of immortality and thou cleavest to the doer of sacrifice to give him that blissful state; he to whom thou comest to be his guest, holds in him self all substance and he sets thee within in his front.

3. O Flame, put forth thy battling might for a vast enjoyment [[The Vedic immortality is a vast beatitude, a large enjoyment of the divine and infinite existence reposing on a perfect union between the Soul and Nature; the soul becomes King of itself and its environment, conscious on all its planes, master of them, with Nature for its bride delivered from divisions and discords into an infinite and luminous harmony.]] of bliss, may there be thy highest illumination; create a well-governed union of the Lord and his Spouse, set thy foot on the greatness of hostile powers.

4. I adore, O Flame, the glory of thy high-blazing mightiness. Thou art the Bull with the illuminations; thou burnest up in the march of our sacrifices.

5. O Flame that receivest our offerings, perfect guide of the sacrifice, high-kindled offer our oblation to the godheads; for thou art the bearer of our offerings.

6. Cast the offering, serve the Will with your works [[Or, set the Will to its workings]] while your sacrifice moves forward to its goal, accept the carrier of our oblation.

MANDALA SIX

BHARADWAJA BARHASPATYA

SUKTA 1

1. O potent Fire, thou wert the first thinker of this thought and the Priest of the call. O Male, thou hast created everywhere around thee a force invulnerable to overpower every force.

2. And now strong for sacrifice, thou hast taken thy session in the seat of aspiration, one aspired to, a flamen of the call, an imparter of the impulse. Men, building the godheads, have grown conscious of thee, the chief and first, and followed to a mighty treasure.

3. In thee awake, they followed after the Treasure as in the wake of one who walks on a path with many possessions, in the wake of the vast glowing-visioned embodied Fire that casts its light always and for ever.

4. Travellers with surrender to the plane of the godhead, seekers of inspired knowledge, they won an inviolate inspiration, they held the sacrificial Names and had delight in thy happy vision.

5. The peoples increase thee on the earth; both kinds of riches of men increase thee. O Fire, our pilot through the battle, thou art the deliverer of whom we must know, ever a father and mother to human beings.

6. Dear and servable is this Fire in men; a rapturous Priest of the call has taken up his session, strong for sacrifice. Pressing the knee may we come to thee with obeisance of surrender when thou flamest alight in the house.

7. O Fire, we desire thee, the god to whom must rise our cry, we the right thinkers, the seekers of bliss, the builders of the godheads. O Fire, shining with light thou leadest men through the vast luminous world of heaven.

8. To the seer, the Master of creatures who rules over the eternal generations of peoples, the Smiter, the Bull of those that see, the mover to the journey beyond who drives us, the purifying Flame, the Power in the sacrifice, Fire the Regent of the Treasures!

9. O Fire, the mortal has done his sacrifice and achieved his labour who has worked out the gift of the oblation with the fuel of thy flame and wholly learned the way of the offering by his prostrations of surrender; he lives in thy guard and holds in himself all desirable things.

10. O Fire, O son of Force, may we offer to thy greatness that which is great, worshipping thee with the obeisance and the fuel and the offering, the altar and the word and the utterance. For we would work and strive in thy happy right thinking, O Fire.

11. O thou who art filled with inspiration and a passer of barriers, O thou who has extended earth and heaven by the wideness of thy light and thy inspired discoveries of knowledge, shine wider yet in us with thy large and solid and opulent amassings, O Fire.

12. O Prince of Riches, fix always in us that in which are the Gods, settle here many herds for the begotten son. In us may there be the happy things of true inspiration and the multitude of the large impulsions from which evil is far.

13. O King, O Fire, let me enjoy by thee and thy princehood of the riches many riches in many ways; for, O Fire of many blessings, there are many treasures for thy worshipper in thee, the King.

SUKTA 2

l. O Fire, thou travellest like a friend to the glory where is our home. O wide-seeing Prince of the Treasure, thou nurturest our inspiration and our growth.

2. Men who see aspire to thee with the word and the sacrifice. To thee comes the all-seeing Horse that crosses the mid world, the Horse that no wolf tears.

3. The Men of Heaven with a single joy set thee alight to be the eye of intuition of the sacrifice when this human being, this seeker of bliss, casts his offering in the pilgrim-rite.

4. The mortal should grow in riches who achieves the work by the Thought for thee, the great giver; he is in the keeping of the Vast Heaven and crosses beyond the hostile powers and their evil.

5. O Fire, when mortal man arrives by the fuel of thy flame to the way of the oblation and the sharpening of thy intensities, he increases his branching house, his house of the hundred of life.

6. The smoke from thy blaze journeys and in heaven is out stretched brilliant-white. O purifying Fire, thou shinest with a flame like the light of the sun.

7. Now art thou here in men, one to be aspired to and a beloved guest; for thou art like one delightful and adorable in the city and as if our son and a traveller of the triple world.

8. O Fire, thou art driven by the will in our gated house like a horse apt for our work; thou art by thy nature like a far-spreading mansion and like a galloper of winding ways and a little child.

9. O Fire, thou art like a beast in thy pasture and devourest even the unfallen things; the lustres of thy blaze tear to pieces the woodlands, O ageless Flame.

10. O Fire, thou comest a Priest of the call into the house of men that do the Rite of the Path. Make us complete in the treasure, O Master of men! O Angiras flame-seer, rejoice in our oblation.

11. O Fire, O friendly Light, O Godhead, turn to the Godheads, mayst thou speak for us the true thought of Earth and Heaven; move to the peace and the happy abode and the men of Heaven. Let us pass beyond the foe and the sin and the stumbling; let us pass beyond these things, pass in thy keeping through them safe.

SUKTA 3

1. The mortal who longs for the Godhead shall take up his home with thee, O Fire, he is born into the Truth and a guardian of the Truth and comes to thy wide Light, -- he in whom thou being Varuna takest with Mitra a common delight and thou guardest that mortal, O God, by thy casting away from him of evil.

2. He has sacrificed with sacrifices, he has achieved his labour by his works, he has given to the Fire whose boons grew ever in opulence. And so there befalls him not the turning away of the Glorious Ones; evil comes not to him nor the insolence of the adversary.

3. Faultless is thy seeing like the sun's; terrible marches thy thought when blazing with light thou neighest aloud like a force of battle. This Fire was born in the pleasant woodland and is a rapturous dweller somewhere in the night.

4. Fiery-sharp is his march and great his body, -- he is like a horse that eats and champs with his mouth: he casts his tongue like an axe to every side, like a smelter he melts the log that he burns.

5. He sets like an archer his shaft for the shooting, he sharpens his powers of light like an edge of steel. He is the traveller of the night with rich rapid movements; he has thighs of swift motion and is like a bird that settles on a tree.

6. This friendly Light is like a singer of the word and clothes himself with the Rays, he rhapsodises with his flame. This is the shining One who journeys by night and by day to the Gods, the shining Immortal who journeys through the day to the Gods.

7. The cry of him is like the voice of ordaining Heaven; [[Or, the cry of him in his worship of sacrifice is like the voice of Heaven;]] he is the shining Bull that bellows aloud in the growths of the forest. He goes with his light and his race and his running and fills Earth and Heaven with his riches; they are like wives happy in their spouse.

8. He flashes like the lightning with his own proper strength, his own founding and helpful illuminations. As if heaven's craftsman he has fashioned the army of the Life-Gods and lightens ablaze in his exultant speed.

SUKTA 4

1. O Son of Force, O Priest of the call, even as always in man's forming of the godhead thou sacrificest with his sacrifices, sacrifice so for us to the Gods today, O Fire, an equal power to equal powers, one who desires to the Gods who desire.

2. He is wide in his light like a seer of the Day; he is the one we must know and founds an adorable joy. In him is universal life, he is the Immortal in mortals; he is the Waker in the Dawn, our Guest, the Godhead who knows all births that are.

3. The heavens seem to praise his giant might; he is robed in lustre and brilliant like the Sun. Ageless the purifying Fire moves abroad and cuts down even the ancient things of the Devourer. [[Or, the enjoyer.]]

4. O Son, thou art the speaker, thy food is thy seat; Fire from his very birth has made his food the field of his race. O Strength-getter, found strength in us! Thou conquerest like a king and thy dwelling is within, there where there comes not any render.

5. He eats his food and sharpens his sword of defence; he is like the Life-God a master of kingdoms and passes beyond the nights. O Fire, may we pierce through the foe, O thou who breakest like a galloping steed all that battle against thy appointings, hurting around thee our hurters as they fall upon us.

6. O Fire, thou art like the Sun with thy splendid illuminations and hast wide extended Earth and Heaven with thy light. Smeared with lustre, [[Or, anointed with light,]] rich in brilliance he shepherds away the darkness and like a son of the desire of the Gods rushes onward in his march.

7. We have chosen thee most rapturous with the flaming lights of thy illuminations; O Fire, hear for us that which is great. O Godhead of Fire, the most strong Gods fill thee like Indra with might and like the Life-God with riches.

8. O Fire, thou journeyest happily to the treasures by paths where the wolf rends not, and carriest us beyond all evils. These high things thou givest to the luminous wise; thou lavishest the bliss on him who voices thee with the word. May we revel in rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 5

1. I call to you by my thoughts, Fire, the youngest of the gods in whose words is no bale, the Youth, the Son of Force. He is a mind of the knowledge free from all that hurts; his gifts are many and he journeys to the riches where all boons are.

2. O Priest of the call, Priest with thy many flame-forces, [[Or, forms of flame,]] in the night and in the light the Lords of sacrifice cast on thee their treasures. As in earth are founded all the worlds, they founded all happinesses in the purifying Fire.

3. Thou art the Ancient of Days and hast taken thy seat in these peoples and becomest by the will their charioteer of desirable things. O Conscient, O thou who knowest all births that are, thou walkest wide for thy worshipper in unbroken order to the Treasures.

4. O Fire, O friendly Light, O most burning Power, the enemy who is hidden and would destroy us, the enemy who is within us and would conquer, leap fiery-forceful with thy affliction of flame and consume him with thy male and ageless fires.

5. When man gives to thee with the sacrifice and the fuel and with his spoken words and his chants of illumination, he becomes, O Immortal, O Son of Force, a mind of knowledge among mortals and shines with the riches and inspiration and light.

6. Missioned create that swiftly, O Fire. Force is thine, resist with thy force our confronters. When revealed by thy lights, thou art formulated by our words, rejoice in the far-sounding thought of thy adorer.

7. O Fire, may we possess in thy guard that high desire, -- possess, O Lord of the treasures, that Treasure and its heroes, possess replenishing thee thy plenitude, possess, O ageless Fire, thy ageless light.

SUKTA 6

1. Man turns with a new sacrifice to the Son of Force when he desires the Way and the guard. He arrives in his journeyings to the heavenly Priest of the call, the Priest shining with light, but black is his march through the forests he tears.

2. He grows white and thunderous, he stands in a luminous world; he is most young with his imperishable clamouring fires. This is he that makes pure and is full of his multitudes and, even as he devours, goes after the things that are many, the things that are wide.

3. O Fire, thy lights range wind-impelled on every side, pure as thou art pure. Many things they violate and break in their rashness and enjoy the forests of their pleasure, heavenly lights, seers of the ninefold-ray.

4. O Fire of the burning purities, pure and flaming-bright are these thy horses that loosed to the gallop raze the earth. Then wide is thy wandering and its light shines far as it drives them up to the dappled Mother's heights.

5. Then the tongue of the Bull leaps constantly like the thunderbolt loosed of the God who fights for the herds of the Light. The destruction of Fire is like the charge of a hero; he is terrible and irresistible, he hews the forests asunder.

6. Thou hast spread out the earthly speed-ranges by thy light and the violence of thy mighty scourge. Repel by thy forceful powers all dangerous things; turn to conquer those who would conquer us, shatter our confronters.

7. O rich in thy brilliances, Fire with thy manifold luminous mights, rivet to us the rich and various treasure, most richly diverse, that awakens us to knowledge and founds our expanding growth. O delightful God, to him who voices thee with delightful words the vast delightful wealth and its many hero-keepers!

SUKTA 7

1. Head of heaven and traveller of the earth a universal Power was born to us in the Truth, a Guest of men, a seer and absolute King; the Gods brought to birth universal Fire and made him in the mouth a vessel of the oblation.

2. All they together came to him, a navel knot of sacrifice, a house of riches, a mighty point of call in the battle. Charioteer of the Works of the way, eye of intuition of the sacrifice, the Gods brought to birth the universal Godhead.

3. O Fire, from thee is born the Seer, the Horse and of thee are the Heroes whose might overcomes the adversary. O King, O universal Power, found in us the desirable treasures.

4. O Immortal, all the Gods come together to thee in thy birth as to a new-born child. O universal Power, they travelled to immortality by the works of thy will when thou leapedst alight from the Father and Mother.

5. O Fire, universal Godhead, none could do violence to the laws of thy mighty workings because even-in thy birth in the lap of the Father and the Mother thou hast discovered the light of intuition of the Days in manifested things. [[Or, in all sorts of knowledge.]]

6. The heights of heaven were measured into form by the eye of this universal Force, they were shaped by the intuition of the Immortal. All the worlds are upon his head; the seven far-flowing rivers climbed from him like branches.

7. The Universal mighty of will measured into form the kingdom of middle space; a Seer, he shaped the luminous planes of Heaven. He has spread around us all these worlds; he is the guardian of immortality and its indomitable defender.

SUKTA 8

1. Now have I spoken aloud the force of the brilliant Male who fills the world, the discoveries of knowledge of the god who knows all things that are. A new and pure and beautiful thought is streaming like sacramental wine to Fire, the universal Godhead.

2. Fire is the guardian of the laws of all workings and he kept safe the laws of his action and motion even in the moment of his birth in the supreme ether. The Universal mighty of will measured into shape the middle world and touched heaven with his greatness.

3. The Wonderful, the Friend propped up earth and heaven and made the darkness a disappearing thing by the Light. He rolled out the two minds like skins; the Universal assumed every masculine might.

4. The Great Ones seized him in the lap of the waters and the Peoples came to the King with whom is the illumining Word. Messenger of the luminous Sun, Life that expands in the Mother brought Fire the universal Godhead from the supreme Beyond.

5. Found for those who from age to age speak the word that is new, the word that is a discovery of knowledge, O Fire, their glorious treasure; but cut him in twain who is a voice of evil, cast him low by thy force of light like a tree with the thunderbolt, imperishable [[Or, ageless]] king.

6. O Fire, uphold in our masters of the treasure their indestructible [[Or, unaging]] hero-force and unbending might of battle. O universal Fire, may we by thy safe keepings conquer the plenitude of the hundreds and the plenitude of the thousands.

7. O our impeller, [[Or, O doer of sacrifice,]] holder of the triple session, shield our luminous seers with thy indomitable guardian fires. Keep safe, O Fire, the army of those who have given, O Universal, hearing our hymn to thee deliver to its forward march.

SUKTA 9

1. A day that is black and a day-that is argent bright, two worlds revolve in their different paths by forces that we must know. Fire, the universal Godhead, like a king that comes to birth has thrust the Darknesses down by the Light.

2. I know not the woof, I know not the warp, nor what is this web that they weave moving to and fro in the field of their motion and labour. There are secrets that must be told and of someone the son speaks them here, one highest beyond through his father lower than he.

3. He knows the warp, he knows the woof, he tells in their time the things that must be spoken. This is the guardian of immortality who wakes to the knowledge of these things; walking here below he is one highest beyond who sees through another.

4. This is the pristine Priest of the call, behold him! this is the immortal Light in mortals. This is he that is born and grows with a body and is the Immortal seated and steadfast for ever.

5. An immortal Light set inward for seeing, a swiftest mind within in men that walk on the way. All the Gods with a single mind, a common intuition, move aright in their divergent paths towards the one Will.

6. My ears range wide to hear and wide my eyes to see, wide this Light that is set in the heart; wide walks my mind and I set my thought afar; something there is that I shall speak; something that now I shall think.

7. All the gods were in awe of thee when thou stoodest in the darkness and bowed down before thee, O Fire. May the Universal Godhead keep us that we may be safe, may the Immortal keep us that we may be safe.

SUKTA 10

1. When the pilgrim-rite moves on its way, set in your front the divine ecstatic Fire, place him in front by your words, the Flame of the good riddance: [[The word suvrkti corresponds to the katharsis of the Greek mystics -- the clearance, riddance or rejection of all perilous and impure stuff from the consciousness. It is Agni Pavaka, the purifying Fire who brings to us this riddance or purification, "suvrikti".]] he is the Knower of all things born; his light shines wide and he shall make easy for us the progressions of the sacrifice.

2. O Fire, kindled by man's fires, Priest of the call who comest with thy light, Priest of the many flame-armies, hearken to the anthem our thoughts strain out pure to the godhead like pure clarified butter, [[Here we have the clue to the symbol of the "clarified butter" in the sacrifice; like the others it is used in its double meaning, "clarified butter" or, as we may say, "the light-offering".]] even as Mamata chanted to him her paeon.

3. He among mortals is fed on inspiration, the illumined who gives with his word to the Fire, the seer whom the Fire of the brilliant illuminations settles by his luminous safeguardings in the conquest of the Pen where are the herds of the Light.

4. Fire of the blackened trail in his very birth has filled wide earth and heaven with his far-seeing light. Now has Fire that makes pure been seen by his bright flame even through much darkness of the billowing Night.

5. Found, O Fire, for us and the masters of plenty by thy safeguardings packed with the plenitudes a treasure of richly brilliant kinds; for these are they who surpass all others in their opulence and inspiration and hero-mights.

6. O Fire, yearn to the sacrifice that the bringer of the offering casts to thee; found the rapture. Hold firm in the Bharadwajas the perfect purification; guard them in their seizing of the riches of the quest.

7. Scatter all hostile things, increase the revealing Word. May we revel in the rapture, strong with strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 11

1. Missioned and strong to sacrifice, offer the sacrifice, Priest of the call; O Fire, put away from us as if by the applied force of the Life-gods all that opposes. Turn in their paths towards our offering Mitra and Varuna and the twin Lords of the journey and Earth and Heaven.

2. To us thou art our priest of the invocation, harmless and perfect in ecstasy; thou art the god within in mortals that makes the discoveries of knowledge; thou art the carrier with the burning mouth, with the purifying flame of oblation. O Fire, worship with sacrifice thy own body.

3. In thee the understanding is full of riches and it desires the gods, the divine births, that the word may be spoken and the sacrifice done, when the singer, the sage, wisest of the Angirasas chants his honey-rhythm in the rite.

4. He has leaped into radiance and is wise of heart and wide of light; O Fire, sacrifice to the largeness of Earth and Heaven. All the five peoples lavish the oblation with obeisance of surrender and anoint as the living being Fire the bringer of their satisfactions.

5. When the sacred grass has been plucked with prostration of surrender to the Fire, when the ladle of the purification full of the light-offering has been set to its labour, when the home has been reached in the house of Earth and the sacrifice lodged like an eye in the sun, --

6. O Son of Force, O Fire, kindling with the gods thy fires, Priest of the call, Priest with thy many flame-armies, dispense to us the Treasures; shining with light let us charge beyond the sin and the struggle.

SUKTA 12

1. In the midmost of the gated house Fire, the Priest of the call, the King of the sacred seat and the whip of swiftness, to sacrifice to Earth and Heaven! This is the Son of Force in whom is the Truth; he stretches out from afar with his light like the sun.

2. When a man sacrifices in thee, O King, O Lord of sacrifice, when he does well his works in the wise and understanding Fire like Heaven in its all-forming labour, triple thy session; thy speed is as if of a deliverer, when thou comest to give the sacrifice whose offerings are man's human fullnesses.

3. A splendour in the forest, most brilliant-forceful is the speed of his journeying; he is like a whip on the path and ever he grows and blazes. He is like a smelter who does hurt to none; he is the Immortal who wakes of himself to knowledge: he cannot be turned from his way mid the growths of the earth.

4. Fire, the knower of all things born, is hymned by our paeans in the house as if in one that walks on the way. He feeds on the Tree and conquers by our will like a war-horse; this shining Bull is adored by us with sacrifice like a father.

5. And now his splendours chant aloud and he hews with ease and walks along the wideness of the earth. He is rapid in his race and in a moment is loosed speeding to the gallop: he is like a thief that runs; his light is seen beyond the desert places.

6. O War-Horse, us from the bondage deliver, kindling, O Fire, with all thy fires; for thou travellest to the Riches and scatterest the forces of affliction and sorrow. May we revel in the rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 13

1. O felicitous Fire, of thee are all felicities and they grow wide from thee like branches from a tree. For quickly come, in the piercing of the Python adversary, the Riches and the desirable plenty and the Rain of Heaven and the flowing of the Waters.

2. Thou art Bhaga of the felicities and thou pourest on us the ecstasy and takest up thy house in us, a pervading presence and a potent splendour. O divine Fire, like Mitra thou art a feeder on the vast Truth and the much joy and beauty.

3. O Fire born of the Truth, O thinker and knower, when consenting with the Child of the Waters thou takest pleasure in a man and speedest him with the Treasure, he becomes a master over beings and in his might slays the Python adversary and becomes a seer and carries out with him the riches of the Dweller in the Cave.

4. O Son of Force, the mortal who has reached to the intensity of thee by the word and the utterance and the altar and the sacrifice, draws to him sufficiency of every kind of wealth, O divine Fire, and walks on the way with his riches.

5. O Fire, O Son of Force, found for men that they may grow, happy riches of inspiration with strength of its hero-keepers, -- many herds, thy creation in thy might, but now a food for the wolf and the foe and the destroyer.

6. O Son of Force, become the vast speaker within us; give us the Son of our begetting, give us all that is packed with the plenitudes; let me enjoy by my every word satisfaction of fullness. May we revel in the rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 14

1. When mortal man by his musings comes to take pleasure of work and thought in the Fire, he shines with light and is one supreme; he receives the impulsion that leads him to safety.

2. The Fire is the thinker and knower, the Fire is a mightiest disposer of works and a seer. To Fire the Priest of the invocation the peoples of men aspire in their sacrifices.

3. Of many kinds are they who seek thy safeguard and strive with the Fire for his riches; men breaking through the Destroyer seek to overcome his lawless strength by the order of their works.

4. The Fire gives to man a Master of beings, a Warrior who overbears the charge of the foe and wins the Waters; the enemies are afraid at his very sight and scatter in panic from his puissance.

5. The Fire is the godhead who rescues mortal man by knowledge from the Binder. A forceful thing is the treasure of his riches, unencircled by the adversary, unbesieged in its plenitudes.

6. O Fire, O friendly Light, O Godhead turn to the Godheads, mayest thou speak for us the true thought of Earth and Heaven; march in peace to the happy abode and the Men of Heaven. Let us pass safe beyond the foe and the sin and the stumbling. Let us pass beyond these things, pass in thy keeping through them safe.

BHARADWAJA BARHASPATYA OR VITAHAVYA ANGIRASA

SUKTA 15

1. Thou must crown with the word the guest who wakes from sleep with the dawn, Master of all these peoples. He is pure from his very birth and surely he comes to us from heaven in his time; long too, a child from the womb, he feeds on all that is unfallen.

2. The Bhrigus set in the Tree the godhead of our aspiration with his high flame of light like a friend well-confirmed in his place. And now, O Wonderful, well-pleased in him who has cast to thee the offering, thou art magnified by wordings of thy power from day to day.

3. Be in us the one whom the wolf cannot rend, the god who makes grow the discernment, makes grow the supreme inner Warrior who delivers. [[Or, be our deliverer from the enemy beyond and within us.]] O Son of Force, extend in mortals the Riches, the wide-spreading House, for the caster of the offering, for Bharadwaja the wide-spreading House.

4. Crown must thou the guest shining with light, the Male of the Sun-world, the Priest of man's invocation who makes perfect the Rite of the Path. Crown with your acts of purification the Seer whose speech has its home in the Light, [[Or, has its home in the Heaven, or, houses the Light,]] the Carrier of offerings, the Traveller, the Godhead of Fire.

5. He shines with the light that makes pure, the light that awakens to knowledge, shines in beauty on the earth as if with a splendour of Dawn. He is as if one hewing his way in the march and battle of the shining Horse; he is like one athirst and luminously blazing, the ageless Fire.

6. Fire and again Fire set to work with your fuel, chant with your speech the dear, the beloved Guest. Approach and set the Immortal alight with your words; a god he enjoys in the gods our desirable things, -- a god, he enjoys our works in the gods.

7. I chant the Fire that is kindled with the word for fuel, the Fire that is pure and makes pure; Fire that is steadfast for ever and marches in front in the Rite of the Path. We desire with his felicities the Illumined, the Priest of the call, the harmless, rich with many blessings, the Seer who knows all births that are.

8. O Fire, they have set thee here the Messenger, the Immortal in generation after generation, the Carrier of offerings, protector of man and the Godhead of his prayer. Gods alike and mortals sit with obeisance before the all-pervading Master of the peoples, the ever-wakeful Fire.

9. O Fire, according to the laws of thy works thou pervadest either race; thou art the messenger of the Gods and rangest both the worlds. Since we have accepted thy thinking and the right understanding that is thine, be to us our triple armour of defence and benignant helper.

10. May we who know not come into touch with this great knower with his true front and just walk and perfect vision. May he who knows all manifested things [[Or, all kinds of knowledge]] do sacrifice for us, may Fire voice our offering in the world of the Immortals.

11. O heroic Fire, thou guardest and bringest safe to the other side the man who has reached to the Thought for thee the Seer and achieved the intensity of the sacrifice or its ascending movement; thou fillest him with might and riches.

12. O Fire that hast the Force, guard us from fault, guard from one who would subject us. May there come to thee along the path full of destructions the thousandfold delectable treasure.

13. Fire, the Priest of the invocation, is a king and the Master in our house; all the births he knows, he is of all things born the Knower. He is strong to sacrifice and the Truth is in him; let him do sacrifice for gods and mortals.

14. O Fire, O Light that makest pure, O summoning Priest of man's sacrifice, today when thou comest as a doer of worship, today when thou growest all-pervading in thy greatness and offerest the things of the Truth for sacrifice, today carry with thee our offerings, O ever-youthful Fire, even the truths that are thine.

15. Open thy manifesting eye on our firm-based pleasant things; let a man set thee within him to sacrifice to Earth and Heaven. Protect us, O King of Riches, in our conquest of the plenitudes; O Fire, may we pass safe through all the stumbling-places. Let us pass beyond these things, pass in thy keeping through them safe.

16. O Fire with thy strong armies of flame, sit with the gods, first of them all, in the wool-flecked lair where the Nest is ready and the light-offering; lead for the doer of the rite, for the presser of the wine rightly on its paths the sacrifice.

17. This is that Fire whom the ordainers of works churn out like Atharvan of old; a Power unbewildered, they led him in his zigzag walk from the dusky Nights.

18. Be born to us in our all-forming labour for the coming of the Gods, for our peace. Bring the gods to us, the Immortals, the builders of the growing Truth; give to our sacrifice touch on the gods.

19. O Fire, O man's master of the house, we have fed thee with our fuel and made thee a vastness; let the works of the house master be unhalting, make us utterly keen with thy intense force of light.

BHARADWAJA BARHASPATYA

SUKTA 16

1. O Fire, thou art set here in all as the Priest of the call in the sacrifice, set by the gods in the human being.

2. Offer worship with thy rapturous tongues in the Rite of the Path to the Great Ones. Bring the gods to us, do them sacrifice.

3. O ordainer of works, mighty of will, by thy revealing light [[Or, with thy straight going]] in the sacrifice thou knowest the tracks of the gods and their highways.

4. Now has the Bringer of the Treasure with his horses of swiftness aspired to thee for a twofold bliss; he has sacrificed in the sacrifices to the king of sacrifice.

5. O Fire, for the Servant of Heaven [[Divodasa]] who presses the wine, for Bharadwaja the giver of the offering, the multitude of these desirable things!

6. Thou art the Immortal messenger; lend ear to the laud of the seer and bring the Divine People.

7. Men deeply meditating aspire to thee that the godheads may come to them; mortals they aspire to the God in the sacrifice.

8. Bring into sacrifice thy perfect sight and thy will; rich are thy gifts and in thee is the joy of all who desire.

9. Thou art the Priest of the call set here in thinking man, his carrier with mouth of flame wiser in knowledge than he. O Fire, sacrifice to the people of heaven.

10. Come, O Fire, for the advent; voiced by the word, come for the gift of the oblation: sit, the Priest of our invocation, on the grass of the altar.

11. O Angiras, we make thee to grow by our fuel and our offering of the clarity; flame into a vast light, O ever-youthful Fire.

12. O God, O Fire, thou illuminest towards us a wide light of inspired knowledge and the vastness of a perfect force.

13. O Fire, Atharvan churned thee out from the Lotus, from the head of every chanting sage. [[Or, on Pushkara; or, the Lotus of the head of every chanting sage.]]

14. And Dadhyang too, the Seer, Atharvan's son, kindled thee a slayer of the Python adversary and shatterer of his cities.

15. Thee the Bull of the paths set full alight, most mighty to slay the Destroyers, a conqueror of riches in battle upon battle.

16. Come to me and let me voice to thee, O Fire, true other words; for thou growest by these moon-powers of the Wine.

17. Wheresoever is thy mind and thou plantest that higher discernment, there thou makest thy house.

18. O Prince of Riches, the fullness of thy treasures meets not the eye and it is for the few; [[Or, let not the fullness of thy treasures meet the eye only of the few;]] take then joy in our work.

19. Fire of the Bringers is approached by us, the slayer of the Python adversary conscious with a multiple knowledge, the Servant of Heaven's Fire, master of beings.

20. This is he that unconquered, unoverthrown shall by his greatness win and give to us a treasure beyond all earthly things.

21. O Fire, by a new illumination like the old and joining it, thou hast stretched out the Vast with thy light. [[Or, built the Vast with thy light.]]

22. O friends, offer to the impetuous violence of Fire the hymn and the sacrifice; sing the illumining verse, chant to the Ordainer of works.

23. This is he that must sit through the human generations, man's Priest of the call with the seer-will, the Messenger, the Carrier of the oblation.

24. O Prince of the Treasure, do worship here with sacrifice to the Two Kings who are ever pure in their works, to the sons of the Indivisible Mother, to the company of the Life-Gods, to Earth and Heaven.

25. O Fire, O Child of Energy, full of riches is thy vision for the mortal, the vision of the immortal, and it imparts to him its impulse.

26. Let the giver be the best by work of the will; today winning thee let him become one overflowing with affluence: a mortal, he shall taste the perfect purification.

27. These are thy men whom thou guardest, O Fire, and they find the speed of thy impulse and move to universal Life, fighters piercing through the armies of the enemy, fighters conquering the armies of the enemy. [[Or, piercing through the enemies who war against them, (bis).]]

28. Let the Fire with his keen energy of light overwhelm every devourer; Fire conquers for us the riches.

29. O wide seeing Fire, God who knowest all births that are, bring to us the treasure with its strength of the Heroes; O mighty of will, slay the demon keepers.

30. O God who knowest all births that are, guard us from sin and from him that worketh calamity; O Seer of the Word, protect us.

31. The mortal of evil movements who gives us over to the stroke, guard us, O Fire, from him and his evil.

32. O God, repulse on every side with thy tongue of flame that doer of wickedness; oppose the mortal who would slay us.

33. O forceful Fire, extend to Bharadwaja the peace [[Or, the wide spreading house of refuge]] with its wideness; extend to him the desirable riches.

34. Let Fire the seeker of the treasure kindled and brilliant and fed with our offerings slay with his flame of illumination the encircling Adversaries.

35. Let him become the father of the Father in the womb of the Mother; let him break out into lightnings in the Imperishable, let him take his seat in the native home of the Truth.

36. O wide seeing Fire, God who knowest all births that are, bring us the Word with its issue, the Word whose light shines in Heaven.

37. O thou who art made by our force, we come to thee of the rapturous vision bringing our offerings for thy pleasure and let forth towards thee, O Fire, our words.

38. Like men that take refuge in the shade, we have arrived to the refuge of thy peace, there where thou blazest with light and art a vision of gold, O Fire.

39. Thou art like a fierce fighter shooting arrows and like a sharp horned Bull; O Fire, thou breakest the cities.

40. They bring him like a beast of prey, like a new born child they bear him in their hands, Fire that effects the Rite of the Path for the peoples.

41. Bring to us this great discoverer of riches, bring the god for the coming of the gods; let him take his seat in his own native home.

42. In the felicitous Fire that knows all things born the Master of your House is born to you; sharpen to his intensity the beloved guest.

43. O God, O Fire, yoke those horses of thine that do well the work and can bear thee sufficient for our passion.

44. Come to us, bear towards us the Gods that they may eat of [[Or, come to]] our pleasant offerings and drink our Soma wine.

45. O Fire of the Bringers luminously lightening with thy incessant flame upward burn; spread wide thy light, O ageless [[Or, imperishable]] power.

46. Let the mortal who would serve with his works the God in the advent, aspire bringing his offering to the Fire in the Rite of the Path; let him with uplifted [[Or, outstretched]] hands and with obeisance of surrender make shine the summoning Priest of Earth and Heaven, the fire of true sacrifice. [[Or, who worships the Truth with sacrifice.]]

47. We bring to thee, O Fire, by the illumining word an offering that is shaped by the heart. Let there be born from it thy impregnating bulls and thy heifers.

48. The Gods kindle, most strong to slay the Python adversary, the supreme Fire, the Horse of swiftness by whom the Riches are brought and pierced the demon keepers.

MANDALA SEVEN

VASISHTHA MAITRAVARUNI

SUKTA 1

1. Men have brought to birth from the two tinders by the hands' fall the Fire voiced by the light of their meditations; [[Or, by the scintillations of their thought the Fire voiced by them;]] Fire that sees afar the flaming master of the house.

2. The Shining Ones [[Or, the lords of the riches]] have set within in our dwelling house closely regarding all to guard us from whatever side that Fire which in his home sits eternal and all discerning.

3. Verily shine out in front of us, O Fire, with thy perpetual radiance; to thee continuous come plenitudes.

4. Fires come blazing out supremely from thy Fires, luminous, full of hero might, there where are assembled men born to the perfect birth.

5. Give us, O Fire, O Forceful One, by the thought the wealth full of hero power, full of progeny high proclaimed which the Assailant with his demon magic cannot pierce.

6. He to whom there comes in the light and in the dusk the young Damsel, luminous bearing the offering it is his own dynamic thought that comes to him desiring the Riches.

7. O Fire, burn away from us all hostile powers with the consuming flames with which thou didst burn the afflicting demon, destroy Pain so that no voice of her is left.

8. O bright and most opulent, O Fire, who shinest and purifiest, as with whosoever kindles thy flame forces, so with us too, by those lauds abide.

9. As with those who have turned to thy flame force, mortal men, our forefathers in many lands, with us too by these lauds in thy right mindedness abide.

10. May these men, heroes in the slayings of the Coverer, who work out the thought I have voiced, overcome all undivine mage knowledge.

11. O Fire, may we not dwell in the emptiness, nor in houses of men where there is no son [[Or, where no remainder is left]] and the hero is not, but around thee may we dwell in homes where there is good progeny, O dweller in the home.

12. This is the eternal sacrifice to which there comes the Rider of the Horse, to our house full of progeny and good offspring, our house increasing with the self born Son.

13. Protect us, O Fire, from the abhorred Rakshasa, protect from the harm of one who would war against us and do us evil; with thee as ally may we overcome those who would battle against us.

14. May that Fire go beyond all other fires where is the Horse and the Son with the strong hand; traveller of the thousand paths reaches the imperishable things.

15. This is that Fire who guards those who would conquer, he protects from evil the man who sets him ablaze; the heroes of the perfect birth move around him.

16. This is that Fire who is called [[Or, given offering]] in many lands, whom the giver of the offering sets ablaze and has lordship, round whom moves the Priest of the call in the rites of the path.

17. In thee, O Fire, we cast many offerings gaining lordship, creating in the sacrifice both the eternal Travellers.

18. O Fire, these offerings most desired, incessantly bring to our formation of the godhead; to us may there come all delightful Powers.

19. Deliver us not, O Fire, to strengthlessness, nor to the ill clad mindlessness, nor to hunger, nor to the Rakshasa, O thou with whom is the Truth, lead us not astray in the house or in the forest.

20. Now, O Fire, teach to us the Words, do thou, O God, speed them to the lords of plenty, may both we and they abide in thy grace, do you protect us ever with all kinds of weal.

21. Thou, O Fire, art swift to our call and rapturous is thy vision; O son of force, shine with a bright light. Burn us not since in thee and with thee is the eternal Son, let not the strength of the hero in us break us to pieces.

22. Mayst thou not, who art with us in these god kindled fires, denounce us for difficulty to bear thee; may not wrong thinkings from thee, O son of force, even by error come to

23. O Fire, O thou with thy flame force, rich with Treasure, become the mortal who casts his offerings in the immortal; that godhead founds in him the conquest of the riches to whom comes questioning the illumined seer, the seeker.

24. O Fire, thou art the knower of the great and happy path, bring to the illumined seers the vast Treasure by which, O forceful one, with a life unwasting, heroic in strength we may take rapture.

25. Now, O Fire, teach to us the Words, do thou, O God, speed them to the lords of plenty, may both we and they abide in thy grace, do you protect us ever with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 2

l. Cleave to our fuel, O Fire, today, illumine the vast [[Or, blaze out vastly]] pouring thy smoke of sacrifice, touch the peak celestial with thy up-piled masses, then stretch them out to unite with the rays of the Sun.

2. Let us invoke, by the sacrifices of the lord of sacrifice who voices the godheads, the greatness of these who are pure, who are perfect in will, who are founders of the Thought-gods, they take the taste of both kinds of offerings.

3. Fire who is to be prayed by you the mighty, the wise of understanding, the messenger between earth and heaven, whose speech is truth kindled as the human by the thinking man, let us greaten ever for the pilgrim sacrifice.

4. Desiring to serve, bringing the offering, kneeling with prostration they pluck the sacred grass, O priests of the pilgrim-sacrifice, casting it into the Fire speckled, with luminous back, brighten him with the offering.

5. The seekers of the godhead perfected in their thinking have come with yoked chariots and flung wide open the doors in their formation of the godheads, they have anointed him as if the two ancient Mothers caressing their child, as if rivers moving through level spaces.

6. May too dawn and night, matrons great and divine, like good milch cows, queens of sacrifice, queens of plenty called by many seekers, sit on the sacred grass and lodge with us for our happiness. [[Or, be with us for our happy journey.]]

7. I meditate on you, O ye two illumined Seers, doers of the work in our human sacrifices, knowers of all things born, for sacrifice; make high our pilgrim sacrifice when we call: you win our desirable things in the gods.

8. In unison may Bharati with her Muses of invocation, Ila with gods and men, and Fire, Saraswati with her powers of inspiration come down to us, the three goddesses sit upon this seat of sacrifice.

9. O divine maker of forms who hast the utter rapture, cast upon us that supreme transcendence, cause of our growth, from which is born in us the hero ever active with wise discernment, the seeker of the gods who sets to work the stone of the wine pressing.

10. O tree, release thy yield to the gods; Fire the achiever of the work speeds the offering on its way. It is he who does worship as the Priest of the call, the more true in his act because he knows the birth of the gods.

11. Come down to us, O Fire, high kindled, in one chariot with Indra and swiftly journeying gods; let Aditi, mother of mighty sons, sit on the sacred grass, let the gods, the immortals, take rapture in Swaha.

SUKTA 3

1. Create for yourselves in the sacrifice with a common joy in him the divine Fire along with all the fires, the strong for sacrifice, the messenger who is in mortals the possessor of Truth, inwardly permanent, whose food is Light, with his head of burning flame, the purifying Fire.

2. He neighs in his desire like a horse in his pasture, when he breaks out from a mighty encirclement the wind blows in the wake of his flame; now black is thy marching.

3. O Fire, when are kindled the imperishable flames of thee, the new born Bull, and they journey upwards, thy smoke mounts ruddy to heaven, for thou travellest, O Fire, as a messenger to the gods.

4. The might of thee moves wide over earth, when swiftly thou tearest thy food with thy jaws, the movement of thy march is like a charging army; O strong doer, with thy tongue of flame thou art like one sifting grain of barley.

5. Him in the dusk, him in the dawn, the ever youthful Fire men groom like a horse whetting the strength of the guest in his native seat, when the offerings are cast to him there shines out the light of the Bull.

6. O thou of the bright flame force, fair to vision is thy front when nearest thou shinest out like gold, thy strength moves like the thunder of heaven, rich in thy brilliance thou showest thy light like a Sun. [[Or, like the light of the Sun.]]

7. So that we may give for you with Swaha, to the Fire, we stand around him with the words of revelation and luminous offerings; do thou, O Fire, guard us with those measureless greatnesses, with thy hundred iron cities.

8. The inviolate powers which are there for the giver, the Words with which thou guardest the powers that are human, with these protect us, at once illumined seers and thy adorers, O son of force, O knower of all things born!

9. When he goes out pure like a bright axe shining with his own light for his body, he who was born from two mothers for sacrifice to the gods, strong of will, the desirable purifying Fire.

10. O Fire, light up for us these happinesses; let us wake to an understanding of thy perfectly conscious will; let all be there for those who laud thee, for him who utters thee; may you protect us always with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 4

1. Bring forward for the Fire, for the brilliant Light, thy mind and thy purified offering, the Fire who travels with knowledge between all the divine and human births.

2. May Fire be the wise one and the deliverer when he is born the youngest from the mother, he who pure bright of tooth clings to the forests, many foods he devours in a moment.

3. In the rendezvous of this god in his flame force, one whom mortals have seized, a white flame, and he has proclaimed that strong human grasp, Fire has illumined that which is ill lit to the human being.

4. This is the seer, the conscious thinker in those who are not seers, Fire has been set as the Immortal in mortals; then lead us not here astray, O forceful Fire, may we be ever right minded in thee.

5. He who has come to his native seat made by the gods, Fire delivered the gods by his will; the plants and the trees and the earth bear him who is the foundation of all.

6. Fire has power for a large Immortality, he is master of a wealth bounteous and full of hero strength; O thou who hast strength with thee, let us not sit around thee shapeless, actionless, without hero-force.

7. To be rejected is the abundance of the riches that bring no delight, let us be the masters of a wealth that is eternal; that which is born from another is not the Son; O Fire, turn not to wrong the paths of one who knows not.

8. Not to be accepted even though blissful is the son of another womb, not to be thought of even by the mind, for he brings with him no delight, soon even he returns to his home, let rather the new Horse come to us, the all conquering.

9. Do thou, O Fire, protect us from one who would conquer us, protect us thou, too, O forceful Fire, from blame; may there come to thee on a path full of destruction, come utterly a wealth thousandfold and desirable.

10. O Fire, light up for us these happinesses; let us wake to an understanding of thy perfectly conscious will; let all be there for those who laud thee, for him who utters thee; may you protect us always with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 5

1. Bring to the Fire in his strength a Word for the traveller of earth and heaven who, in the lap of all the Immortals, the universal godhead, grows by those who are ever wakeful.

2. Fire, sought for, was set in heaven and in earth, the leader of the rivers, the Bull of things that are stable; he shines upon the human peoples, the universal godhead growing by that which is supreme.

3. In fear of thee the black Tribe, creatures unharmonious, came away casting behind them their enjoyments, when O Fire, O universal godhead, thy light shone upon man when thou torest them and flamedst forth in his front.

4. O Fire, O universal godhead, earth and heaven and the mid-realm clove to the triple law of thy workings; shining with thy uninterrupted flame thou hast spread out the two firmaments by thy light.

5. To thee, O Fire, the Words, thy shining horses, impetuous and luminous cleave in their desire, to the universal godhead, lord of the peoples, charioteer of the Riches, ray of intuition of the dawns and the days.

6. Into thee, the Shining Ones [[Or, the Lords of the riches]] cast the Mightiness, for they clove to thy will, O friendly Light; O Fire, thou threwest the Destroyers out from the house bringing to birth a wide Light for the Aryan.

7. As thou camest to birth in the supreme ether at once as Vayu thou didst guard the path, thou criest aloud bringing to birth the worlds, according them as a gift to the Son, O knower of all things born!

8. O Fire, O universal godhead, O knower of all things born, send into us that luminous impulsion by which, O thou in whom are all desirable things, thou nourishest the achievement of a wide inspired knowledge for the mortal giver.

9. O Fire, join to us within, to us made masters of the riches a plenitude of the knowledge inspired wide in its store; O universal godhead, do thou in union with the Rudras and the Vasus extend to us a vast peace. [[Or, a vast refuge.]]

SUKTA 6

1. I adore the Render, adoring I proclaim by my speech the deeds of the all-ruler, the almighty, the male, as Indra strong and to be rejoiced in by the peoples.

2. Him they send the seer, the ray of intuition, the foundation, the light on the hill, the kingdom of peace in earth and heaven; I illumine with my words the great and ancient laws of working of Fire who rends the cities.

3. The traffickers who have not the will for the work, the binders in knots, who have the speech that destroys, who have neither faith nor growth in the being, nor sacrifice, these the Destroyers Fire has scattered before him; supreme he has made nether in their realm those who will not to do sacrifice.

4. The powers that rejoice in the darkness behind, he most mighty in his godhead has made by his energies powers in front; that Fire I proclaim, lord of the Treasure, who is never bowed, who tames those that make battle against him.

5. He bent down the walls by his showering blows, he who has made the dawns wives of the Noble Ones; he the mighty Fire has put his restraint upon men and made the peoples bringers to him of his taxes by his forceful mights.

6. He to whose peace all beings come by their movements praying for a right mind, the universal godhead came to that which is supreme above earth and heaven, Fire to the lap of the father and mother.

7. The god took to him the riches of the Foundation, the universal godhead in the rising of the Sun gathered wealth from the nether and the upper ocean, Fire took to him the riches of earth and heaven.

SUKTA 7

l. Even though a god putting forth his force, I drive him forward as my steed of swiftness by my prostrations of surrender; become the messenger of our pilgrim-sacrifice, one who has knowledge; of himself in the gods he becomes known in his measured race.

2. O Fire, come to us along thy own paths, rapturous, taking pleasure in the comradeship of the gods; making the high plateaus of earth to roar with his rushing strengths, with his tusks of flame he burns the woodlands, all he burns in his desire.

3. In front is the sacrifice, well-placed is the sacred grass, pleased is the Fire; one prayed, thou art like a Priest of the call, calling to the two mothers in whom are all desirable things, whence thou art born most young and blissful.

4. Men accomplished in conscious knowledge have brought at once into birth the charioteer who has been set as master of the peoples in their house, Fire the rapturous, the sweet of speech, one who has with him the Truth.

5. He has come and taken his seat in the house of Man, the chosen bearer of the offering, Fire, the Priest of the Word, he who upholds all things, he whom earth and heaven increase, to whom the Priest of the call sacrifices for in him are all desirable things.

6. These have crossed beyond all by their lights, the men of strength who have fashioned excellently the Word, human beings who have gone forward eager to hear and have illumined for me something of this Truth.

7. Now we desire thee, O Fire, O son of force, as the master of the Riches, we the Vasishthas; thou hast obtained the impulsion for those who laud thee, those who have the plenty. Do you always guard us with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 8

l. The King, the Noble One is kindled high with prostrations of surrender, he whose front receives the oblation of the Light; men oppressed and opposed pray with offerings and the Fire is born in front of the dawns.

2. He verily is that great one whom one knew, the rapturous Priest of man, the mighty one, the Fire; he has found wide his lustres when he is let loose on the wide earth, black is the rim of his wheel when he is declared by her growths.

3. By what law of thee, O Fire, dost thou illumine our purification? To what self-law of thee dost thou move when thou art proclaimed aloud? O great giver, when may we become the lords and conquerors of a wealth that is all-accomplishing [[Or, perfect]] and unassailable?

4. The voice of the Fire of the bringer is heard more and more when he shines like a sun, a vast light; Fire who stands over man in his battles has broken flaming into a blaze, the divine guest.

5. In thee were our many callings and thou becamest right-thoughted with all thy flame-forces. When thou art proclaimed by the word, thou hearest, O Fire; perfect in thy birth, thyself increase thy body.

6. This is the word that rose into birth for the Fire it is a conqueror of the hundreds and with it are the thousands, it is twofold in its greatness when it creates the bliss for those who laud him for the friend; it is luminous, a driver away of evil, a slayer of the Rakshasa.

7. Now we desire thee, O Fire, O son of force, as the master of the Riches, we the Vasishthas; thou hast obtained the impulsion for those who laud thee, those who have the plenty. Do you always guard us with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 9

1. He awoke from the lap of the dawns, their lover, the rapturous Priest of the call, the great seer, the purifying Fire; he founds the ray of intuition for both kinds of being born, the offerings in the gods, the riches in the doers of good.

2. Strong in will this is he who has flung wide the doors of the Traffickers purifying for us the illumining ray which gives the many enjoyments; the rapturous Priest of the call, who dwells in the house of men, is seen through the darkness of the nights.

3. The seer free from ignorance, the boundless, the luminous, a friend happily met, [[Or, happy in thy sessions, our friend,]] our benignant guest, rich in his lustres he shines in front of the dawns, a child of the waters he enters into his mothers.

4. One to be prayed by you in the generations of man, equal in his rays shone out the knower of all things born, Fire who dawns with his light of perfect vision, the rays woke into his high blazing.

5. O Fire, go on thy embassy and fail not towards the gods with the company of those who fashion the Word: sacrifice to Saraswati and the life-powers, and two riders of the horse and the waters and to all the gods for the giving of the ecstasy.

6. Vasishtha kindles thee, O Fire, slaying the destroying demon, sacrifice for the Wealth to the many-thoughted goddess: [[Or, to her who is the tenant of the city:]] many are the roads of thy approach, O knower of all things born. Do you always guard us with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 10

1. As the lover of dawn he has reached to a wide strength shining, flaming out with his play of lightnings; the Bull pure and resplendent he shines on us, illumining with his light our thoughts he wakes our dawnings.

2. It is as if the sun-world shone out from the day and the dawns; they are forming the sacrifice as aspirants the Thought: Fire the godhead knowing the births runs wide to his goal, the Messenger, the Traveller to the godheads, strong to conquer.

3. Our words are thoughts seeking for godhead. Come to the Fire asking for the Treasure, Fire the carrier of offerings, fair of front, perfect in vision, true in movement, the traveller of the ways for men.

4. O Fire, companioning the shining ones bring to us Indra, companioning the Rudras bring vast Rudra, with the Adityas bring the boundless and universal Mother, with those who have the illumined word bring the master of the word in whom are all desirable things.

5. Men who are aspirants pray in the pilgrim-rites to Fire the youthful and rapturous Priest of the call; for he has become the ruler of the earth and the Riches, a sleepless messenger for sacrifice to the gods.

SUKTA 11

l. Thou art the great conscious perception of the pilgrim- sacrifice, without thee the immortals have no rapture; come in one chariot with all the gods, take thy seat within, O Fire, as the supreme Priest of the call.

2. Men who bring the offering ever pray for thee, the swift in movement, for their envoy: when thou sitst with the gods on a man's seat of sacrifice, happy for him become the days.

3. Even thrice in the night within thee they woke to the knowledge of the Riches for the mortal giver; as the human here sacrifice to the gods, become our messenger and protector from the assailant.

4. The Fire has power for a vast pilgrim-sacrifice, Fire is a master of every offering made, for to his will cleave the Shining Ones, so the gods established him as the carrier of the offerings.

5. O Fire, bring the gods to eat of the offerings, may they with Indra as their eldest take here their rapture, establish this sacrifice in heaven in the gods. Do you always guard us with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 12

l. We have come with a great prostration of surrender to the ever-young Fire who has shone out blazing in his own home rich of lustre between the wide firmaments and filled with the offerings cast in him he moves facing every side.

2. He overcomes all evils by his mights: the Fire is affirmed by the lauds in the home, the knower of all things born; may he guard us from stumbling and from blame, us when we speak the words and us when we are lords of the plenty.

3. Thou art Varuna and thou art Mitra, O Fire, thee the Vasishthas make to grow by their thoughts, in thee may the riches be easily won. Do you always guard us with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 13

l. To Fire all-illumining, founder of the thought, slayer of the Asuras, bring your thinking and the thought formed; glad I bring to our sacrificial seat the offering for the universal godhead who has mastery over minds.

2. Thou, O Fire, illumining with thy light fillest earth and heaven even in thy birth: thou hast released the gods from the Assailant by thy might, thou the universal godhead, the knower of all things born.

3. When born, O Fire, thou lookest on the world as a herdsman on his cattle, one to be missioned, pervading everywhere, as the universal godhead thou foundest the Path for the Lord. Do you always guard us with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 14

l. To the godhead knower of all things born, by our fuel, by our invocations of the god, by our offerings may we give making prostration, to the Fire of the brilliant light.

2. May we worship thee, O Fire, with the fuel, may we give to thee with the laud, O master of sacrifice, we with the oblation, O Priest of the call of the pilgrim-sacrifice, we with the offerings, O god of the happy flame.

3. Come, O Fire, with the gods to our invocation of the gods taking pleasure in the cry "Vashat", to thee, O god, may we be givers of the offerings. Do you guard us always with all kinds of weal.

SUKTA 15

l. To the bounteous, one to be approached with worship, cast in the mouth the offering, who brings to us closest alliance.

2. He who comes to the five peoples of seeing men and takes his seat within in house and house, the seer, the master of the house, the youth.

3. May that Fire guard the knowledge that is our inmate from every side, may he protect us from evil.

4. Now have I brought forth a new laud to Fire, the Hawk of Heaven; he wins for us repeatedly the Riches.

5. He whose glories are desirable for vision and are like the Riches with their hero-powers, for he flames in front of the sacrifice.

6. May he take knowledge of this cry of "Vashat", may the Fire cleave to [[Or, take pleasure in]] our words who is the carrier of the offerings and most strong for sacrifice.

7. O Lord of the peoples to whom we must reach, to whom the offerings are cast, we have set thee within luminous in thy hero-force, O godhead, O Fire.

8. Shine through the nights and the days, by thee may we be well-armed with fire; a hero-force art thou and thy desire is towards us.

9. To thee men illumined come with their thinkings for the conquest, to thee the imperishable One with her thousands.

10. The Fire repels the Rakshasas, the immortal with its brilliant light, one to be prayed, the pure and purifying flame.

11. Bring us our effectuations for thou hast the mastery, O son of force, and may the lord of enjoyment give us the object of our desire.

12. Thou, O Fire, givest us heroic glory and the divine Creator Sun and Lord of enjoyment and the Mother of the finite gives us the object of our desire.

13. O Fire, guard us from evil, against the doer of harm protect us, O god; imperishable, burn him with thy most afflicting fires.

14. Now unviolated become to us a mighty iron city hundred fortressed for the protection of men.

15. Do thou guard us from evil in dusk and in dawn from the bringer of calamity -- thou art by day and night inviolable.

SUKTA 16

l. With this prostration I invoke for you Fire the son of Energy, the beloved, the traveller most awake to knowledge who carries out well the pilgrim-sacrifice, the immortal messenger of every man.

2. He yokes the two shining steeds that bring all enjoyments, well-fed with the offerings swiftly may he run; to be worshipped with sacrifice he of the perfect Word, accomplisher of the riches, the divine achievement of men.

3. Up stands the flame of light of this bounteous One when to him are cast the offerings, his ruddy smoke goes up and touches heaven; men kindle high the Fire.

4. Thou art that most glorious messenger whom we create, bring to us the advent of the gods, O son of force, give us all mortal enjoyments, give us that which from thee we desire.

5. Thou, O Fire, art the master of the house, thou art the Priest of the call in our pilgrim-sacrifice, thou art the purifying Priest, he in whom are all desirable things, the conscious thinker; sacrifice and reach the object of our desire.

6. O strong in will, create the ecstasy for the doer of the sacrifice for thou art the founder of ecstasy: sharpen in the Truth for us every doer of the rite and whosoever is perfect in expression and skilful in thought.

7. O Fire fed with the offerings, let them abide in thee, the beloved, the illumined wise and those lords of plenty among men who are they that travel to and allot to us the widenesses of the Rays.

8. Those within whose gated house the goddess of Revelation with her hands of light sits filled with her fullnesses, them deliver from the doer of harm and the Censurer, [[Or from betrayal and from bondage,]] O forceful Fire; give to us the peace that hears the Truth from afar.

9. Do thou then with thy rapturous tongue, for thou art the bearer of the oblation with thy mouth and great is thy knowledge, bring to our lords of the plenty the riches and hasten on its way our gift of the offering.

10. They who give to us the achieving plenitudes of the power of the Horse because of our desire of the great inspired knowledge, them, O most young godhead, bring safe out of all evil by thy hundred fortresses of rescue.

11. The divine giver of your Treasure desires from you the full pouring of the oblations; pour out and fill: then the god head carries you on your way. [[Or, brings to you the Riches.]]

12. The gods have made him the Priest of the call of the pilgrim sacrifice, the conscious thinker, the carrier of flame; Fire founds the ecstasy and the heroic strength for the man who performs the sacrifice for the giver.

SUKTA 17

l. O Fire, become high kindled with the plenty of thy fuel, let the sacred grass be spread wide.

2. Let the doors of aspiration swing open; bring here the aspirant gods.

3. Go, O Fire, sacrifice to the gods with the offering; make good the ways of the pilgrim-sacrifice, O knower of all things born.

4. He makes good the ways of the pilgrim-sacrifice, the knower of all things born; he sacrifices and gladdens the immortal gods.

5. Conquer all desirable things, O conscious thinker, may our yearning today become the Truth.

6. Thee they have established as the carrier of offerings, O Fire, the gods have founded thee, the Son of Energy.

7. Those may we be who give to thee, the godhead, go vast upon thy way and found for us the ecstasies.

MANDALA EIGHT

VATSA KANWA

SUKTA 11

1. O Fire, thou art the guardian of the law of all workings, thou art the divine in mortals; thou art one to be prayed in the sacrifices.

2. O forceful one, it is thou who art to be expressed in the findings of knowledge; O Fire, thou art the charioteer of the pilgrim-sacrifices.

3. So do thou remove away from us the enemies, O knower of all things born, even the undivine and hostile forces, O Fire.

4. Even when it is near, O surely thou comest not to the sacrifice of our mortal foe, O knower of all things born.

5. Mortals illumined we meditate on the many names of thee the immortal, the knower of all things born.

6. We call the Fire with our words, illumined we call the illumined for our guard, mortals we call the god for our protection.

7. Vatsa compels thy mind even from the supreme world of thy session, O Fire, by his Word that longs for thee.

8. Thou art the equal lord of all peoples in many lands; we call to thee in the battles.

9. We call to the Fire to guard us in our battles, we who seek the plenitudes; in the plenitudes richly manifold is his achievement.

10. For thou art of old one to be prayed in the pilgrim-sacrifices, and from time eternal thou sittest as the ever-new Priest of the call; O Fire, gladden thy own body and bring happiness to us by the sacrifice.

SOBHARI KANWA

SUKTA 19

1. Affirm that godhead of the sun-world, the gods set the divine traveller to his race, they brought the offering to the world of the gods.

2. O illumined seer, pray the Fire opulent in his gifts, rich in his lustres; the guide of this Soma-sacrifice pray, O Sobhari, for the rite of the path, the Ancient One.

3. We have chosen thee the mightiest for sacrifice, the divine in the divine, the immortal as the Priest of call of this sacrifice, the strong of will, --

4. the Son of Energy, the Fire, happy and radiant and most glorious in his light; may he win for us by sacrifice the bliss in heaven of Mitra and Varuna and the bliss of the waters.

5. The mortal who with the fuel and the oblation, with knowledge and with surrender has given to the Fire, who is perfect in the pilgrim-rite, --

6. swift gallop his war-horses, most luminous is his glory, neither calamity wrought by the gods nor evil wrought of men can come to him from any part.

7. High of fire may we be with your fires, O son of force, O lord of Energies! for thou hast the hero-strength and thy desire is towards us.

8. As our friendly guest finding our expression for us, Fire must be known, and as our chariot; in thee are all-accomplishing foundations of ease, thou art the king of the Treasures.

9. That mortal is sure in the giving of his pilgrim-sacrifice, O happy Fire, he is one to be proclaimed, may he be a conqueror by his thoughts, --

10. one for whom thou standest high exalted over his pilgrim-sacrifice, he is a master and hero and accomplishes, -- he conquers by the war-horses, by the luminous seers, by the heroes, wins his work achieved.

11. He in whose house Fire, in whom are all desirable things, maintains his body and his affirming laud and his delight and the offerings, he occupies the field of his occupancy.

12. O son of force, for the illumined seer who lauds thee and is most swift in his givings, create for that seeker of knowledge, O Shining One, [[Or, O lord of the Riches,]] the word in which the mortal is above the godhead below.

13. He who by his gifts of the oblations or by prostrations of surrender, or by his word illumines the Fire, who brings his right judgment, and the swift action of his light, --

14. he who with his stimulation by the fuel serves with the seats of the session of the Fire, the Boundless, that happy mortal exceeding men by his thoughts and by his lights passes beyond all things as one who crosses over waters.

15. Bring, O Fire, that light which overcomes in the house whatever devourer or wrath of any being with evil thoughts.

16. The light by which Mitra sees and Varuna and Aryaman, by which lords of the journey and Bhaga, that light may we worship, we made by thy force perfect knowers of the path guarded by the lordship of the Puissant.

17. O Fire, those are perfect in their thought who, themselves illumined, have set thee within them, O illumined seer, thee, O godhead, divine in vision and strong in will.

18. They have made their altar and their offering, O happy Fire, and their libation of the wine in heaven, they have conquered by their plenitudes a mighty wealth who have cast into thee their desire.

19. O felicitous god, happy to us art thou fed with the offerings, happy thy giving, happy the pilgrim-sacrifice, happy our utterances.

20. Create for us a happy mind in the piercing of the Coverers by which thou mayst overcome in the battles; lay prostrate many firm positions of those who challenge us, may we conquer them by thy attacks.

21. I pray with the word the Fire set in man whom the god sent in as the messenger and traveller, the carrier of offerings, strong to sacrifice.

22. To the ever-young Fire shining with his sharp tusks of flame, thou singest delight, Fire who fed with the offerings of light forms by true words a great strength.

23. When he is fed with the offerings of light the Fire like one full of might, works his blade upwards and downwards and carves for himself a shape.

24. The godhead set in man who speeds the offerings in its fragrant mouth, perfect in the pilgrim-sacrifice illumines all desirable things, the divine and immortal Priest of the call.

25. O Fire, fed with the offerings, O son of force, O friendly light, if thou wert the mortal and I the immortal, --

26. I would not give thee over to the Assailant or to sinfulness, O benignant, O shining one; he who lauded me would not be one without understanding or miserable nor one plagued by guilt, O Fire.

27. He is like a son well nourished in the house of his father; may our offerings reach the gods.

28. O Fire, O shining one, by thy closest guardings may I, the mortal, be ever companioned by the favour of the god.

29. By thy will may I conquer, O Fire, by thy gifts, by thy revealing utterances; for of thee they speak as the guiding Thought in me. O Fire, have joy for the giving.

30. By thy guardings in which is the strength of the heroes and the bringing of the plenitudes, he drives forward on his way with whom thou hast chosen friendship, O shining one.

31. .... [[Sisno not translated.]] the blue stream of thee with its cry is faithful to the law of its Truth, even as it is kindled it takes what is cast in it; thou art beloved of the great Dawns and thou shinest in the dwelling places of the night.

32. We the sons of Sobhari have come to the Fire with its thousandfold mass of flame, strong in its approach for protection, imperial, the Fire of the Terror of the Destroyer. [[Or, Fire of Trasadasyu.]]

33. O Fire, other fires dwell dependent on thee as on a tree its branches; I annex to me the illuminations of men and their lights, increasing so thy warrior forces.

34. O sons of the boundless mother, you who betray not, great givers, the mortal whom out of all possessors of riches you lead to the other shore, --

35. for you, the kings, who have power over seeing men, choose one or another to have mastery in the human ways, -- such may we be, O Varuna, O Mitra, O Aryaman, charioteers, indeed, of the Truth.

36. The Terror of the Destroyers, son of the master of wide vision, has given me the brides five hundred, he is a bounteous giver, the noble, a lord of beings.

37. And so, for me at the ford of the wide-flowing and forward streaming river of the happy dwelling places, [[Or, the river Suvastu,]] came the bay horse, leader of the three seventies. May he become an opulent master of the things that are to be given.

VISHWAMANAS VAIYASHWA

SUKTA 23

1. Pray the Fire as he fronts you, worship with sacrifice the knower of all things born, Fire with his driving smoke and his unseizable light, --

2. fire who is like the string of speeding chariots to a competitor in the race; O all-seeing universal mind, laud him with the word.

3. Those on whom he presses, possessor of the word of illumination and seizes on their impulsions and their satisfactions, by their approach to knowledge the Fire finds the Treasure.

4. Up stands his ageless light as he flames out with his burning tusks, in his beautiful splendour, in the glory of his companies.

5. Even so, stand up as they laud thee, O doer of the pilgrim-rite, shining out with thy divine light, with thy vast all-regarding lustre.

6. Go, O Fire, with perfect utterances of the word offering uninterruptedly the oblations, since thou hast become the messenger and the carrier of the offerings.

7. I call for you the ancient Fire, the Priest of the call of seeing men; him with this word I declare, him for you I laud.

8. Fire whom with the sacrifices, with the light verily they speed like a friend firmly established in the man who possesses the Truth.

9. To Fire the possessor of the Truth, the accomplisher of the sacrifice, the seekers of the Truth have come with the word and cleave to him in the seat of the adoration.

10. Let our sacrifices go towards him united in their effort, to him most fiery-wise of the Angirasas who is the Priest of the call in men and most glorious.

11. O ageless Fire, those lights of thine kindling the Vast are like male and mighty horses;

12. So do thou, O Lord of Energies, give us the wealth, hero-might, protect us in our battles, in the Son of our begetting.

13. Since, indeed, the lord of the peoples, keen and glad in the house of man, wards off all demon-powers, --

14. O Fire, with thy hearing of my new laud, with thy burning flame, consume utterly the demon magicians, O hero, O lord of the peoples.

15. Not even by magic can the mortal foe master the man who offers worship to the Fire with his gifts of the oblation.

16.*Translation not found in MSS.

17. Thee Ushana of the inspired wisdom set within for men as the Priest of the call, the doer of sacrifice, the knower of all things born.

18. For all the gods with one mind made thee the messenger; O godhead, thou becamest by inspired knowledge supreme and a lord of sacrifice.

19. Him immortal let the mortal hero make his envoy, the purifying Fire with his black path, vast in his wideness.

20. Him let us call putting forth the ladle, the luminous, the brilliant in light, one to be prayed by men, the ancient and unaging Fire.

21. For the mortal who performs sacrifice to him by his gifts of the offering he founds much increase and a glory of his hero-strengths.

22. To the Fire, the ancient, the first and supreme, the knower of all things born in the sacrifices with the obeisance comes the ladle full of the oblation.

23. May we offer sacrifice as did Vyashwa with these greatest and richest thinkings to Fire, the brilliant in light.

24. O Rishi, son of Vyashwa, now sing the word of illumination as did Sthurayupa, to the Fire, vast in his wideness, the dweller in the house.

25. The guest of men, the son of the Trees, the illumined seers praise for his protection, the ancient Fire.

26. Turned towards all the great beings, turned towards our human offerings, by our obeisance, O Fire, thou takest thy seat on the sacred grass.

27. Conquer for us many desirable things, take possession of the wealth that brings us our many longings and hero-energy and the offspring and the glory.

28.*Translation not found in MSS.

29. Thou art he who breaks through, [[Or, he who overcomes,]] thou openest to us the luminous impulsions; open to us the conquest of the great Riches, O Fire.

30. O Fire, thou art the glorious one; bring to us Varuna and Mitra, the all-rulers who possess the Truth and have the purified judgment.

SHYAVASHWA ATREYA

SUKTA 38

l. You (two) are the ritual-priests of the sacrifice, conquerors in our plenitudes and our works; to this awake, O Indra, O Fire.

2. O smiters who journey in the chariot, slayers of the coverer, ever unconquered -- to this awake, O Indra, O Fire.

3. Men have pressed out for you by the stones this rapturous honey-wine -- to this awake, O Indra, O Fire.

4. Take pleasure in the sacrifice, for the sacrifice come to the Soma-wine pressed out, gods to whom rises the common laud, O Indra, O Fire.

5. May you take pleasure in these Soma-pressings by them who have the offering, -- O gods come to us, O Indra, O Fire.

6. May you take pleasure in this laud of mine, this path of song, O gods, come to us, O Indra, O Fire.

7. Come for the drink of the Soma-wine with the gods who arrive at dawn, you who have the victor-riches, [[Or, you who have the riches which are for the victor, or the true riches,]] O Indra, O Fire.

8. Hear the call of the Atris, of Shyavashwa [[He who has the bay-horse.]] pressing the wine,come for the drinking of the Soma, O Indra, O Fire.

9. Thus have I called you for protection as the wise have ever called you, for the drinking of the Soma (wine), O Indra, O Fire.

10. I choose the protection of Indra and the Fire with Saraswati at their side, for whom the sacred song breaks into light. [[Or, is chanted.]]

NABHAKA KANWA

SUKTA 39

1. To Fire I give laud, the possessor of the illumined word, to worship the Fire with the speech of revelation; let the Fire reveal the gods to us, for he is the seer who goes on his embassy between the two worlds in the knowledge, -- let all that are hostile be rent asunder.

2. O Fire, destroy with a new word the expression of these within in the bodies, destroy within us the beings hostile to those who give thee, let all the enemy forces, the hostile spirits depart from here who would do hurt to us, -- let all that are hostile be rent asunder.

3. O Fire, to thee I offer my thoughts as if an offering of light [[Ghrtam, clarified butter or light.]] cast into thy mouth; so do thou awake to knowledge in the gods, for thou art the ancient and benign messenger of the Sun, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

4. He founds growth upon growth of the being even as one [[Or, he]] desires; offered the oblation of offered energy for every call to the gods he founds both the peace and the movement of the Shining Ones, he founds the bliss, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

5. He awakes to knowledge by his forceful and many-sided works; he is the Priest of the call of many powers surrounded by lights of discernment and he takes possession of all that faces him, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

6. The Fire knows the births of the gods and the secret thing of mortals; this is the Fire that gives the treasures, the Fire when there is cast into him as offering that is new uncovers the hidden doors, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

7. Fire is the companion dwelling in the gods, dwelling in the beings who are masters of sacrifice; he increases by his rapture many seer-wisdoms, even as all that is large, he is a god in the gods and a lord of sacrifice, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

8. Fire is the sevenfold human, he is lodged in all the rivers; to him we have come, the dweller in the triple abode, the Fire of the thinker, slayer of the Destroyers, ancient and supreme in the sacrifices, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

9. Fire is the seer who takes up his dwelling in his three abodes of knowledge of three kinds; may he sacrifice to the Three and Thirty and satisfy us, perfected, the illumined thinker and messenger, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

10. O ancient and supreme Fire, thou art in us who are mortals, thou in the gods, one and sole thou rulest over the Treasures; around thee the wide-flowing waters go each with its own bridge, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

SUKTA 40

1. O Indra, O Fire, forceful you give to us the treasure by which we shall overcome in our battles even all that is firm and strong, as Fire the trees in a wind, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

2. May we not shut you away from us, then may we truly worship Indra with sacrifice, the god most potent of the gods; may he sometime come to us with the war-horse, may he come to us for the winning of the plenitudes, for the winning of the purity, [[Or, for the getting of sacrifices,]] -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

3. For they, Indra and Fire, dwell in the midst of mellays; gods, seers, questioned, they by their seerhood gain for one who seeks their friendship the knowledge won by the thought, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

4. To Indra and the Fire sing the illumined chant even as Nabhaka, doing them homage with sacrifice and speech, whose is all this world and this heaven and great earth bear for them in their lap the treasures, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

5. Even as Nabhaka direct towards Indra and Fire the Words who uncovered the sea of the seven foundations with its dim [[ Or, oblique]] doors, -- even Indra ruling all by his might, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

6. Even as of old cleave like clustering mass of a creeper, crush the might of the demon; that wealth amassed by him may we by Indra share, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

7. When, O Indra, O Fire, these who are here call you with speech and act, may we overcome by our men those who battle against us, may we conquer those who would conquer us, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

8. White gods are they who from below ascend to the heavens by their lights; according to the law of the working of Indra and Fire, flowing move the Rivers whom they loosed from bondage to every side, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

9. O Indra, O thou of the bright horses, O begetter of the shining hero, the shooter who strikes into his mark, many are thy measurings of things, many thy expressions of the truth which accomplish [[Or bring to perfection]] our thoughts, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

10. Intensify him by your purifications, the brilliant warrior with the illumined word, even him who with might breaks the serpent-eggs of Shushna, may he conquer the waters that bear the light of the Sun-world, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

11. Intensify him who is perfect in the rite of the path, the true warrior who follows the law of the Truth; it is he who observes, who breaks the serpent-eggs of Shushna, conquers the waters that bear the light of the Sun-world, -- let all that are alien be rent asunder.

12. So has the new word been spoken to Indra and to Fire, even as by my father, by Mandhata, by the Angiras; protect us with triple peace, may we be masters of the riches.

VIRUPA ANGIRASA

SUKTA 43

1. Him pray our words, even these lauds of Fire, the illumined seer, the creator, invincible in his sacrifice.

2. Such art thou for whom I bring to birth perfect laud and glad is thy response, O seeing Fire, O knower of all things born!

3. Oh, like jets of light thy keen energies of flame devour with their teeth the woods.

4. Bright, with smoke for their flag against heaven, urged by the winds, labour separate thy fires.

5. These are those separate fires of thine that kindled are seen like rays of the Dawns.

6. Black is the dust under his feet in the march of the knower of all things born when Fire sprouts upon the earth.

7. Making his foundation, consuming the herbs Fire wearies not but goes even to the young shoots.

8. Oh, laying all low with his tongues of flame, flashing out with his ray Fire shines in the woodlands.

9. In the waters, O Fire, is thy seat, [[Or, goal,]] thou besiegest the plants; thou becomest a child in the womb and art born again.

10. O Fire, that ray of thine fed with the oblation rises up shining from the offering of light, [[Or, clarified butter,]] licking the mouth of the ladle.

11. May we ordain sacrifice with the lauds to Fire, the ordainer of things, Fire who makes the ox and the cow his food and he bears on his back the Soma-wine.

12. O Fire, we come to thee with prostration and with the fuel, O Priest of the call, O supreme will!

13. O pure Flame, fed with offerings we call thee as did Bhrigu, as did Manu, as did Angiras.

14. For thou art kindled, O Fire, by the fire, thou who art the illumined seer art kindled by one who is illumined, as a comrade thou art kindled by thy comrade.

15. So do thou to the illumined who gives to thee give the thousandfold wealth and the hero-force.

16. O Fire, my brother, created by my force, drawn by thy red horses, pure in the law of thy workings, take pleasure in this laud of mine.

17. My lauds reach thee, O Fire, as to the calf lowing in glad response the cows reach their stall.

18. For thee, O most luminous Angiras, all those worlds of happy dwelling, each in its separate power, labour for thy desire, O Flame.

19. In thinkers the wise, the illumined seers urged by their thoughts the Fire to dwell in their house.

20. So thee as the horse in its gallopings performing the pilgrim sacrifice, O Fire, they desire as the carrier of the offering and the Priest of the call.

21. Thou art the lord who looks with equal eyes on all the peoples in many lands; we call to thee in our battles.

22. Pray the Fire who fed with the pouring of the clarities blazed wide; may he hear this our call.

23. Such art thou whom we call, Fire, the knower of all things born who hears our cry and smites away from us the foe.

24. I pray this Fire, the marvellous king of the peoples who presides over the laws of their action, may he hear.

25. Fire who illumines the universal life like a male horse urged to its gallop, we speed like a racer to the goal.

26. Smiting away the foes and things that hurt, burning the Rakshasas, on every side, O Fire, shine out with thy keen flame.

27. Thou whom men kindle as the human thinker, [[Or, like Manu,]] O most luminous Angiras, O Fire, become aware of my word.

28. Because, O Fire, created by our force thou art the flame born in heaven, or the flame born in the waters, as such we call thee with our words.

29. To thee, verily, these beings born and these worlds of a happy dwelling each separately in its place, lay a foundation where thou canst devour thy food. [[Or, cast nourishment for thy eating.]]

30. O Fire, may we be those who have the right thought and the divine vision, and through all the days, pass safe beyond the danger.

31. We seek with rapturous hearts Fire, the rapturous, in whom are many things that are dear to us, -- Fire with his intense and purifying light.

32. O Fire, shining with thy light, loosing forth thy lustre like the sun with its rays, thou puttest forth thy force and slayest the darknesses.

33. We seek from thee, O forceful Fire, that gift of thine, -- the desirable wealth which never fails.

SUKTA 44

1. Set to his action by the fuel, awaken the guest by the offerings of the clarities; cast in him the offerings.

2. O Fire, take pleasure in my laud, grow by this thought; let thy joy respond to our utterances.

3. I set in front Fire, the messenger, and speak to the carrier of the offerings; may he bring to their session here the gods.

4. O luminous Fire, vast and bright thy rays upwards ascend as thou art kindled high.

5. O joyful Flame, to thee may my ladles go bright with the clarities; O Fire, take pleasure in our offerings.

6. I pray the Fire, the rapturous Priest of the call, the sacrificant, shining with his light, rich in his lustres, may he hear.

7. The ancient Priest of the call, desirable and accepted, Fire the seer-will, joiner of the pilgrim-rites.

8. O most luminous Angiras, taking pleasure in these offerings lead the sacrifice uninterruptedly in the way of the Truth, [[Or, according to the rule of the rites,]] O Fire.

9. High-kindled, O Right and True, O brilliant light, awakened to knowledge bring here the divine people.

10. The illumined seer and Priest of the call, free from harms, shining with light, carrying his banner of smoke, him we seek, the ray of intuition of the sacrifices.

11. O Fire, made by our force, protect us against the doers of harm, pierce the hostile power.

12. Fire by the ancient thought making beautiful his own body, a seer, grows by each illumined sage.

13. I call to me the Child of Energy, Fire of the purifying light in this sacrifice which is perfect rite of the path.

14. So do thou, O Fire, O friendly light, with thy brilliant flame sit with the gods on the sacred grass.

15. The mortal who serves the divine Fire in the house of the body, to him he gives the Riches.

16. Fire is the head and peak of heaven and lord of earth and he sets moving the waters.

17. O Fire, upward dart blazing thy pure and brilliant tongues; make to shine out thy lights.

18. Thou art the lord of the Sun-world, O Fire, and hast power for the gifts desirable; may I who laud thee abide in thy peace.

19. Thee, O Fire, the thinkers urge on thy road, thee by their perceivings of knowledge; may our words increase thee.

20. We choose the comradeship of the Fire inviolate in the law of his nature, the ever-chanting messenger.

21. Most pure in his workings is the Fire, he is the pure illumined sage, the pure seer of Truth; pure he shines out fed by our offerings.

22. So thee may my thinkings and my words increase always; O Fire, awake to the comradeship between us.

23. O Fire, if I wert thou and thou wert I, then would thy longings here become true.

24. O Fire, thou art the shining one, shining with thy lustres, lord of the shining riches; may we abide in thy right thinking. [[Or, thy grace.]]

25. O Fire, to thee holding firmly the law of thy workings, move my words like lowing cattle, as rivers move towards the sea.

26. Fire the youth, the lord of the peoples, the seer, the all consuming, Fire of the many illuminations I glorify with my thoughts.

27. May we strive towards the Fire by our lauds, the charioteer of the sacrifices, Fire with his solid strength, his sharp tusks of flame.

28. May this thy worshipper, O Fire, abide in thee; on him have grace, O Right and True, O purifying Flame.

29. For thou art the wise thinker seated in the house, like an illumined sage ever awake; O Fire, thou shinest out in heaven.

30. Before the stumblings come, O Fire, before the spoilers arrive, O seer, carry forward our life, O Shining One.

BHARGA PRAGATHA

SUKTA 60

1. Come, O Fire, with thy fires, we choose thee as the Priest of the call, may the ladles extended, full of the offering anoint thee, strongest for sacrifice when thou sittest on the sacrificial seat.

2. For, towards thee, O Son of force, O Angiras, the ladles move in the rite of the path; we seek the child of Energy with his hair of light, the supreme fire in the sacrifices.

3. O Fire, thou art the seer and the ordainer, the Priest of the call, the purifier to whom must be given sacrifice, rapturous, strong for sacrifice, one to be prayed in the pilgrim-rites with illumined thoughts, O brilliant Flame!

4. Bring to me who betray not, O youngest, O unceasing Flame, the gods that desire for the advent; come to our well-founded pleasant things, O shining One, rejoice established by our thinkings.

5. O Fire, O deliverer, thou art very wide, the true, the seer, thou who shinest out, O high-kindled Fire, thee the sages, the ordainers illumine.

6. Flame out, O most luminous Flame, shine out for man, give to him who lauds thee the bliss, for thou art great; may my luminous seers abide in the peace of the gods, high in fire may they overcome the foe.

7. As, O Fire, thou consumest old dry wood on the earth so burn, O friendly Light, whosoever comes with evil mind, our hurter.

8. Deliver us not to the mortal foe, to the demoniac, to him who gives expression to evil; guard us with thy unfailing and benignant, guardian and rescuer fires, O ever-youthful Flame!

9. Guard, O Fire, with the single word, guard with the second, guard with the words that are three, O master of Energies; O shining One, guard with the fourth.

10. Guard us from every hostile demon, protect us in the plenitudes; for we come to thee as the closest of the gods and our ally for our increase.

11. O purifying Fire, bring to us and give a wealth that increases our growth, the wealth that has to be expressed in us, O measurer of our formations, by thy right leading a wealth full of many longed-for things and very great in its self glory, --

12. by which we may conquer those who challenge us in our battles, breaking through the designs of the foe; so do thou increase us with thy delight, O luminous in might, speed on their way the thoughts that find the treasure.

13. Fire is like a bull that sharpens its horns and tosses its head, his flaming jaws are too bright and keen to gaze at; strong-tusked is the Son of force.

14. O Fire, O Bull, thy tusks of flame cannot be challenged by the gaze when thou rangest abroad; so do thou, O Priest of the call, make that our offering is well cast, conquer for us many desirable things.

15. In the forest thou sleepest in the two mothers, mortals kindle thee into a blaze; then sleepless thou carriest the offerings of the giver of the oblation and now thou shinest in the gods.

16. Thee pray the seven priests of the call, thee the unhesitant, shooting well thy shafts; thou breakest asunder the hill with thy heat and thy light: O Fire, go forth beyond men.

17. The Fire, the fire, let us call for you having placed the sacred grass and placed the gifts of our pleasure, on day after day, Fire of the unseizable ray, Priest of the call of seeing men.

18. O Fire, to thee constant in the peace of a deep calm I come with the intuition that awakes to knowledge; by our impulsion bring to us for our protection wealth of many forms that is most close.

19. O Fire, O god, for thy adorer thou art the lord of creatures, thou art the master of his house who departs not from him, afflicting the demons; great art thou, the guardian of heaven who comes to his gated home.

20. O blazing light, let not the demon enter into us; let not the witchcraft of the goblin sorcerers take possession; O Fire, push calamity and hunger far beyond the pastures of our herds, ward the demon-possessed away from us.

SUDITI AND PURUMILHA ANGIRASA

SUKTA 71

l. O Fire, guard us by thy lights [[Or, by thy greatnesses]] from every hostile force and from mortal foe.

2. O beloved in thy birth, mortal wrath has no power over you: thou art master of the nights.

3. So do thou with all the gods, O child of Energy, O happy light, give us the wealth in which are all boons.

4. The hostile forces, O Fire, cannot divorce from the Riches the mortal giver whom thou rescuest.

5. O Fire, O illumined seer, he whom thou in the winning of the purity speedest towards the Riches, by thy protection reaches among the Ray-Cows.

6. Thou bringest, O Fire, the wealth in which are the many strengths to the mortal giver; lead us towards greater riches.

7. Protect us, deliver us not, O knower of all things born, to the mortal, the evil-thoughted who would bring on us calamity.

8. O Fire, let none undivine take away from us what was given by thee, the divine; thou hast power over the riches.

9. Thou art the measurer to us, thy adorers of a mighty wealth, O child of Energy, O Friend, O shining One.

10. May our words go towards thee with thy keen light and thy vision, our sacrifice to thee with surrender for our protection, thee the widely proclaimed, the master of many riches, --

11. to the Fire, the Son of force, the knower of all things born, for the gift of our desirable things; twofold he becomes the immortal in the mortals, the rapturous Priest of the call in man.

12. Fire for you by the worship to the gods, Fire in the journeying of the pilgrim-sacrifice, Fire in the thoughts first and chief, Fire in the war-horse, Fire for perfection in our field.

13. May the Fire give us force in his comradeship, he who has power for the desirable things; Fire we seek continually in the son of our begettings as the shining one and the guardian of the body.

14. Pray with your chants Fire of the keen flame for the protection, O Purumilha! Fire for the Treasure, -- the Fire men pray for the inspired knowledge, a house for a splendid light.

15. Fire we hymn with our words that he may remove from us the hostile power, Fire to give to us the peace and the movement; he is in all men like a protector to whom they may call, he is the daylight of the wise.

HARYATA PRAGATHA

SUKTA 72

1. Do you make the offering, the Priest of the pilgrim-rite has come and he conquers again, for he knows the commandment of the Fire.

2. Let him sit within close to the keen burning ray the Priest of the call in thinking man accepting the comradeship of the Fire.

3. Within they wish him to be in a man the "terrible one", beyond the thinking mind; by his tongue they seize the peace.

4. High burnt the companion bow, a founder of the growth he climbed to woodland, he smote the rock with his tongue.

5. He is the shining calf who wanders and finds none to bind him here, to one who lauds him he manifests the mother. [[Or, for one who lauds him he goes to the mother.]]

6. And now is the great and vast yoking as if of the Horse, the rope of the chariot is seen.

7. Seven milk the one, two let loose the five at the ford of the River upon the cry of the waters.

8. By the ten of the sun Indra made fall the covering sheath of heaven with his triple mallet.

9. A new adoration moves round the triple pilgrim-sacrifice, the priests of the call anoint with the honey-wine.

10. With surrender they pour out the inexhaustible pervading well whose wheel is on high and its opening below.

11. Close by are the stones and the honey-wine is poured in the lotus in the discharging of the well.

12. O Ray-Cows, come to the well; here is the great wine-jar of the sacrifice, here are both the golden handles.

13. Pour into the wine that is pressed, a joining splendour, the glory of earth and heaven; by the juice of the wine sustain the Bull.

14. They know their own home; like calves with their mothers they met with each other as companions.

15. In the jaws of the eater they made their foundation in heaven, their prostrations of surrender to Indra and the Fire made the Sun-world.

16. The warrior milked out the seven-planed nourishing force and energy by the seven rays of the sun.

17. O Mitra and Varuna, in the rising of the moon he received it on the sun; it is the healing draught for him who suffers.

18. And now let him stretch out [[Or, form]] with his tongue of flame around heaven that plane of him in his full delight which is to be laid as a foundation.

GOPAVANA ATREYA

SUKTA 74

1. All kinds of beings replenish the guest domiciled in your house in whom are the many pleasant things; I laud him with my thoughts with the word of bliss.

2. He to whom men bringing the offering pour the stream of the libation and by their words that give expression to him proclaim as the friend, --

3. the wonderful, [[Or, the great doer,]] the knower of all things born, who in the formation of the godheads sends up the offerings uplifted in heaven, --

4. we have come to the Fire, strongest to slay the Coverers, eldest and ever new in whose force of flame Shrutarvana, son of Riksha, grows to vastness.

5. The immortal, the knower of all things born who is seen [[Or, who sees]] across the darkness, one to be prayed to, one to whom are offered the clarities.

6. The Fire whom men here oppressed pray with their offerings casting their libations with the ladles at work. [[Or, with outstretched ladles.]]

7. Thine, O Fire, is the new thought founded in us, O rapturous and well-born guest, strong of will, wise and powerful for action.

8. May that thought, O Fire, become pleasant and full of peace and gladness; grow by it, well-affirmed by our lauds.

9. May it be luminous with many lights, and uphold in its inspiration a vast inspired knowledge in the piercing of the Coverers.

10. He is the Horse of power and the Cow of light, it is he who fills our chariots, he is brilliant and like Indra the lord of beings; you shall cross through his inspiration, O men! and find each wonderful.

11. Thou whom Gopavana gladdens with his word, O Fire, O Angiras, O purifying Flame, hear his call.

12. Thou whom men oppressed pray for the winning of the plenitudes, awake in the piercing of the Coverers.

13. As if calling armed forces in Shrutarvan, son of Riksha, from whom drips the rapturous inspiration, I comb the shaggy-maned head of the four.

14. Me the swift and galloping four of that most strong one, well-charioted, bore [[Or, let them bear me]] towards the delight as if birds flying to water. [[Or, as the birds carried Tugrya.]]

15. O great river Parushni, I have marked out (with them) thy true course. O waters, than this most strong one no mortal man is a greater giver of the Horses of power. [[Note on Riks 13,14 and 15: As is shown by the "Shravansi", "Turvatha" and the name "Smutarvan" -- the Rishi is giving a symbolic turn to the name as well as to the horses and the waters.]]

VIRUPA ANGIRASA

SUKTA 75

1. O Fire, yoke like a charioteer the horses most powerful for the calling of the gods; take thy seat, O ancient Priest of the call!

2. And now, since thou hast the knowledge, speak for us towards the gods, make true to our aspiration all desirable things.

3. For thou, O Fire, O most youthful son of force, thou in whom are cast the offerings, art the possessor of the Truth to be worshipped with sacrifice.

4. This Fire is the lord of the hundredfold and thousandfold plenitude, the seer who is the head of the treasures.

5. O Angiras, by words which bear in them the invocation, bring down nearer that sacrifice as the heaven's craftsmen brought down the rim of the wheel.

6. To him now, O Virupa, by the eternal word give the impulse of the high laud to the luminous Bull.

7. By the army of the Fire who has the eye that sees from afar [[Or, who has the eye of wisdom]] may we lay low whatever miser Trafficker and enter among the shining herds.

8. May the peoples of the gods abandon us not, even as the unslayable luminous herds full of milk leave not a calf that is lean.

9. Let not calamity from every evil-thoughted hostile around smite us like a billow smiting a ship.

10. O divine Fire, men declare their prostration of surrender to thee that they may have force; crush by thy might the foe.

11. Once and again for our search for the Ray-Cow thou hast entered wholly into the riches, O Fire; O maker of wideness, make for us a wideness.

12. Abandon us not in the winning of this great wealth as if one who bears a heavy burden; conquer this massed treasure.

13. O Fire, may this mischief cling to another than us for his terror; increase for us a forceful might.

14. The man in whose work he takes pleasure, one who offers the prostration of surrender and is not poor in sacrifice, him the Fire protects with increase.

15. From thy place in the supreme region break through [[Or, descend]] to those who are below; here where I am, them protect.

16. For we know from of old of thy protection like a father's, O Fire, now we seek thy bliss.

USHANAS KAVYA

SUKTA 84

1. Your guest most beloved I laud who is like a beloved friend, Fire who is as if the chariot of our journey, the one whom we must know.

2. He whom as the seer and thinker the gods have now set within twofold in mortals.

3. O thou ever-young, guard men who give, hear our words; protect the son by the Self.

4. O divine Fire, O Angiras, O child of energy, by what word, the laud, for thy supreme thinking?

5. By the mind of what master of sacrifice shall we give, O son of force; how shall I word this prostration of my surrender?

6. Mayst thou thyself create for us all worlds of a happy dwelling, make our words a source of the plenitude and the riches.

7. In whose wide-moving thought dost thou take delight, O master of the house; thou from whom come our words in the conquest of the Light?

8. Him they make bright the strong of will and he goes in front in the race; [[Or, in the contests;]] he is a master of plenitude in his own abodes.

9. He dwells safe on perfect foundations and there are none to slay him, it is he who slays; O Fire, he is a mighty hero and prosperous.

PRAYOGA BHARGAVA

SUKTA 102

1. Thou, O divine Fire, foundest a vast expansion for the giver, thou art the seer, the youth, the master of the house.

2. Do thou, O Fire of the wide light, who art awake to knowledge, go with our word of prayer and of works and call the gods.

3. With thee indeed as an ally, most strong in thy urge, we overcome for the conquest of the plenitude.

4. Even as the Flame-Seer, Son of the Wideness, even as the Doer of Works I invoke the pure ocean-dwelling Fire.

5. I call the force which has the sound of the wind and the cry of the rain,-the ocean-dwelling Fire.

6. I call like the creation of the Creator-Sun, like the delight of the Lord of Delight, the ocean-dwelling Fire.

7. For the forceful offspring of the pilgrim-sacrifices towards Fire as he grows in his multitudes, --

8. so that he may come to be with us like the Form-Maker coming to the forms he has to carve, us made glorious by his will at work.

9. This Fire travels in the gods towards all glories; may he come to us with the plenitudes.

10. Laud here the most glorious of priests of the call, the supreme [[Or, the ancient]] Fire in the sacrifices.

11. The intense Fire with its purifying light who dwells eldest in our homes, shines out as one who hears from afar.

12. Declare him, O illumined sage, as the powerful and conquering war-horse, as the friend who takes man to the goal of his journey.

13. Towards thee come the words of the giver of the offerings marking thee out and stand firm as companions in the might of the wind.

14. Thou whose triple-seat of sacrifice is untied and unconfined and the waters also have established thy abode, --

15. the abode of the bounteous godhead with its inviolate safeties, like a happy regard of the Sun.

16. O divine Fire, by our thinkings of the light, burning with thy flame, bring to us the gods and do them sacrifice.

17. The mothers bore thee, the gods brought thee to birth as the seer, the immortal, the carrier of offering, O Angiras.

18. O Fire, O seer, they set thee within as the thinker, the desirable messenger, carrier of the offerings.

19. Mine is not the cow unslayable, I have no axe at hand, so I bring to thee this little that I have.

20. What we place for thee, a few chance logs, them accept, O ever-young Fire.

21. What is eaten by the ant, what the white ant overruns, let all that be to thee as if thy food of light. [[Or, as if clarified butter.]]

22. Kindling the Fire let mortal man cleave with his mind to the Thought; by things luminous [[Or, by the shining ones]] I kindle the Fire.

SOBHARI KANWA

SUKTA 103

1. He is seen, the great path-finder in whom they have founded the laws of our action; to the Fire well-born, increaser of the Aryan, go our words.

2. Fire lit by the Servant of Heaven travels in his might towards the gods along our mother earth and on heaven's peak he takes his stand.

3. Fire because of whom men doing the works that have to be done, grow luminous, him conqueror of the thousands as if in the winning of the purities they serve by the self, [[Or, of themselves,]] by their thoughts.

4. He whom thou willst to lead to the Riches, the mortal who gives to thee, O shining One, he holds in himself, O Fire, the hero, who utters the word, who increases the thousands.

5. He rends open the plenitude even in the strong place by the war-horse, he founds an imperishable inspired knowledge; O thou of the many riches, in thee we ever hold in the godheads all beautiful things.

6. He who gives to us all treasures, men's rapturous Priest of the call, to him our lauds go forth as if supreme vessels of the honey-wine.

7. The lavish givers, the seekers of the godhead, make him bright by their words as if currying a chariot-horse. O powerful for action, O lord of peoples, in the son of our begettings thou carriest achievement of the possessors of riches beyond both the firmaments.

8. Chant to the most bounteous, the possessor of the Truth, the brilliant in light, coming with the laud, to the Fire.

9. High-kindled, fed with the offering full of light, the lord of riches conquers a heroic glory; often may his new right thinking come towards us with the plenitudes, --

10. O thou who pressest the wine, laud the Fire, the guest most beloved of the beloved, the controller of the chariots, --

11. the master of sacrifice who turns towards us the hidden treasures now risen and known, he in whose downward descent is a rush as of waves hard to cross, when he conquers by the thought the plenitudes.

12. May not Fire, the guest, the shining One widely proclaimed, be wroth with us; this is he who is the perfect Priest of the call perfect in the pilgrim-rite.

13. May they not come to harm by any of their movements who approach thee with invocation, O Fire, O shining One; for the singer of the hymn [[Or, the doer of works]] who has given the offering and does well the pilgrim-rite demands of thee the office of the messenger.

14. Come, O Fire, with the Rudras, comrade of the life-gods, for the drinking of the Soma-wine, to the laud of Sobhari and take thy rapture in the godhead of the Sun-world.

MANDALA TEN

TRITA APTYA

SUKTA 1

1. High and vast the Fire stood in front of the dawns; issuing out of the darkness he came with the Light: Fire, a perfect body of brilliant lustre, filled out at his very birth all the worlds.

2. Thou art the child born from earth and heaven, the child beautiful carried in the growths of earth; an infant many-hued, thou goest forth crying aloud from the mothers around the nights and the darknesses.

3. Vishnu knowing rightly the supreme plane of this Fire, born in his vastness, guards the third (plane); when in his mouth they have poured the milk (of the cow), conscious they shine here towards his own home.

4. Hence the mothers who bear that draught come with their food to thee, and thou growest by the food: to them the same, but other in their forms, thou comest (returnest) again, then art thou Priest of the call in human beings.

5. The Priest of the call of the pilgrim-rite with his many-hued chariot, in the brilliant ray of intuition of sacrifice on sacrifice, Fire the guest of man who takes to himself the half of each god in might and glory.

6. Putting on robes, putting on forms, Fire in the navel-centre of the earth is born a ruddy flame, in the seat of Revelation. O King, as the Priest set in front sacrifice to the gods.

7. Ever, O Fire, thou hast stretched out earth and heaven, as their son thou hast built up thy father and mother: O ever young, journey towards the gods who desire thee; then bring them to us, O forceful Flame!

SUKTA 2

1. Satisfy the desire of the gods, O thou ever young, do sacrifice here, a knower of its order and its times, O master of the order and time of things, [[In the exoteric sense, "rtu" seems to mean the rites of the sacrifice.]] with those who are divine priests of the order of the work thou, O Fire, art the strongest for sacrifice.

2. Thou comest to men's invocation, thou comest to the purification, thou art the thinker, the giver of the riches, the possessor of the Truth: may we make the offerings with svaha; may Fire, availing, do the sacrifice, a god to the gods.

3. We have come to the path of the gods, may we have power to tread it, to drive forward along that road. The Fire is the knower, let him do sacrifice; he verily is the Priest of the call, he makes effective the pilgrim-sacrifices and the order of our works.

4. Whatever we may impair of the laws of your workings, O gods, we in our ignorance maiming your workings who know, all that may the Fire who is a knower make full by that order in time with which he makes effective the gods.

5. What in thee sacrifice mortals in the ignorance of their minds, poor in discernment, cannot think out, that the Fire knows, the Priest of the call, the finder of the right-will, strongest of sacrificants and does the sacrifice to the gods in the order and times of the truth.

6. The father brought thee to birth, the force of all pilgrim-sacrifices, the many-hued ray of intuition; so do thou win for us by sacrifice in the line of the planes with their god heads, their desirable and opulent universal forces.

7. Thou whom heaven and earth, thou whom the waters, thou whom the form-maker, creator of perfect births, have brought into being; O Fire, luminously along the path of the journey of the Fathers, knowing it beforehand, high-kindled blaze.

SUKTA 3

1. He is seen high-kindled, the master ruling all, the traveller, the terrible, he who creates perfectly right understanding, awake to knowledge he shines wide with a vast lustre; driving the ruddy bright cow he comes to the dark one.

2. When he overspread with his body the black night and the dappled dawn bringing to birth the young maiden born from the great Father, pillaring the high-lifted light of the sun, the traveller shines out with the riches [[Or, the shining ones]] of heaven.

3. He has come closely companioning her, happy with her happy, a lover he follows behind his sister; Fire spreading out with his lights full of conscious knowledge overlays her beauty with his ruddy shining hues.

4. His movements flaming send forth as if vast callings of Fire the beneficent comrade in the march of this mighty and adorable flame, the vast and beautiful his radiances blazing have waked to knowledge.

5. His blazings as he shines stream like sounds of bright heaven in its vastness; with his greatest, most splendid and opulent lights at play he travels to heaven.

6. His strengths are those of a thunderbolt seen in the hurling, they neigh aloud in their teams; he, the traveller, most divine, shines wide-pervading with his ancient ruddy chanting fires.

7. So carry for us, so take thy seat, the mighty traveller of the young earth and heaven, Fire the swift and vehement with his swift and vehement horses, -- so mayst thou come to us here.

SUKTA 4

1. To thee I sacrifice, to thee I send forth my thought so that thou mayst manifest thyself adorable at our call; thou art like a fountain in the desert to longing men, O ancient king, O Fire.

2. O ever-young flame, towards thee men move, like herds that go to a warm pen; thou art the messenger of gods and mortals, thou movest between them vast through the luminous world.

3. The mother bears thee like an infant child clinging cherishingly to thee, increasing thee to be a conqueror; headlong down over the dry land he goes rejoicing, he is fain to go like an animal let loose.

4. O thou who art conscious and free from ignorance, ignorant are we and we know not thy greatness, thou only knowest. Covert he lies, he ranges devouring with his tongue of flame, he licks the young earth and is the master of her creatures.

5. Anywhere he is born new in eternal wombs; he stands in the forest hoary-old with smoke for his banner: a bull unbathed he journeys to the waters and mortals who are conscious lead him on his way.

6. Two robbers abandoning their bodies, rangers of the forest, have planted him in his place with ten cords. This is thy new thinking, O Fire, yoke thyself to it with thy illumining limbs like a chariot.

7. Thine is this wisdom-word, O knower of all things born, and this prostration, this utterance is thine; may it have ever the power to make thee grow. Guard all that are offspring of our begetting, guard undeviatingly our bodies.

SUKTA 5

1. One sole ocean holding all the riches, born in manifold births from our heart it sees all; there cleaves to the teat in the lap of the two secret ones in the midst of the fountain source the hidden seat of the being.

2. The stallions inhabiting a common abode, the great stallions have met with the mares. The seers guard the seat of the Truth, they hold in the secrecy the supreme Names.

3. The two mothers in whom is the Truth, in whom is the mage-wisdom, formed him and brought to birth like an infant child, they have put him firm in his place and make him grow. Men found in him the navel-centre of all that is moving and stable and they weave by the mind the weft of the seer.

4. Him well-born the routes of the Truth and its ancient impulsions close companion for the plenitude. Heaven and earth give lodging to him whose dwelling is above them, [[Or, as their inhabitant,]] they make him grow by the lights and foods of their sweetnesses.

5. Desiring the seven shining sisters, the knower bore on high their sweetnesses that he might have vision; he who was born from of old laboured within in the mid-world, he wished for and found the covering of the all-fostering sun.

6. The seers fashioned the seven goals, [[Or, the seven frontiers,]] towards one of them alone goes the narrow and difficult road. A pillar of the supreme being in its abode, he stands at the starting-out of the ways, in the upholding laws.

7. He is the being and non-being in the supreme ether, in the birth of the Understanding in the lap of the indivisible mother. Fire comes to us as the first-born of the Truth, he is the Bull and milch-Cow in the original existence.

SUKTA 6

1. This is he in whose peace, [[ Or, house of refuge,]] and in his approach to it grows by his guardings the worshipper of the Fire, who encompasses all and is spread everywhere luminous with the largest lights of the wise. [[Or, with his largest lights for the wise.]]

2. Fire, who shines perpetual, possessor of the Truth, luminous with divine lights, he who follows out the works of a comrade for his comrades like a courser running straight to his goal.

3. He who has power for every advent of godhead, who has power for the outbreak of the dawn and is the life of all, Fire in whom our thinkings are cast as offerings, his chariot goes unhurt and he supports all his strengths.

4. Increasing by his strengths, rejoicing in his illuminations he goes a swift galloper towards the gods; he is the rapturous Priest of the call, strong to sacrifice with his tongue of flame, inseparable from the gods the Fire sheds on them his light.

5. Him fashion for you with your words and your obeisances as if Indra quivering at the dawn-ray, him whom illumined sages voice with their thoughts, the knower of all things born, the overpowering Flame.

6. Thou in whom all the Riches meet together in the plenitude like horses by their gallopings in their speed towards the goal, the protections most desired by Indra to us make close, O Fire.

7. Now, indeed, taking thy seat in thy greatness, O Fire, in thy very birth thou hast become the one to whom we must call; the gods walked by the ray of thy intuition, then they grew and were the first and supreme helpers.

SUKTA 7

1. Found for us felicity of earth and heaven and universal life that we may worship thee with sacrifice, O god; O doer of works, may we keep close to thy perceptions of knowledge; guard us, O god, with thy wide utterances.

2. For thee these thoughts are born, O Fire, towards thee they voice our achievement of riches with its horses of power and herds of light when the mortal upheld by his thoughts following thee attains to thy enjoyment, O Fire, perfectly born, O shining One.

3. I think of the Fire as my father, my ally, my brother, ever my comrade; I serve the force of vast Fire, his bright and worshipped force of the Sun in heaven.

4. O Fire, effective in us are thy thoughts and conquerors of our aims: he whom thou deliverest, thou the eternal Priest of the call in the house, who art that driver of the red horses, possessed of the Truth, possessor of the much store of riches, may happiness be his through the shining days.

5. The Fire founded by the heavens [[Or, with his lights]] as our friend and the means for our works, the ancient Priest of the pilgrim-rites, the lover men brought into being by the strength of their two arms and seated within as the Priest of the call in beings.

6. Thyself sacrifice in heaven to the gods, for what shall man immature in thought and unconscious of the knowledge do of thy work? Even as thou didst sacrifice in the order and times of the Truth, a god to the gods, O perfectly born Fire, so sacrifice to thy body.

7. O Fire, become our guardian and protector, become the creator of our growth and of our growth the upholder, O mighty One, give to us what we shall give as offerings to the gods, and unfailing our bodies deliver.

TRISHIRAS TWASHTRA

SUKTA 8

1. The Fire journeys on with his vast ray of intuition, the Bull bellows to earth and heaven; he has reached up to the highest extremities of heaven, the mighty one has grown in the lap of the waters.

2. The Bull of the heights, [[Or, the humped-Bull,]] the new-born rejoiced, the unfailing child worker rejoiced and shouted aloud; in the formation of the gods he does his exalted works and comes the first in his own abodes.

3. He who grasps the head of the father and mother they set within in the pilgrim-sacrifice, a sea from the Sun-world; in his path are the shining rays that are the foundations of the Horse of Power and they accept embodiment in the native seat of the Truth.

4. O shining One, thou comest to the front of dawn after dawn, thou hast become luminous in the Twins; thou holdest the seven planes for the Truth bringing Mitra to birth for thy own body.

5. Thou becomest the eye of the vast Truth; when thou journeyest to the Truth thou becomest Varuna, its guardian; thou becomest the child of the waters, O knower of all things born, thou becomest the messenger of the man in whose offering thou hast taken pleasure.

6. Thou art the leader of the sacrifice and leader to the midworld to which thou resortest constantly with thy helpful team of mares; thou upholdest in heaven thy head that conquers the Sun-world, thy tongue thou makest, O Fire, the carrier of our offerings.

7. By his will Trita in the secret cave desiring by his movements the thinking of the supreme Father cherished in the lap of the Father and Mother, speaking the companionword, seeks his weapons.

8. Trita Aptya discovered the weapons of the Father and missioned by Indra went to the battle; he smote the Three headed, the seven-rayed and let loose the ray-cows of the son of Twashtri the form-maker.

9. Indra, the master of beings, broke that great upstriving meditating force and cast it downward and making his own the ray-cows of Twashtri's son of the universal forms he took away from him his three heads.

HAVIRDHANA ANGI

SUKTA 11

1. Mighty from the mighty, strong and inviolable, he milked by the milking of heaven the streams of the Indivisible; Varuna knew all by his right thought. A lord of sacrifice, may he perform the order of the rites of the sacrifice.

2. May the Gandharvi speak to me and the Woman born from the Waters, may her protection be around my mind midst the roar of the river; may the indivisible mother establish us in the heart of our desire: my brother the greatest [[Or, the eldest]] and first declares it to me.

3. She the happy, and opulent and glorious, dawn has shone out for man bringing the Sun-world with her. When they gave birth to this Fire, an aspirant doing the will of the aspirants for the discovery of knowledge.

4. Now the Bird, the missioned Hawk, has brought the draught of the great and seeing wine to the pilgrim-sacrifice. When the Aryan peoples chose the doer of works, Fire the Priest of the call, then the thought was born.

5. Ever art thou delightful like grasses to that which feeds on them, O Fire, doing well with thy voices of invocation the pilgrim-sacrifice for man when thou givest utterance to the plenitude of the word of the illumined sage, as one who has conquered, thou comest with thy multitude.

6. Upward lift the Father and Mother; the lover aspires to his enjoyment, rejoicing he obeys the urgings from his heart: a bearer of the word he speaks and jocund longs for the good work, the Mighty One puts forth his strength and is illumined by the Thought.

7. O Fire, O son of Force, the mortal who attains to thy right thinking goes forward and hears the truth beyond; holding the impelling force, borne by the horses of power, luminous and mighty he seeks to possess the heavens.

8. When, O Fire, takes place that sacrificial assembly, O master of sacrifice, the assembly divine among the gods, when thou distributest the ecstasies, O lord of nature, an opulent portion bring to us.

9. Hear us, O Fire, in thy house, in the hall of thy session, yoke the galloping car of the Immortal; bring to us heaven and earth, parents of the gods; let none of the gods be away from us and mayst thou be here.

SUKTA 12

1. Heaven and earth are the first to hear and by the Truth become possessed of the true speech when the god fashioning the mortal for the sacrificial act takes his seat as his Priest of the call and turned towards its own force moves towards it.

2. A god encompassing the gods with the Truth, carry our offering, the first to awake to the knowledge; erect, thy light rises by the kindling with smoke for thy banner; thou art the rapturous eternal Priest of the call strong by speech for the sacrifice.

3. When perfectly achieved is the immortality of the godhead, the immortality of the Light, men born in this world hold wide earth and heaven; all the gods follow in the track of that sacrificial act [[Or, sacrificial word]] of thine when the white cow is milked of her stream of divine Light.

4. O earth and heaven, I sing to you the word of illumination, pouring your light make my work grow, may the two firmaments hear me; when the days and the heavens have come by the guidance of the force, may the Father and Mother quicken us here with the sweetness of the wine.

5. On something in us the king has laid hold; what have we done that transgresses his law who can know? Even if the Friend is dealing crookedly with the gods there is as if a call to us as we go, there is upon us a plenitude.

6. Hard to seize by the mind in this world is the name of the immortal because he puts on features and becomes divergent forms; he who grasps perfectly with his mind and his thought seizes its controlling law, him, O Fire, O mighty One, undeviatingly protect.

7. The discovery of knowledge in which the gods find their rapture they hold in the house of the radiant sun; they have set in the sun its light, in the moon its rays and both circle unceasingly around its illumination.

8. The thought in which the gods meet together, when it is occult we know not of it. May Mitra and the indivisible mother and the godhead of the creative sun declare us sinless to Varuna.

9. Hear us, O Fire, in thy house, in the hall of thy session, yoke the galloping car of the Immortal; bring to us heaven and earth, parents of the gods; let none of the gods be away from us and mayst thou be here.

VIMADA AINDRA OR PRAJAPATYA OR VASUKRIT VASUKRA

SUKTA 20

1. Bring to us a happy mind.

2. 1 pray the Fire, the friend who is irresistible in his own command, in whose law the white rays attend on the Sun-world, serve the teat of the mother.

3. Fire whom face to face a home of light, one who brings the ray of intuition by his lustre they increase; he blazes with his row of flaming tusks.

4. He comes to us as a noble path for men when he travels to the ends of heaven; he is the seer and he lights up the sky. [[Or, the cloud.]]

5. Accepting the oblation of man he stands high exalted in the sacrifice, a skilful craftsman; he goes in our front building our home.

6. He is our secure foundation, he is our offering, he is the sacrifice; his path goes swiftly to its goal: the gods call Fire with its adze.

7. I desire from the Fire, powerful for the sacrifice the work of the supreme bliss; [[Or, the work that brings the supreme bliss;]] they speak of him as the living son of the stone. [[Or, of the Rock, or the Peak.]]

8. Whatever men are with us may they in all ways abide in happiness making the Fire to grow by the offerings.

9. Black is his movement and white and luminous and crimsonred, it is large and straight and glorious; golden of form the father brought into being.

10. So, O Fire, rapturous thou bearest thy thinking mind, O son of energy, companioning the immortals, coming to us thou bearest thy words and thy right thinkings, thou bringest impelling force, energy, happy worlds of habitation, all. [[Or, Vimada, the rapturous one, coming carries to thee, O Fire, his thinking mind, to thee his words and his right thinkings, brings etc.]]

SUKTA 21

1. By our self-purifications we elect thee, the Fire as our Priest of the call, for the sacrifice where strewn is the grass, -- in the intoxication of your rapture, -- intense with thy purifying light of flame, -- and thou growest to greatness.

2. Those who have achieved possession of the Horse, are very close to thee and glorify thee; the ladle goes to thee, -- in the intoxication of your rapture, -- direct, carrying the oblation, O Fire, -- and thou growest to greatness.

3. In thee the upholding laws reside; sprinkling out their contents as with ladle black forms and white -- in the intoxication of your rapture -- all glories thou holdest -- and thou growest to greatness.

4. O forceful and immortal Fire, whatever wealth thou deemest fit, that for the winning of the plenitudes, -- in the intoxication of your rapture, -- bring to us a wealth of various lights in the sacrifices, -- and thou growest to greatness.

5. The Fire born from Atharvan knows all seer-wisdoms, he becomes the messenger of the luminous sun, -- in the intoxication of your rapture, -- dear and desirable to the lord of the law, -- and thou growest to greatness.

6. Thee they pray in the sacrifices, O Fire, as the pilgrim-sacrifice goes on its way; all desirable treasures -- in the intoxication of your rapture -- thou foundest for the giver, and thou growest to greatness.

7. Thee as the Priest of the rite in the sacrifices men have seated, O Fire, beautiful, luminous of front, -- in the intoxication of your rapture, -- bright and, with thy eyes, most conscious of knowledge, -- and thou growest to greatness.

8. O Fire, with thy bright light of flame thou spreadest the wide Vast, clamouring thou becomest the bull, -- in the intoxication of your rapture, -- and settest the child of the womb in the sisters, -- and thou growest to greatness.

VATSAPRI BHALANDANA

SUKTA 45

1. Above heaven was the first birth of the Fire, over us was his second birth as the knower of all things born, his third birth was in the waters, a god-mind; him continuously one kindles and with one's thought perfectly fixed on him adores.

2. O Fire, we know the triple three of thee, we know thy seats borne widely in many planes, we know thy supreme Name which is in the secrecy, we know that fount of things whence thou camest.

3. He of the god-mind kindled thee in the Ocean, within the Waters, he of the divine vision kindled thee, O Fire, in the teat of heaven; the mighty ones made thee to grow where thou stoodest in the third kingdom, in the lap of the waters.

4. Fire cried aloud like heaven thundering, he licked the earth revealing its growths: when kindled and born, at once he saw all this that is; he shines out with his light between earth and heaven.

5. An exalter of glories, a holder of the riches, a manifester of thinking mind, a guardian of the wine of delight, a shining One, the son of force, the king in the Waters, he grows luminous as he burns up in the front of the dawns.

6. The ray of intuition of the universe, the child in the womb of the world, in his coming to birth he filled earth and heaven; going beyond them he rent even the strong mountain when the peoples of the five births sacrificed to the fire.

7. An aspirant and traveller and wise of mind, a purifying flame, the Fire who is set within as the immortal in mortals, he sends forth and carries a ruddy smoke striving with his bright flame of light to reach heaven.

8. Visible, golden of light, widely he shone; resplendent in his glory he is life hard to violate: the Fire by his expandings became immortal when heaven with its strong seed had brought him to birth.

9. O god, O happy light, O Fire, he who has prepared for thee the luminous honeycomb [[Or, the cake of light]] him lead forward towards a more opulent state, O youthful godhead, even to the bliss enjoyed by the gods.

10. O Fire, bestow on him his share in the things of inspired knowledge, in word upon word as it is spoken: he becomes dear to the sun, dear to Fire; upward he breaks with what is born in him, upward with the things that are to be born.

11. O Fire, men who sacrifice to thee day after day hold in themselves all desirable riches; desiring the treasure in thy companionship, aspiring, they burst open the covered pen of the Ray-Cows.

12. The Fire has been affirmed in their lauds by the sages, he who is full of bliss for men, the Universal Godhead, guardian of the wine of delight. Let us invoke earth and heaven free from hostile powers; found in us, O gods, a wealth full of hero-mights.

SUKTA 46

1. The great Priest of the call has been born; the knower of the heavens, he who is seated in man, may he take his seat in the lap of the waters: he who upholds us and who is held in us, rules for thee his worshipper thy expandings and thy riches and is the protector of thy body.

2. They worshipped him in the session of the waters, as if the cow of vision lost they followed him by his tracks; where he hid in the secret cavern, aspiring with obeisance the Flame Seers, the wise thinkers desired and found him.

3. Him greatly desiring Trita, son of the master of wide riches, [[Trita the triple born from the All-pervading Substance,]] found on the head of the light unslayable; he is born the youth who increases the felicity in our mansions and becomes the navel-centre of the luminous world.

4. In their aspiration they created him by their obeisance and set him in men as the rapturous Priest of the call, the sacrificer ever-moving forward, the leader of the pilgrim-sacrifices, the traveller, the carrier of the offering, the purifying Flame.

5. He has come into being and leading him like a golden-maned war-horse, the great, the victorious, the founder of the Light, men ignorant, one who is free from ignorance, the render of the cities, the child of the forests, whose wealth is the illumined word [[Or, the illumination]] -- they established the thought.

6. May Trita in the homesteads holding all firmly [[Or, setting himself firmly]] take his session in his native seat within and all-encompassing; thence, a dweller in man's home, taking all into his grasp, by a wide law of his action, by unrestrained movements he journeys to the gods.

7. His ageless and purifying fires are the defenders of our homes, lifting their luminous smoke; white-flaming, dwellers in the Tree, they are our strengtheners and supporters and like winds and like wine.

8. Fire carries with his tongue the illumination of wisdom, he carries in his consciousness earth's discoveries of knowledge; him men hold the illuminating and purifying rapturous Priest of the call most strong for sacrifice.

9. This is the Fire to whom earth and heaven gave birth; and the waters, the form-maker and the Flame-Seers by their strengths, and life that grows in the mother and the gods have fashioned for man desirable, first and supreme, a master of sacrifice.

10. Thou art he whom the gods have set as the carrier of the offerings and men with their many desires as the lord of sacrifice; so do thou, O Fire, found in thy journeying wide expansion for him who lauds thee and making him divine gather in him many glorious things.

DEVAS AND AGNI SAUCHIKA

SUKTA 51

1. Large was the covering and it was dense in which thou wert wrapped when thou didst enter into the waters; one was the god who saw thee but many and manifold were thy bodies which he saw, O Fire, O knower of all things born.

2. Which of the gods was he who saw everywhere my bodies in many forms? O Mitra and Varuna, where then dwell all the blazings of the Fire which are paths of the gods?

3. We desire thee, O Fire, O knower of all things born, when thou hast entered manifoldly into the growths of the earth and into the waters; there the lord of the law grew aware of thee, O thou of the many diverse lights, shining luminous beyond the ten inner dwelling-places.

4. O Varuna, fearing the sacrificants' office that so the gods might not yoke me to that work; so my bodies entered manifoldly, for I, Fire, was not conscious of this goal of the movement.

5. Come to us; the human being, god-seeking, is desirous of sacrifice, he has made all ready but thou dwellest in the darkness, O Fire. Make the paths of the journeying of the gods easy to travel, let thy mind be at ease, carry the offerings.

6. The ancient brothers of the Fire chose this goal to be reached as charioteers follow a path; therefore in fear I came far away, O Varuna. I started back as a gaur from the bowstring of the archer.

7. Since we make thy life imperishable, O Fire, O knower of all things born, so that yoked with it thou shalt not come to harm, then with thy mind at ease thou canst carry their share of the offering to the gods, O high-born Fire.

8. Give me the absolutes that precede and follow the sacrifice as my share of the oblation packed with the energy; give me the light from the waters and the soul from the plants and let there be long life for the Fire, O gods.

9. Thine be the absolute precedents and consequents of the sacrifice, the portions packed with energy of the oblation; thine, O Fire, be all this sacrifice; may the four regions bow down to thee.

SUMITRA VADHRYASHWA

SUKTA 69

1. Happy are the seeings of the Fire of the gelded Horse, pleasurable his guidance, delightful his approaches; when the friendly peoples set him ablaze in their front, fed with the oblations of the Light he flames up for his worshipper.

2. The Light is the increasing of the Fire of the gelded Horse, Light is his food, Light is his fattening: fed with the oblation of the Light wide he spread; he shines as the Sun when there is poured on him its running stream.

3. The force of flame which thinking man, which the friendly one, set ablaze, this is that new force, O Fire; so opulently shine, so accept our words, so take the plenitude by violence, so found here the inspired knowledge.

4. That flame of thine of old which the gelded Horse, when prayed, set blazing high, O Fire who art that flame, this too accept; as that flame, become the protector of our stable erections and the protector of our bodies, guard this giving of thine which is here in us.

5. Become full of light, O gelded Horse, and become our protector, let not the assault of men pierce thee; thou art like a hero, a violent overthrower and the good Friend: lo, I have uttered the names of the Fire of the gelded Horse.

6. Thou hast conquered the riches of the plains and the riches of the mountain, the destroyer foemen, and the Aryan freemen: like a hero art thou, a violent overthrower of men, O Fire, mayst thou overcome those who battle against us.

7. This Fire is the long Thread, the vast Bull, one with a thousand layers and a hundred leadings, he is the Craftsman; luminous in men luminous, made bright by the hands of men, may he flame out in the strivers after godhead, in the friendly people. [[In the Sumitras, the name of the Rishi; but throughout the hymn there is a double or symbolic meaning in the names.]]

8. In thee is the good milch-cow, O knower of all things born, as if unstayingly equal in its yield, giving its nectar-milk. O Fire, thou art set alight by men who have the intuitive judgment, strivers after godhead, the friendly people.

9. Even the immortal gods proclaim thy greatness, O knower of all things born, O Fire of the gelded Horse. That which I sought by questioning, coming to the human peoples, thou hast conquered by men who grow by thee. [[Or, who make thee grow in them.]]

10. Thee, as the father carries his son in his lap so the gelded Horse carried and tended thee, O Fire; O youthful god, accepting his fuel thou didst conquer even the supreme and mighty.

11. Fire has ever conquered the enemies of the gelded Horse by men who have pressed the Soma-wine; O thou of the bright diverse lights, thou hast broken and cast down the foe that was equal and the foe that was mighty and thou hast given him increase.

12. This Fire is the slayer of the enemies of the gelded Horse, lit from of old and to be invoked with obeisance; so do thou assail those who attack him, both the uncompanioned and the one with many companions, O Fire of the gelded Horse.

SUKTA 70

1. O Fire, accept the fuel I give thee; in the seat of revelation take joy in the luminous Thought: on the high top of earth, in the brightness of the days, become high uplifted by worship of sacrifice to the gods, O strong of will!

2. May he who travels in front of the gods, he who voices the godhead, come here with his horses of universal forms; pure and most divine, may he hasten with our obeisance on the path of the Truth to the gods.

3. Men bringing their offerings ask for the Fire everlasting to be their envoy: so do thou with thy horses strong to bear and thy swiftly moving car bring to us the gods; take here thy seat as the Priest of the call.

4. May the seat acceptable to the gods spread wide in us and all its long horizontal length become fragrant. Occupy that seat, O god, with a mind not inclining to wrath, and to the gods with Indra for their greatest offer sacrifice.

5. Touch either heaven's superior peak or swing wide open with all the extent of earth, O doors of aspiration, who desire the chariot of the gods hold in your greatness and by the great the divine car.

6. Let the two divine daughters of heaven, formed beautifully, dawn and night, sit in their native seat; O dawn and night, O you who aspire, may the gods aspiring sit on your wide lap, O blissful ones.

7. High stands up the stone of the pressing, high the Fire is kindled, may it touch the vast and the seats dear to us in the lap of the infinite mother; O you who are vicars and ordinants of the rite in this sacrifice, you twain who have greater knowledge, may you win for us by sacrifice the Treasure.

8. O ye three goddesses, sit on the superior seat which we have made delightful for you; may the mother of Revelation and the two goddesses with the luminous feet accept our firmly placed offerings and our human worship of sacrifice.

9. O divine maker of forms, since thou hast reached beauty in thy works, since thou hast become companion in thy being to the Angiras seers, forward then to the goal of the journeyings of the gods, for thou knowest it! Aspiring, perfect in ecstasy, sacrifice to the gods, O giver of the treasure.

10 O Tree, knowing the goal of the journeying of the gods, bear us to it binding with the radiant cord. May the godhead fashion the offerings in which he takes pleasure: may heaven and earth protect our call.

11. O Fire, bring Varuna to our sacrifice, Indra from heaven, the Life-Gods from mid-air; may all the lords of sacrifice sit on our sacred seat, may the immortal gods take rapture in the svaha.

AGNI SAUCHIKA OR VAISHWANARA OR SAPTI VAJAMBHARA

SUKTA 79

1. I have seen the greatness of this great one, the Immortal in the mortal peoples. The jaws of this abundant eater, separate and held apart, are brought close together, devouring, insatiable.

2. His head is in the secrecy, his eyes wide apart, insatiable he eats up the forest with his tongue of flame. They bring together his foods for him with the pacings of their feet, their hands of obeisance are outstretched in the peoples.

3. Desiring the secret place of the mother farther beyond he crawls like a child over the wide growths of earth. One finds him shining like ripe corn, licking away the hurts, within in her lap.

4. O heaven and earth, I declare to you that Truth of you, -- in his very birth the child of your womb devours his parents. I am mortal and know not of the godhead; Fire is the all-conscious knower and he is the thinker.

5. He who sets swiftly for him his food casts on him the outpourings of light by which he is nourished, for him he sees with a thousand eyes: O Fire, thou frontest us on every side.

6. What omission or sin hast thou done before the gods, I ask thee, O Fire, for I know not. In his play unplaying a tawny lion, eating only to devour, he has cut all asunder limb by limb, as a knife cuts the cow.

7. He who is born in the forests has yoked his horses tending all ways but caught back by straight-held reins. Mitra, well-born, has distributed to him the treasures and he has grown to completeness increasing in every member.

SUKTA 80

1. Fire gives to us the Horse that carries the plenitude, Fire gives the Hero who has the inspired hearing and stands firm in the work; Fire ranges through earth and heaven revealing all things, Fire gives the Woman, the tenant of the city, [[Or, the many-thoughted,]] from whose womb is born the hero.

2. May there be a happy fuel for Fire at his labour, Fire enters into the great earth and heaven: Fire urges on one who is all alone in his battles, Fire cleaves asunder the multitude of the enemy.

3. Fire has protected the ear [["Tyam", "that other" ear, the inner ear which listens to inspired knowledge.]] of the worshipper, [[Sayana takes the two words "jaratah", "karnam" as if they were one indicating the name of the Rishi "Jaratkarna".]] Fire burnt out the Waster [[Sayana renders "jarutha" "a demon".]] from the waters; Fire delivered Atri within the blaze, [[Sayana renders "in the hot cauldron in the earth".]] Fire united man's sacrifice with its progeny. [[Sayana renders "gave progeny to the Rishi Nrimedha".]]

4. May Fire in the hero's shape give us the Treasure, may Fire give us the sage who wins the thousands; Fire has extended the offering in heaven, his are the planes upheld separately in many spaces.

5. Fire the sages with their utterances call to every side, to Fire men call who are opposed in their march, to Fire the Birds flying in mid-air; Fire encircles the thousands of the Ray Cows.

6. Fire the peoples pray who are human, Fire men of different birth who dwell as neighbours, Fire brings the Gandharvi to the path of the Truth, the Fire's path of the ray-cows is settled in the Light.

7. The divine craftsmen have fashioned the Wisdom-Word for the Fire, the Fire we have declared as a vast purification. O ever-youthful Fire, protect thy worshipper; O Fire, win for him by sacrifice the great Treasure.

PAYU BHARADWAJA

SUKTA 87

1. I set ablaze Fire of the plenitude, the slayer of the Rakshasas, I approach him as a friend and the widest house of refuge; [[Or, a widest peace;]] the Fire has been kindled and grows intense by the workings of the will, may he protect us from the doer of hurt, by the day and by the night.

2. O knower of all things born, high-kindled, iron-tusked, touch with thy ray the demon-sorcerers; do violence to him with thy tongue of flame, the gods who kill, [[Or, the gods of ignorance,]] the eaters of flesh, putting them off from us shut them into thy mouth.

3. Destruction, whetting set upon them both thy tusks, the higher and the lower, O thou who art of both worlds, [[Or, O thou who hast both,]] thou circle in the mid-air, O king, and snap up in thy jaws the demon-sorcerers.

4. Turning on them by our sacrifices thy arrows, O Fire, by our speech thy javelins, plastering them with thy thunderbolts pierce with these in their hearts the demon-sorcerers who confront us, break their arms.

5. O Fire, tear the skin of the demon-sorcerer; let the cruel thunderbolt slay him in its wrath; rend his limbs, O knower of all things born; hungry for its flesh let the carrion-eater pick asunder his mangled body.

6. Wherever now thou seest him, O knower of all things born, whether standing or walking, or flying on the paths in the mid-air, a shooter sharpening his weapon, pierce him with thy arrow.

7. Rescue from the assault of the demon-sorcerer with his spears the man touched by his grasp, O knower of all things born, O Fire, blazing supreme slay these devourers of the flesh; let the brilliant birds of prey eat him up.

8. Here proclaim which is he, O Fire, what demon-sorcerer, who is the doer of this deed? To him do violence with thy blaze, O youthful god, subject him to the eye of thy divine vision.

9. O Fire, guard with thy keen eye the sacrifice, lead it moving forward to the Shining Ones, O conscious thinker; O thou of the divine vision, when thou blazest fierce against the Rakshasas let not the demon-sorcerers overcome thee.

10. Divine of vision, see everywhere the Rakshasa in the peoples, cleave the three peaks of him; his flanks, O Fire, cleave with thy wrath, rend asunder the triple root of the demon sorcerer.

11. Triply may the demon-sorcerer undergo thy onrush, he who slays the Truth by falsehood; him overspreading with thy ray, O knower of all things born, fell down in front of him who hymns thee.

12. Set in thy singer, O Fire, the eye with which thou seest the trampler with his hooves, the demon-sorcerer; even as did Atharvan, burn with the divine Light this being without knowledge who does hurt to the Truth.

13. The cursing with which today couples revile each other, the curses which are born in the imprecations of the singers, the arrow which is born from the mind of wrath, with that pierce through the heart the demon-sorcerers.

14. Away from us cleave by thy burning energy the demon sorcerers, away from us cleave by the heat of thy wrath the Rakshasa, O Fire, away from us cleave by thy ray these slayer gods, [[Or. the gods of ignorance,]] blazing away from us cleave these who glut themselves with men's lives.

15. May the gods cleave away today the crooked one, may harsh curses come to confront him, may the shafts enter into the vital part of one who thieves by speech, may he undergo the onset of each and every one, the demon-sorcerer.

16. The demon-sorcerer who feeds on the flesh of human beings, who feeds on horses and on cattle, the one who carries away the milk of the Cow unslayable, cut asunder their necks with the flame of thy anger, O Fire.

17. O thou who hast the divine vision, let not the demon sorcerer partake of the yearly milk of the shining cow; O Fire, whichever of them would glut himself on the nectar him pierce in front in his vital part with thy ray of light.

18. May the demon-sorcerers drink poison from the Ray-Cows, may they be cloven asunder who are of evil impulse before the infinite mother, may the divine sun betray them to thee, may they be deprived of their share of the growths of earth.

19. Ever dost thou crush the demon-sorcerer, O Fire, never have the Rakshasas conquered thee in the battles; burn one by one from their roots the eaters of raw flesh, may they find no release from thy divine missile.

20. O Fire, do thou guard us from above and from below, thou from behind and from the front; may those most burning ageless flames of thine blazing burn one who is a voice of evil.

21. From behind and from in front, from below and from above, a seer by thy seer-wisdom protect us, O king; a friend protect thy friend, ageless protect from old age, immortal protect us who are mortals, O Fire.

22. O forceful Fire, let us think of thee, the illumined sage as a fortress around us, one violent of aspect, slayer from day to day of the crooked ones.

23. Consume with poison the crooked Rakshasas; O Fire, burn them with thy keen flame, with thy fiery-pointed spears.

24. Burn the bewildered demon-sorcerer couples; I thee whet to sharpness, inviolate, with my thoughts, O illumined sage; awake.

25. O Fire, cleave asunder their wrath with thy flame of wrath to every side; break utterly the strength, the energy of the Rakshasa, of the demon-sorcerer.

ARUNA VAITAHAVYA

SUKTA 91

1. Adored by those who are wakeful, the dweller in the house is kindled in the house aspiring in the seat of revelation, the sacrificant of every offering, one Supreme, [[Or, one desirable,]] wide of being, wide in light, a perfect friend to the man who seeks his friendship.

2. In his visioned glory he lodges as the guest in every house, as a bird in forest and forest; he disdains not the peoples, universal he dwells in being and being, common to all he dwells in man and man.

3. Thou art discerning in thy judgments, strong of will in thy workings of will, O Fire, an omniscient seer in thy seer-wisdoms; a possessor of riches thou rulest sole over all the riches nourished by earth and by heaven.

4. Thou hast known and reached thy luminous native seat where is the order of the Truth in the plane of revelation; free from stain of evil have come thy perceptions of knowledge like the white brilliances of the dawns, [[Or, like the advents of the dawns,]] like rays of the sun.

5. Thy glories like lightnings from a storm cloud break into light of knowledge brilliant like the rays of intuition of the dawns; when loosed on the growths of earths and woods of pleasance thou seekest out thyself the food for thy mouth. [[Or, heapest food in thy mouth.]]

6. Him the growths of earth held as a child in the womb in whom was the order of the Truth, the Waters become the mothers of that Fire who gave him birth; he is the common child with whom the pleasance-woods and the plants of earth are pregnant and they are delivered of him always.

7. Missioned, fanned by the wind when swiftly entering into thy food thou spreadest wide after thy desire, thy ageless hosts, as thou becomest, toil like chariot-warriors far apart.

8. Fire the creator of wisdom, the accomplisher of the discovery of knowledge, Fire the Priest of the call, the all-embracing thinker, him they choose universal in the little offering, him in the great, -- not another, O Fire, than thou.

9. The ordainers of the work, they who desire thee, choose thee as Priest of the call in their discoveries of knowledge when the seekers of the godhead hold thy delight, [[Or, set before thee the things of thy delight,]] human beings who have plucked for thee the sacred grass of thy seat and have brought their offerings.

10. O Fire, thine are the call and the offering, thine the purification and the order of the sacrifice, thine the lustration; thou art the fire-bringer for the seeker of the Truth. The annunciation is thine, thou becomest the pilgrim-rite [[Or, thou art the priest of the pilgrim-rite:]] thou art the Priest of the Word and the master of the house in our home.

11. [[Translation not found in MSS.]]

12. For him these thoughts and utterances go forth from us, these words high and hymns of illumination and these high lauds and meet together seeking the riches for the master of riches, for the knower of all things born, and his desire is towards them.

13. I would speak to the ancient One a laud new to his desire, may he hear us; may it avail to touch his heart deep within like a wife beautifully robed for her lord's desire.

14. Fire to whom are loosed and offered our horses, our bulls and oxen and heifers and our rams, to Fire the nectar-drinker who bears on his beak the Soma-wine, to the ordainer of things, I beget a thinking full of beauty from my heart.

15. An oblation has been offered into thy mouth, O Fire, as if clarified butter in a ladle, as if Soma-wine in a bowl. Found in us the treasure in which are the heroes and which wins for us the plenitudes, -- the treasure excellent [[Or, high-proclaimed]] and glorious and vast.

JAMADAGNI BHARGAVA OR RAMA JAMADAGNYA

SUKTA 110

1. High-kindled today in the house of the human being, thou doest sacrifice a god to the gods, O knower of all things born; bring them to us as one who has knowledge, O friendly Light; for thou art the messenger, the seer, the thinker.

2. O son of the body, revealing the paths of our journeyings to the Truth make them sweet with the Wine of Delight, O thou with thy high tongue of flame; enriching with our thoughts the mantras and the sacrifice set our pilgrim-sacrifice in the gods.

3. One prayed and adored, O Fire, calling them to us arrive, companioned by the Shining Ones, O mighty One, thou art the summoner of the gods, so, missioned, strong to sacrifice, do them sacrifice.

4. An ancient seat of sacred grass is plucked this morn, in the direction of this earth, in front of the days, wide it spreads beyond a supernal seat of happy ease for the gods and the mother infinite.

5. Widely expanding may they spring apart making themselves beautiful for us as wives for their lords; O divine doors, vast and all-pervading, be easy of approach to the gods.

6. Let night and day come gliding to us and queens of sacrifice, sit close together in their place of session, the two divine women, great and golden, holding a supreme glory of brilliant form, --

7. the two divine priests of the call, also, the first and perfect in speech building the sacrifice of man that he may do worship, doers of the work impelling to the discoveries of knowledge, pointing by their direction to the ancient Light.

8. May Bharati come swiftly to our sacrifice, Ila awakening to knowledge here like a human thinker, and Saraswati, the three goddesses, -- may they sit, perfect in their works, on this sacred seat of happy ease.

9. He who fashioned in their forms this earth and heaven, the Parents, and fashioned all the worlds, him today and here, O missioned Priest of the call, do thou worship, strong for sacrifice, having the knowledge, even the divine maker of forms.

10. Revealing by thy self-power the goal of the gods, release towards it in the order of the Truth our offerings. Let the tree and the divine accomplisher of the work and the Fire take the taste of the offering with the sweetness and the light.

11. As soon as he was born Fire measured out the shape of the sacrifice and became the leader who goes in front of the gods. In the speech of this Priest of the call which points out by its direction the Truth, may the gods partake of the oblation made svaha.

UPASTUTA VARSHTIHAVYA

SUKTA 115

1. Marvellous is the power to upbear of this young, this infant god, for he goes not to his two mothers to drink their milk, even though one without teats of plenty brought him to birth then as now, from the first he did his carrying, performing his mighty embassy.

2. Fire, verily, is established, a giver and mighty doer of works, he clings to the trees with his blazing tusks achieving the pilgrim-sacrifice with his besieging tongue of flame, he is like a snorting bull, master in his pasturage.

3. He is to you like a bird settled on a tree, like the divine moon-flow of the Soma-plant, like a clamorous spreading ocean; he is as one who carries in his mouth of flame, exuberant in strength, mighty in the way of his works, rushing on his paths.

4. O ageless Fire, when thou rangest the spaces in thy will to burn, there are all around thee as if unsinking winds like joyful fighters, having the command for the seeking they march towards the warrior of the triple world. [[Or, Trita the warrior.]]

5. This is the Fire, friend of the seer, himself the greatest of seers, who delivers from the inner foe; may Fire guard the speakers of the word, Fire the illumined seers, may he give his protection to them and to us.

6. O high-born, thou art he who moves swiftly in the wake of the knower of all things born, the Fire forceful and most full of the plenitude and even in the waterless desert for him who is there and desires it and is full of greatness, winnest by the violence of thy bow that which is supreme.

7. This is the Fire who is lauded accompanied by mortal illumined seers, the Shining One, [[Or, the master of riches,]] strong and glad by men, they who are seekers of the Truth, and like well-established friends, like the heavens with their lights have power on human beings.

8. "O son of energy, O forceful One", so adores thee the mighty speech of Upastuta, thee let us laud, by thee may we be armed with the heroes, holding more and more an ever longer life.

9. Thus have extolled thee, O Fire, the sons of Vrishtihavya, the Upastuta Rishis; [[Or, sages, extolled;]] protect them and the illuminates who speak the word, rising on high they have attained with the cry of vasat, vasat, with the cry of obeisance.

CHITRAMAHAS VASlSHTHA

SUKTA 122

l. I voice the Shining One with its richly varied lights, [[Or, greatnesses,]] the fair and happy, the guest in whom is nothing hostile; Fire, the Priest of the call, the master of the house gives the healing forces that sustain the world, he gives us the hero-energy.

2. O Fire, take pleasure in my word, let thy joy respond to it, for thou knowest all discoveries of knowledge, O strong will! Robed in light, put out a path for the Word, the gods have begotten all according to thy law of works.

3. Encompassing the seven planes, O immortal, giving to the giver, to the doer of good deeds, grow great; [[Or, exalt him;]] O Fire, with riches full of hero-strength crowding on him, accept the man who has come to thee with the fuel.

4. The seven givers of the offering pray the lord of plenitudes, the supreme Ray of intuition, the vicar of the sacrifice, Fire, the Bull with the luminous back who hears our words, the god who on him who satisfies him with gifts bestows fullness of heroic might.

5. Thou art the first and supreme messenger, as such when thou art called be rapturous for immortality: thee the lifepowers make resplendent in the house of the giver, thee with their lauds the flame-seers made to shine out wide.

6. In one to whom sacrifice is dear, for the giver of sacrifice, milking the force that is a good milch-cow, the force that founds all, O strong will, O Fire, thrice pouring light, illumining the Truths, circling round our house and our sacrifice thou puttest forth thy strength of will.

7. Thee, O Fire, making their messenger men have offered sacrifice in the outshining of this dawn; thee the gods have increased for their growing to greatness making bright the oblation of light in the pilgrim-sacrifice.

8. The Vasishthas called thee within them; full of plenitude, voicing the Fire, ordainers of works in the discoverings of knowledge; uphold the increasing of the riches in the doers of the sacrifice, do you ever guard us with all kinds of weal.

AGNI PAVAKA

SUKTA 140

1. O Fire, thy inspiration and thy growth and thy lights blaze in their greatness, O thou who shinest out with thy lustres; O great luminousness, O seer, thou foundest by thy strength for the giver a plenitude of utterance.

2. Purifying is thy flaming energy, bright is thy energy, indeficient is thy energy as thou ascendest with thy light -- a son thou rangest and protectest the Parents and thou joinest together earth and heaven.

3. O son of energy, O knower of all things born, well-founded rejoice in our perfect utterances and our thinkings; in thee they have joined together impelling forces of many forms, richly varied in their prospering, born to charm and beauty.

4. O immortal Fire, ruling over creatures born, spread in us thy Riches; thou art master of [[Or. thou shinest out from]] thy body of vision and thou satest thy conquering will.

5. A thinker, an arranger of sacrifice, a master of great achievement thou foundest a bounty of delight and a great and fortunate impulsion and conquering Riches.

6. Men have set in front this great Truth-possessing and allseeing Fire for the bliss; thee who hast the ear that hears our words voice, wide-extended, one divine throughout the human generations.

MRIDIKA VASISHTHA

SUKTA 150

l. Already kindled thou art kindled again for the gods, O carrier of the offering, come along with the sons of Aditi and with the Rudras and with the Shining Ones, come to us for grace.

2. Accepting this sacrifice, this word come to us, we who are mortals call thee, O high-kindled Fire, we call thee for grace.

3. Thee I voice with my thought, the knower of all things born, in whom are all desirable things, O Fire, bring to us the gods whose law of working is dear to us, dear to us for their grace.

4. Fire, the god, became the vicar priest of the gods, Fire the human Rishis have kindled, Fire I call in the conquest of the riches of the vast, gracious for the conquest of the riches.

5. Fire protected Atri and Bharadwaja and Gavishthira, protected for us Kanwa and Trasadasyu in the battle, Fire Vasishtha the vicar priest calls, the vicar priest calls him for grace.

KETU AGNEYA

SUKTA 156

1. May our thoughts speed the Fire on his way like a swift galloper in the battles, by him may we conquer every kind of wealth.

2. The army by which we may make ours the Ray-Cows under thy guard, that army send to us [[Or, speed for us]] for the getting of plenty.

3. Bring to us, O Fire, a stable wealth of the Ray-Cows and the horses of power, reveal heaven, turn away from us the evil Trafficker.

4. O Fire, make to ascend the ageless traveller-star, the sun in heaven upholding the Light for me.

5. O Fire, thou art the ray of intuition in creatures, most dear, most glorious, seated in the centre. [[Or, in the lap of the mother.]] Awake, founding his expansion who lauds thee.

VATSA AGNEYA

SUKTA 187

1. Send forth the word to the Fire, the bull of the worlds, [[Or, of the peoples,]] may he carry us through beyond the hostile forces.

2. He who shines beyond the desert across the supreme Beyond, may he carry us through beyond the hostile forces.

3. He who destroys the Rakshasas, the bull with the brilliant light, may he carry us through beyond the hostile forces.

4. He who looks upon all the worlds and sees them wholly, may he carry us through beyond the hostile forces.

5. Fire who is born brilliant on the further shore of this world, may he carry us through beyond the hostile forces.

SAMVANANA ANGIRASA

SUKTA 191

1. O Fire, O strong one, as master thou unitest us with all things and art kindled high in the seat of revelation; do thou bring to us the Riches.

2. Join together, speak one word, let your minds arrive at one knowledge even as the ancient gods arriving at one knowledge partake each of his own portion.

3. Common Mantra have all these, a common gathering to union, one mind common to all, they are together in one knowledge; I pronounce for you a common Mantra, I do sacrifice for you with a common offering.

4. One and common be your aspiration, united your hearts, common to you be your mind, -- so that close companionship may be yours.

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