Canto 22Mandala Five

Book 2. cover for HMF=16.pdf

[30]

[RV V.1]

Fifth Mandal.

Translation and Explanation.

51. Agni by the fuel heaped by the peoples has awakened

towards the coming Dawn as towards the Sun-cow coming;

like the waters spouting up for wide flowing, his flames move

towards the heaven.

2. The Priest of the offering awoke for sacrifice to the gods,

10Agni stood up high in the dawn and perfect-minded; the gathered

force of him was seen reddening when he was entirely kindled;

a great god has been released out of the darkness.

3. When so he has put forth the tongue of his multitude,

pure is the activity of Agni with the pure herd of his rays; then is

15the goddess discerning yoked to her works in a growing plenty;

she upward-straining, he high-uplifted, he feeds on her with his

flaming activities.

4. Towards Agni move the minds of the seekers after the

Godhead, as their eyes move in Surya; when the two unlike

20Dawns bring him forth, he is born a white steed of being in the

van of the days (or, at the head of our forces).

5. He is born full of delight at the head of the days helpful

in the helpful gods, active in those that take their joy; in each

of our homes establishing his seven ecstasies Agni, priest of the

25offering, takes seat in his might for the sacrifice.

6. Mighty for sacrifice Agni of the offerings takes his seat in

the lap of the Mother, in that rapturous middle world, young and

a seer, seated in many homes of his dwelling, full of the Truth,

upholding our actions and therefore kindled in the mid-spaces.

30Commentaries and Annotated Translations

7. Verily, it is this Agni, the illumined seer who perfects us in

these lower activities, the master of offering, that they adore with

obeisances and submission; who stretched out the double firma-

ment by the force of the Truth; him they strengthen (or brighten)

35with the rich droppings, the eternal master of substance.

8. Strong ever, he grows stronger housed in his own seat

in us & home, our guest auspicious to us; master-bull with the

thousand horns of thy flame, strong with that Strength, O Agni,

by thy might thou art in front of all others.

409. At once, O Agni, thou passest beyond all others in him

to whom thou makest thyself manifest in thy splendid beauty,

adorable and full of body and widely luminous, the beloved

guest of the human peoples.

10. To thee, O vigorous Agni, the continents (or the peoples)

45bring their oblation from near and bring from afar; perceive the

perfected mind in one most happy, for wide and mighty is the

blessed peace of thee, O Agni.

11. O luminous Agni, mount today thy perfect and luminous

chariot with the masters of the sacrifice; thou knowest those

50paths, bring then hither through the wide mid-world the gods

to eat of our offerings.

12. Utterance have we given to the word of our delight for

the seer who hath understanding, for the lord who is mighty;

firm in the light one by submission to him reaches in Agni a fixity,

55even as in heaven, so here golden bright and vast-expanding.

Explanation.

The awakening of the divine Force and its action in a man is in

this hymn rather indicated than described. The s´ukta is purely

lyric in its character, vacho vand´aru, an expression of delight and

60adoration, a stoma or stabilising mantra intended to fix in the

soul the sevenfold delight of Agni, dame dame sapta ratn´a (Rik

5), and assure that state of perfected and happy mentality, pure

in perception, light and calm in the emotional parts, — the bhan-

dishthasya sumatim of the tenth rik, — which the divine force

65dwelling in us abidingly assures to our conscious being. The

Mandala Five

image of the physical morning sacrifice is maintained through-

out the first two riks, but from its closing phrase, mah´an devas

tamaso niramochi, the Rishi departs from the ritualistic symbol

70and confines himself to the purely psychological substance of his

thought, returning occasionally to the physical aspects of Agni

but only as a loose poetical imagery. There is nothing of the

close symbolic parallelism which is to be found in some hymns

of the Veda.

75Abodhi Agnih samidh´a jan´an´am, Prati dhenum iv´ayat´ım

ush´asam,

Yahv´a iva pra vay´am ujjih´an´ah,

Pra bh´anavah sisrate

n´akam achchha.

80Force, pure, supreme & universal has, in man, awakened; divine

power is acting, revealed, in the consciousness of creatures born

into matter, jan´an´am. It wakes when the fuel has been perfectly

heaped, abodhi samidh´a, — that power, plenty and richness of

being on which this cosmic Force in us is fed and which minister

85to its intensity and brightness. It wakes towards the coming

dawn of illumination, as to the Sun-cow, the cow of Surya, the

illumination of the ideal life & the ideal vision entering the soul

that works imprisoned in the darkness of Matter. The flames of

the divine activity in us are pointing upwards towards heaven,

90mounting up from the lower levels of our being to the heights

of the pure mind, sisrate n´akam achchha, and their rising is like

the wide gushing up into manifestation of waters that have been

hidden. For it is a great god that has been released out of the

darkness, mah´an devas tamaso niramochi.

95The two familiar images in dhenu & in yahv´a are intended

to convey directly in one, suggest obliquely by the simile in the

other, the inseparable companionship of divine power with the

divine light and the divine being. All the gods are indeed ushar-

budhah; with the morning of the revelation all divine faculties

100in us arise out of the night in which they have slept. But the

figure here is that of awakening towards the coming dawn. The

illumination has not yet touched the mortal mind, it is on its way,

approaching, ´ayat´ım, like a cow coming from the distance to its

Commentaries and Annotated Translations

105pasture; it is then that the power divine stirs in its receptacle,

seizes upon all that is available in the waking consciousness

of the creature and, kindled, streams up towards the altitudes

of the pure mind in the face of the coming divine knowledge

which it rises to meet. Divine knowledge, revealing, inspiring,

110suggesting, discerning, calls up the godlike ideal activity in us

which exceeds man’s ordinary motions, — wakes it even before

it actually occupies this mortal system, by its far-off touch and

glimmer on the horizon; so too divine, inspired and faultless

activity in us rises heavenward & calls down God’s dawn on

115His creature.

This great uprush of force is in its nature a great uprush

of divine being; for force is nothing but the power of being

in motion. It is the secret waters in us that released, gush up

openly & widely from their prison & their secrecy in our mortal

120natures; for in vitalised matter, in mind emmeshed in material

vitality, the ideal & spiritual self are always concealed and await

release and manifestation; in this mortal that immortal is covered

& curtained in and lives and works behind the veil, martyeshu

devam amartyam. Therefore is the uprush of divine force in

125the great release felt to be the wide uprush of divine being &

consciousness, yahv´a iva pra vay´am ujjih´an´ah.

Abodhi hot´a yajath´aya dev´an,

´Urdhwo Agnih suman´ah

pr´atar asth´at,

130Samiddhasya ru´sad adar´si p´ajo,

Mah´an devas tamaso

niramochi.

The purpose of the waking is next emphasised. It is for divine

action in man that God’s force awakes in us. It is the divine priest

135of the offering who stands up in the dawn of the illumination to

offer to the gods, to each great god his portion, to Indra a pure

& deified mentality, to Vayu a pure & divine vital joy & action,

to the four great Vasus, Varuna, Mitra, Bhaga & Aryam´a the

greatnesses, felicities, enjoyments & strengths of perfected being,

140to the Aswins the youth of the soul & its raptures & swiftnesses,

to Daksha & Saraswati, Ila, Sarama & Mahi the activities of the

Truth & Right, to the Rudras, Maruts & Adityas, the play of

Mandala Five

physical, vital, mental & ideative activities. Agni has stood up

145in the dawning illumination high uplifted in the pure mentality,

´urdhwa, with a perfected mind, suman´ah. He purifies in his

rising the temperament and fixes on it the seal of peace & joy;

he purifies the intellectuality & makes it fit to receive the activity

of the illuminating Truth & Infinite Rightness which is beyond

150intellect. Great is the god who has been released out of the

darkness of this Avidya, out of this our blind bodily matter,

out of this our smoke-enveloped vital energy, out of this our

confused luminous murk of mortal mind and sense-enslaved in-

telligence. Mah´an devas tamaso niramochi. For now that he has

155been perfectly kindled, it is no longer God’s occasional flamings

that visit our nature, but His collected and perfect force, p´ajah,

is seen reddening in our heavens.

The first verse is preoccupied with the idea of the self-

illumination of Agni, the bh´anavah, the flames of Force mani-

160festing Knowledge as its essential nature — for Force is nothing

but Knowledge shaped into creative energy & the creations of

energy & veiled by its shape, as a man’s soul is veiled by his

mind & body which are themselves shapes of his soul. In the

words abodhi, vay´am, n´akam, in the relation of Agni to Usha

165and the emphasis on the illuminative character of Usha as the

Sun Cow, this aspect of illumination & manifestation is stressed

& enlarged. In the second verse the native aspect of the divine

Force as a mighty power of action, consummating & purifying,

is brought out with an equal force and insistence. It is as the

170hot´a that Agni awakes; in this illumination of the dawn that

comes with him to man, pr´atah, he stands up with the intellect

and emotional temperament perfected & purified, suman´ah, for

the great offering of man’s whole internal & external life & ac-

tivity to God in the gods, yajath´aya dev´an, fulfilling the upward

175impulse, ´urdhwa, which raises matter towards life, life towards

mind, mind towards ideality & spirit, and thus consummating

God’s intention in the creature. In the next verse the nature of

this human uplifting, this upward straining of the mind through

heart & intellect to ideal Truth & Love & Right, is indicated &

180particularised in an image of great poetical force and sublimity.

Commentaries and Annotated Translations

Yad ´ım gan.asya ra´san´am aj´ıgah,

´Sucir ankte ´suchibhir

gobhir Agnih,

185´Ad dakshin. ´a yujyate v´ajayant´ı,

Utt´an´am ´urdhwo adha-

yaj juh´ubhih.

When so he has put forth the tongue of enjoyment of his host,

yad ´ım gan.asya ra´san´am aj´ıgah, Agni has put forth his collected

190power for an uplifted and perfect activity, ru´sad adar´si p´ajo, —

for redness is always the symbolic colour of action and enjoy-

ment. This p´ajas, Agni’s force or massed army, is again described

in the gan.asya ra´san´am, but while the idea in the second verse

is that of their indistinctive mass, here the gan.ah or host of

195Agni’s powers, the devat´as of his nature who apply themselves

to his particular works, are represented as brought out in their

individuality collected in a mass, — for this is always the force

of gan.ah, — each with his tongue of flame licking the mid-air,

(surabh´a u loke .. madhye iddhah in v. 6), enjoying that is to say

200the vital energies & vital pleasure (a´swa and ghritam), which

support this higher action. Supported by this vital joy & force

Agni acts, ankte agnir; but the enjoyment is not the impure

& unilluminated enjoyment of the unuplifted creature, — he is

´suchih, purely bright, not smoky with the unpurified Pranic im-

205pulses, and his flames of action are in their nature pure flames

of illumination, ´suchibhir gobhir. In modern diction, when the

divine force has so far purified us, our activities & enjoyments

are not darkened and troubled with striving & clouded vital

desires which strain dimly towards a goal but, not being ritajna,

210know not what they should seek, how they should seek it, in

what force & by what method and stages; our action becomes

a pure illumination, our enjoyment a pure illumination; by the

divine illuminations, as their motive force, essence & instrument,

our actions & enjoyments are effected. We see the just, curious

215and delicate literary art of the Vedic style in its symbolism, by

this selection of the great word, go, in this context, in preference

to any other, to describe the flames of Agni. In the next line, with

an equally just delicacy of selection juh´u is used for the same

flames instead of bh´anu or go.

220Mandala Five

It is in this state of pure activity & enjoyment that the

characteristic uplifting action of Agni is exercised; for then, ´ad,

the discriminative intellect, dakshin. ´a, growing in the substance

of its content and havings, v´ajayant´ı, is yoked or applied to

225its work under these new conditions. Dakshina the discrimi-

native intellect is the energy of Daksha, master of the viveka

or unerring right discernment, but unerring in the ideality, in

mahas or vijn´ana, his and her own home, not unerring in the

intellect, but only straining towards the hidden truth & right

230out of the mental dualities of right & wrong, truth & falsehood.

This deputy & messenger of the Ritam brihat seated in manas as

reason, discernment, intellect, can only attain its end and fulfil

its mission when Agni, the divine Force, manifests in the Prana

and manas and uplifts her to the ideal plane of consciousness.

235Therefore in this new activity she is described as straining &

extending herself upwards, utt´an´am, to follow & reach Agni

where are his topmost flames, ´urdhwa, in the ideal being. From

there he leans down and feeds on her, adhayaj, through the

flames of his divine activity, juh´ubhih, burning in the purified

240and upward aspiring activities of the intellectual mind. This

essential relation of the divine force and the purified mind is

brought out in a more general thought and figure in the first line

of the succeeding rik.

Agnim achchh´a devayat´am man´ansi,

245Chaksh´unsh´ıva

S´urye san charanti,

Yad ´ım suv´ate ushas´a vir´upe,

´Sweto v´aj´ı j´ayate agre

ahn´am.

250Iva in the Veda is not always a particle of similitude and compar-

ison. Its essential meaning is truly, verily, so, thus, and it is from

this sense that it derives its conjunctive uses, sometimes meaning

and or also, sometimes as, like. Its force here is to distinguish

between the proper activity of Agni & Surya, of manas and

255chakshu, & to confine the latter to their proper sphere and

thus by implication to confine the former also. When we are

mortals content with our humanity, then we are confused in our

functions; the manas or sense-mind attempts to do the work of

Commentaries and Annotated Translations

260the mahas or idea-mind, to effect original knowledge, to move

in Surya, in the powerful concrete image of the Veda. The idea

also confuses itself with sense and moves in the sense-forces, the

indriyas, instead of occupying itself in all purity with its own

function. Hence the confusions of our intellect and the stum-

265blings of our mental activity in its grappling with the contacts

of the outer world. But when we rise from our mortal nature

to the nature of godhead, devayantah, amritam sapantah, then

the first change is the passage from mortal impurity to immortal

purity, and the very nature of purity is a clear brightness and

270rightness, in which all our members work perfectly in God & the

gods, each doing its own function & preserving its right relation

with its superior and inferior fellows. Therefore in those who

are attaining this nature of godhead, devayat´am, their sense-

minds strain towards Agni, the divine force of Right Being &

275Right Action, satyam ritam, — they tend that is to say to have

the right state, bh´ava or temperament, out of which the right

action of the indriyas spontaneously proceeds; the seeings of the

Yogin who attains, move in Surya, the god of the ideal powers,

all that he perceives, creates, distinguishes, is worked out by

280the pure ideal mentality, which then uses its four powers of

self-revelation, self-inspiration, self-intuition, self-discernment

without suffering obscuration by the clouds of vital desire &

impulse or deflection by the sense-impacts & sense-reactions.

The sensational mind confines itself then to its proper work of

285receiving passively the impacts of the vital, material & mental

outer world & the illuminations of Surya and of pouring out

on the world in its reaction to the impacts, not its own hasty

& distorted responses, but the pure force & action of Agni

which works on the world, pure, right & unerring & seizes

290on it to possess & enjoy it for God in the human being. This

is the goal towards which Dakshina is striving in her upward

self-extension which ends by her taking her place as viveka or

right discernment in the kingdom of Surya, and this she begins

already in her new activities by discerning the proper action

295of the mind from the proper action of idea in the mind. The

purified intellect liberates itself from the obscurations of desire,

Mandala Five

the slavery to vital impulse, and the false reports and false values

of the matter-besieged sense-powers.

300The essential nature of Agni’s manifestation which is at the

root of this successful distinction, is then indicated. Night &

Dawn are the two unlike mothers who jointly give birth to Agni,

Night, the avyakta unmanifest state of knowledge & being, the

power of Avidy´a, Dawn, the vyakta manifest state of knowledge

305& being, the power of Vidy´a. They are the two dawns, the two

agencies which prepare the manifestation of God in us, Night

fostering Agni in secret in the activities of Avidy´a, the activities

of unillumined mind, life & body, by which the god in us grows

out of matter towards spirit, out of earth up to heaven, Dawn

310manifesting him again, more & more, until he is ready here

for his continuous, pure & perfect activity. When this point

of our journey towards perfection is reached he is born, ´sweto

v´aj´ı, in the van of the days. We have here one of those great

Vedic figures with a double sense in which the Rishis at once

315revealed & concealed their high knowledge, revealed it to the

Aryan mind, concealed it from the unAryan. Agni is the white

horse which appears galloping in front of the days, — the same

image is used with a similar Vedantic sense in the opening of

the Brihad Aranyak Upanishad; but the horse here is not, as

320in the Upanishad, A´swa, the horse of vital & material being

in the state of life-force, but v´aj´ı, the horse of Being generally,

Being manifested in substance whether of mind, life, body or

idea or the three higher streams proper to our spiritual being.

Agni therefore manifests as the fullness, the infinity, the brihat

325of all this sevenfold substantial being that is the world we are,

but white, the colour of illumined purity. He manifests therefore

at this stage primarily as that mighty wideness, purity & illumi-

nation of our being which is the true basis of the complete &

unassailable siddhi in the Yoga, the only basis on which right

330knowledge, right thinking, right living, right enjoyment can be

firmly, vastly & perpetually seated. He appears therefore in the

van of the days, the great increasing states of illuminated force &

being, — for that is the image of ahan, — which are the eternal

future of the mortal when he has attained immortality.

335Commentaries and Annotated Translations

In the next rik the idea is taken up, repeated & amplified

to its final issues in that movement of solemn but never otiose

repetition which is a feature of Vedic style.

Janishta hi jenyo agre ahn´am,

340Hito hiteshu arusho

vaneshu,

Dame dame sapta ratn´a dadh´ano, Agnir hot´a ni shas´ad´a

yaj´ıy´an.

This divine force is born victorious by its very purity & infinity

345over all the hostile forces that prevent, obstruct, limit or strive

to destroy our accomplished freedoms, powers, illuminations

& widenesses; by his victory he ushers in the wide days of the

siddha, for which these nights & dawns of our human life are

the preparatory movements. He is effective & helpful in the

350effective powers that work out for our good the movements

[of] this lower life towards immortal strength & power, he is

active & joyous, arusho, in those that take the delight of these

movements and so prepare us for the immortal bliss & ecstasy

of the divine nature. Manifesting progressively that Ananda the

355force of God establishes and maintains in each house of our

habitation, in each of our five bodies, in each of our seven levels

of conscious existence, the seven essential forms of Ananda, the

bliss of body, the bliss of life, the bliss of mind & the senses,

the bliss of ideal illumination, the bliss of pure divine universal

360ecstasy, the bliss of cosmic Force, the bliss of cosmic being. For

although we tend upwards immediately to the pure Idea, yet not

that but Ananda is the goal of our journey; the manifestation

in our lower members of the divine bliss reposing on the divine

force & being is the law of our perfection. Agni, whether he

365raises us to live in pure mind or yet beyond to the high plateaus

of the pure ideal existence, adhi shnun´a brihat´a vartam´anam,

establishes & supports as the divine force that divine bliss in its

seven forms in whatever houses of our being, whatever worlds of

our consciousness, have been already possessed by our waking

370existence, life, body & mind, or life, body, mind and idea, dame

dame dadh´anah. Thus manifesting God’s bliss in us he takes his

seat in those houses, domiciled, dam´un´ah, as we have it in other

Mandala Five

Suktas, and in those worlds, to perform as the hot´a in his greater

375might for the sacrifice, greater than the might of other gods or

greater than he has hitherto possessed, the offering of human

life into the immortal being, ´a daivyam janam, yajath´aya dev´an.

In a culminating rik which at once completes the first half of

the Sukta and introduces a new movement, the Rishi once more

380takes up the closing thought of this last verse and carries it out

into a fuller conclusion.

Agnir hot´a ni as´ıdad yaj´ıy´an, Upasthe m´atuh surabh´a u

loke,

Yuv´a kavih purunihshtha rit´av´a, Dhart´a krisht´ın´am uta

385madhye iddhah.

Agni thus takes his seat in us and, because it is through human

activity that he is to fulfil the sacrifice, because the ascending

movement is not completed, he takes it in the lap of his Mother in

that rapturous middle world. For the middle world, the Bhuvah,

390including all those states of existence in which the mind and the

life are interblended as the double medium through which the

Purusha acts and connects Heaven & Earth, is the proper centre

of all human action. Mind blended with the vital energies is

our seat even here in the material world. The bhuvah or middle

395regions are worlds of rapture & ecstasy because life-energy &

the joy of life fulfil themselves there free from the restrictions

of the material world in which it is an exile or invader seeking

to dominate & use the rebellious earthly material for its own

purposes. Agni sits in the lap of the mother, on the principle of

400body in the material human being, occupying there the vitalised

mind consciousness which is man’s present centre of activity &

bringing into it the mightier bliss of the rapturous middle world

to support & enlarge even the vital and physical activities &

enjoyments of our earthly existence. He sits there in the human

405sacrifice, full of eternal youth and vigour, yuv´a, in possession of

the ideal truth & knowledge, in possession of the unerring right-

ness of the liberated pure ideal life & consciousness, kavir rit´av´a,

& realising that truth & right in many purposes & activities,

purunihshthah. For he works all these results as the upholder

410Commentaries and Annotated Translations

of men in their actions, efforts & labours, dhart´a krisht´ın´am, —

he is that in all his forms of force from the mere physical heat

in earth & in our bodies to the divine Tapas in us & without us

by which God effects & supports the existence of the cosmos,

415— and because he is thus supremely the upholder of human life

& activity, therefore he is kindled in the mid-space; his seat is

on the fullness of the vitalised mind-consciousness in the micro-

cosm, in the rapturous mid-world of fulfilled life-energy in the

macrocosm. There kindled, awakened & manifested in man,

420samidh´a buddhah, samiddhah, he does his work for upward-

climbing humanity. Thus by the return in iddhah to the words

& the idea with which he started, the Rishi marks the close of

his first movement of thought.

[31]

425[RV V.10]

Gaya Atreya’s Hymn to Agni —

1. O Agni, Light of our embodied being, bring to us an

illumination most full of force; do thou by power of an all-

environing felicity cleave for us towards the goal of possession

430our path in front.

2. Thou, O wonderful Agni, becomest by the Will the full-

ness in us of discernment and in thee the doer climbeth up to the

might divine as Mitra of the sacrifice.

3. Do thou for us, O Agni, increase attainment and plenty

435in these who by the confirming mantras of praise, as Purushas

of the Sun, enjoy the fullnesses.

4. They, O Agni rapturous, who by delight of the Steed of

Life have joy of the words, are Purushas strong in all energies

for whom even in heaven the full perfection of the vaster Being

440awakens of itself.

5. These, O Agni, are thy burning rays that go violently

like lightnings that pervade, like a chariot sounding towards the

goal.

Mandala Five

4456. Now do thou prepare, O Agni, us hampered & opposed

for having, for delight and may our Powers of Light pass beyond

all desires (or overpass all the regions).

7. Thou, O Agni, lord of might, confirmed by praise and

while yet we hymn thee bring to us felicity that bears the pervad-

450ing god, let it be for firm-establishment to those who establish

thee with the hymn. And do thou flourish in our battles for our

growth.

Gaya, the Rishi, prays to Agni, Lord of Tapas, the repre-

sentative in Nature of the Divine Power that builds the worlds

455& works in them towards our soul’s fulfilment in and beyond

heaven — Agni, as j´atavedas, the self-existent luminosity of

knowledge in this Cosmic Force — for Force is only Chitshakti,

working power of the Divine Consciousness & therefore Cosmic

Force is always self-luminous, all-knowing force. Agni Jatavedas

460then is the ray of divine knowledge in this embodied state of ex-

istence; — he is Adhrigu — the Light in our embodied being. For

this reason all action offered by us to Agni as a work of divine

tapas becomes in its nature a self-luminous activity guiding

itself whether consciously in our minds or super-consciously,

465guh´ahitam, to the divine goal. All Tapas is self-effective and

God-effective. As Adhrigu, the divine Light in our embodied

being, Agni is to bring to us an illumination of knowledge in

our mentality which is ojistha, most full of ojas, superabundant

in effective puissance. By God-directed action our heart &

470intellect become suffused with power & light, or rather with

light that is power and power that is light, since knowledge &

force are in the divine nature one entity. Agna ojistham ´a bhara

dyumnam asmabhyam adhrigo.

This puissant light brought to us by Agni is attended with the

475other divine phenomenon or manifestation (vayunam, vayas),

bliss, felicity, Ananda. Divine Ananda is the inseparable compan-

ion of the divine strength and divine knowledge; Chit, Tapas &

Ananda constitute the nature of Sat, the divine Being. The state

of divine being is one & infinite embracing all existences, sarva-

480bh´ut´ani, in one unifying self-consciousness, Atmani; therefore,

Commentaries and Annotated Translations

divine bliss also is infinite & embracing, r´ay´a par´ın.as´a. It envi-

rons all our sensations, states & actions, it environs also for us all

the vishayas of our sensations, all the beings who come into con-

485tact with our soul states, all the objects & fields of our action. We

come to take in all these equally the same pure & divine delight.

Because the Lord of Tapas brings to us this wonderful felicity,

he is called in this hymn “Agne chandra”, Agni rapturous, Agni

delightful, and in other hymns ratnadh´atama, utter disposer of

490delight, or madhuhastya, he who brings wine of sweetness in

his hand. In this puissant light, by this all-environing felicity

Agni is to cleave for us through the darknesses & obstructions

of this world of Avidya a path towards our goal. V´aja means in

Veda either possession or having, plenty or a goal; we find it in

495this latter sense in such expressions as raghavo na v´ajam, like

swift horses to a goal or, in this very Sukta, ratho na v´ajayuh,

like a chariot that moves towards its goal. Here, as often in

the Vedic language which uses freely the devices of symbolism,

involved double metaphor and double suggestion, the sense is

500goal, but there is intended to be some suggestion of the other

idea of v´aja, possession. The path is action of knowledge, the

goal is v´aja, possession or plenteous having, magha, fullness or

plenty, of Asurya, the divine might, Force or Tapas of the divine

Nature, — magha & v´aja, full & assured having as opposed to

505the partial visitations which we receive in this mortal state &

mortal nature and cannot invariably use or certainly hold. And

this path Agni is to cleave for us, pra, in front of us. The Might of

God goes before us on its Tapasya, not remaining content with

any limited realisation but pressing forwards towards [............]

510consciousness & knowledge, [............] force & an infinite joy.

It dispels the darkness in front & lights, [as] it advances, new

reaches of thought, consciousness & knowledge to which our

minds were blinded; it scatters spiritual foes ambushed in front;

it creates footholds for us in the pathless void, apade p´ad´a. We

515follow & enjoy its fruits, magh´ani ´ana´suh. Pra no r´ay´a par´ın.as´a

ratsi v´aj´aya panth´am.

Gaya, the Rishi, then proceeds to describe the path & the

goal. He addresses the god as Agne adbhuta, O marvellous Agni

Mandala Five

520or O Supreme Agni; for adbhuta means that which stands out

from other things, is different from them, superior or wonderful.

This is the marvellous or supreme nature of Agni that by will in

action he becomes in us the fullness & force of discernment in

knowledge. We have here two capital terms of the Veda, kratu

525and daksha. Kratu has several shades of significance, action or

activity, more especially, the yajna or action of sacrifice; power

that expresses itself in action, the Greek kratos; & power as a

mental force corresponding very nearly to the European con-

ception of Will. We have in our philosophy no exact synonym

530of the English word Will, because Will to us, as opposed to

mere wish, ichchh´a, is simply Conscious Force; it is Shakti or,

more precisely, Chit-shakti, & its nature in action is Tapas or

the concentration of consciousness on action & its object or

its results. Now the nature of Agni, kratu or active power is

535precisely this Tapas or Chit-shakti, Conscious Being in concen-

tration of action. It is then by Tapas or Will that Agni creates in

us Knowledge. But how can Action be said to transform itself

into Knowledge, kriy´ashakti into jn´anashakti? We can see dimly

this transmutation in our ordinary psychological experience;

540for we know that each time we act, bodily or mentally, the

action is automatically registered in us as an experience and by

the accumulation of experiences transforms itself into state of

knowledge. But in mortal knowledge & mortal nature the act &

the knowledge are separated from each other and can be joined

545or disjoined; in divine knowledge & divine nature the two go

always together and are one entity. When God acts, each act is

a play of effective self-knowledge. When He creates Light, He

conceives of Himself as a Light & Light becomes. The action

of creation is really a play of self-conception. He knows at the

550same time the whole conception of Light, its nature, properties,

possibilities, functionings; when therefore He acts or creates,

the process of action is a process of conception, the result of

action is a result of conception. For this reason when a tree

grows out of a seed, the evolution of the right tree out of the

555right seed is as inevitable as Fate, although the tree has no

knowledge and control of its own growth; but the evolution

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& the form of the tree evolved are merely manifestations of the

divine conception. The Cosmic Self-Consciousness knows itself

560in the form of a Tree & that vijn´ana or typal idea is manifested

by the sure action of the nature or swabhava attached to the

conception. This sureness of self-fulfilment based on a secret

self-knowledge is the kratu or action of Agni, the divine Power

in things. It is a secret Will in things fulfilling itself in motion

565of activity & in form. But though Agni in the tree knows, the

tree knows nothing. When man comes in with his mind, he

still does not know but only seeks to know, — for he feels that

attached to every object is a right knowledge of that object

& in every action is a right knowledge of that action. This

570knowledge he seeks to bring out, to make conscious in his mind.

But mortal knowledge is sense knowledge, a deduction from

forms of things; divine knowledge is self-existent knowledge,

spontaneously manifested by the identity in consciousness of

the knower with the thing known. Mortal knowledge is derived

575in nature, deferred in time, indirect in means; divine knowledge

is spontaneous, direct and self-manifesting. Mortal knowledge is

like hearing of a man from others & inferring many things about

him which may & must, indeed, be largely or wholly incorrect;

divine knowledge is the seeing & hearing of the man himself &

580knowledge of him by personal experience. Mortal knowledge

is crooked, hv´ara or vrijina; divine knowledge is straight, riju.

Mortal knowledge proceeds from & by limitation, by getting

hold of & adding up details, dwayena, by duality; divine knowl-

edge is comprehensive & unifying, containing subordinates in

585the principal, details in the whole, attributes in the thing itself.

Mortal knowledge advances step by step over uneven ground

in a jungle where it does not know the way; divine knowledge

advances over straight & open levels, v´ıt´ani prishth´ani, where

it sees the whole prospect before it, its starting-point, its way

590& its goal. Mortal knowledge bases itself on martya or m´anasa

ketu, sense perception or intelligence; divine knowledge bases

itself upon daivya ketu, self-perception. Mortal knowledge is

manas, divine knowledge is vijn´ana, self-true ideation or soul-

knowledge. Even when Agni works from below upward, from

595Mandala Five

mind up to vijn´ana, & the daivya ketu has to follow the action

of mind & act partially & in details, it does not lose its charac-

teristics of self-existence, self-truth & direct perception. When

therefore vijn´ana acts in the human mind, he associates every

600action, every will with the knowledge that is the core of the

action & the true substance of the will, but this he does at first

dimly & obscurely in the nervous impressions, the emotional

response, the sense knowledge, as in a smoke-obscured flame.

He has then archayo dh´uminah, smoky rays; he acts as a force in

605Avidya, putro hv´ary´an. ´am, a son of the crookednesses although

always rij´uyuh, moving towards the straightnesses. But when he

can get beyond the sense mind into pure mind, then he begins

to show his true nature entirely & the higher knowledge begins;

he has his archayo bhr´ajantah, his intense clear burning rays, he

610drives his straight-muscled steeds, rijumushk´an ashw´an. Then

every act of will is attended with right discernment, with daksha

& transmutes itself into right knowledge.

Vijnana, true ideation, called ritam, truth or vedas, knowl-

edge in the Vedas, acts in human mind by four separate func-

615tions; revelation, termed drishti, sight; inspiration termed sruti,

hearing; and the two faculties of discernment, smriti, memory,

which are intuition, termed ketu, and discrimination, termed

daksha, division, or viveka, separation. By drishti we see our-

selves the truth face to face, in its own form, nature or self-

620existence; by sruti we hear the name, sound or word by which the

truth is expressed & immediately suggested to the knowledge; by

ketu we distinguish a truth presented to us behind a veil whether

of result or process, as Newton discovered the law of gravitation

hidden behind the fall of the apple; by viveka we distinguish

625between various truths and are able to put them in their right

place, order and relation to each other, or, if presented with

mingled truth & error, separate the truth from the falsehood.

Agni Jatavedas is termed in the Veda vivichi, he who has the

viveka, who separates truth from falsehood; but this is only a

630special action of the fourth ideal faculty & in its wider scope,

it is daksha, that which divides & rightly distributes truth in its

multiform aspects. The ensemble of the four faculties is Vedas

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or divine knowledge. When man is rising out of the limited

635& error-besieged mental principle, the faculty most useful to

him, most indispensable is daksha or viveka. Drishti of Vijnana

transmuted into terms of mind has become observation, sruti ap-

pears as imagination, intuition as intelligent perception, viveka

as reasoning & intellectual judgment and all of these are liable

640to the constant touch of error. Human buddhi, intellect, is a

distorted shadow of the true ideative faculties. As we return

from these shadows to their ideal substance viveka or daksha

must be our constant companion; for viveka alone can get rid of

the habit of mental error, prevent observation being replaced by

645false illumination, imagination by false inspiration, intelligence

by false intuition, judgment & reason by false discernment. The

first sign of human advance out of the anritam of mind to the

ritam of the ideal faculty is the growing action of a luminous

right discernment which fixes instantly on the truth, feels in-

650stantly the presence of error. The fullness, the manhan´a of this

viveka is the foundation & safeguard of Ritam or Vedas. The

first great movement of Agni Jatavedas is to transform by the

divine will in mental activity his lower smoke-covered activity

into the bright clearness & fullness of the ideal discernment.

655Agne adbhuta kratw´a dakshasya manhan´a.

This, then, is the path. It is the development by divine Tapas

in the mind of Ritam or Vedas, the supra-intellectual knowledge

or unveiled face of Truth, Ritasya panth´a — the path of Truth is

always in Veda the road which the Ancestors, the Pitris, the great

660forefathers, the Ancients, pratn´asah, pur´atan´ah, have trodden

before us & their descendants, the new seers, have to follow

after them. What then is the goal? It is Asuryam, the might of

the divine Nature. In thee, says Gaya, the doer, — kr´an. ´a, the

s´adhaka, the seeker after perfection, who conducts or for whom

665Agni conducts the inner sacrifice, — ascends to the divine Might

as Mitra of the sacrifice. Asuryam is the principle of divine

Power, Chit-Shakti or Tapas in which divine Being or Sat for-

mulates itself for cosmic activity; Mitra is the Lord of Love who

with Bhaga, the Lord of Enjoyment, most intimately represents

670in human temperament the principle of Ananda, which is the

Mandala Five

base of the divine Being & divine Power in world-manifestation.

Sat, Chit, Ananda (for Chit & Tapas are one) are the Vedic

formula of divine Existence. By the action of Agni, kratw´a, the

675soul achieving Truth merges itself in the divine principle of Love

poured out into the offering to God of human life, Mitro na

yajniyah, and with it in that principle, realising throughout our

consciousness the divine Beatitude, rises into the free play of the

infinite Tapas of the divine Existence. In that Tapas the sacrifi-

680cial activity of Agni in man, the kratu, becoming Godward will

finds its manhan´a, its absolute fullness & fulfilment. Sat, Tapas,

Ananda, Vijnana, Manas — this is the Indian ladder of Jacob by

which one descends & ascends again to heaven. Man the Doer,

the Manu, the Krana, perfecting himself by works, is lifted by

685the divine will to Vijnana, to the ideal self of true knowledge

& right action & emotion, attains by Truth to Divine Love &

Bliss, Mayas, the dh´ama or seat of Mitra, and thus ascends to the

Tapas where Agni is [............]. This ascension Gaya, the Rishi, is

enabled by the fixed symbolic style of the Veda, to express with

690a masterly economy of words in the second rik of this Sukta.

Agne adbhuta,

kratw´a dakshasya manhan´a;

Tve asuryam ´aruhat,

kr´an. ´a mitro na yajniyah.

695The Rishi next proceeds to dwell on this Ritam or Truth which

is the path in order that he may return again to the goal with a

greater fullness of significance. We have seen that as the divine

Tapas Agni is typified in the symbol of the sacrificial flame,

so his activities are typified in the flames or rays of that fire,

700jw´al´a or archis, and these rays or brightnesses [are] of two

kinds, dh´uminah, smoke-enveloped in the heart & sense mind

& burning & brilliant, bhr´ajantah in the pure mind. The stage

now considered is that of Agni in the pure mind awakening in

it the activities of the vijn´ana. The god of the vijn´ana, its Nri or

705Purusha, is the Lord of the Sun, Sur or Surya. Those who possess

the illumination of the vijn´ana are called, therefore, s´urayah,

the Illuminati, and the word may be applied to either class of

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Nri (Purushas), the human Purushas who evolve upwards by

710the Vedic sacrifice or the luminous gods of the vijn´ana, the solar

gods, the host of Surya, s´urayo narah, who aid him in his ascent.

It is these Solar Purushas who are the archayo bhr´ajantah, the

bright-burning brilliances of Agni. The divine Tapas entering

the vijn´ana manifests itself in Surya & his hosts, in the powers,

715faculties & activities of the self-luminous & self-true ideal mind.

The Rishi occupies himself with these luminous Powers in his

next three verses.

“O Agni,” cries the Rishi, “increase in us the attainment of

light & the full plenty of these active gods of the solar illumi-

720nation.” Gayam pushtim cha. The word gaya, Sayana tells us,

means that which is reached or attained; it is dhanam, wealth.

But gaya, as is usually the case with these early Sanscrit vocables,

is capable of several shades of significance. It may mean the

act or process of attaining; it may mean the thing reached or

725attained, whether material wealth or spiritual attainment, &

especially it signifies knowledge, just as ritam from the word

ri to go signifies truth or rishi, similarly derived, signifies the

seer or knower; or it may signify the knower himself, the Rishi.

It certainly bears the latter sense in the name Gaya which is

730borne by the Rishi of this s´ukta; the habits of style of the Vedic

seers justify us even in seeing a covert introduction of his own

name by the Seer in the choice of this word Gaya. In any case

Gaya here can no more mean material wealth than pushti can

mean corporeal fatness; it implies spiritual gain or attainment

735&, occurring in close connection with the s´urayo narah and

recalling the name of the Rishi, may be taken in this passage

as specially signifying Knowledge. Agni has already established

the fullness of the viveka. He has now to increase in Gaya &

his fellow worshippers the light of knowledge & the full growth

740of all the powers of the vijn´ana; he has to help in man the

gods of revelation, inspiration & intuition as well as of viveka.

How is this to be done? By the mantras of the hymn of praise,

stomebhih.

The importance & effectiveness, psychological, spiritual,

745even physical, of the Word, Vachas, Gih, Uktha, may almost

Mandala Five

be described as the fundamental thought of the Vedic seers, and

this initial psychic perception of our forefathers has dominated

Indian religious thought & discipline ever since. The name of

750God, the mantra, is still the keystone of all Indian yoga. We

shall not realise the full bearing & rationale of this great Vedic

conception unless we first impress on our minds the Vedic idea

of existence & creation, for Vak, the Word, is in that idea the

effective agent of creation. All created existence is in the Vedic

755philosophy a formation by force of consciousness, Chit-shakti,

not, as modern thought supposes it to be, a formation by Force

of unconscious inanimate Being. Creation itself is only a mani-

festation, phenomenon or appearing in form, vayas, vayunam,

v´ıti, [of] that which is already existent as consciousness, but

760latent as form in universal Being. It is srishti, a loosing forth,

vachas, vyachas or shasti, an expressing or bringing out, not a

creation in the modern sense, not a new manufacture of that

which never before had any sort of existence. Sat or Being in

the universe contains all forms as things in themselves in its

765Chit or self-consciousness, but for all cosmic purposes avyakta,

unexpressed, undefined. To define it is first necessary that the

general undifferentiated self-consciousness should dwell by par-

ticular concentration of consciousness, by Tapas or Force of

self-knowledge, on the thing in itself latent in undifferentiated

770Cosmic Being. This self-dwelling of Tapas is, first, an act of

seeing, ´ıkshanam, drishti. “The Being saw, Let me bring forth

worlds”, as the Aitareya Upanishad expresses the original Will

to create. But a second agent is also needed, Ananda or delight of

creation & in the thing created, for without this creative Delight

775in conscious things nothing could come into existence or once

being created remain in existence. “Who could exist or live” asks

the Taittiriya Upanishad “if there were not this all-pervading &

all-supporting ethereal atmosphere of the divine Bliss around

it?” — yad esha ´ak´asha ´anando na sy´at. Therefore as Tapas or

780Will is the working principle of cosmic Consciousness, (therefore

the divine world in which infinite Consciousness is the basic

factor is called by the Puranic writers, Tapoloka), so Jana, Birth

or Joy of Procreation is the working principle of cosmic Bliss,

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785(therefore the divine world in which infinite Bliss is the basic

factor is called by the Puranic writers, Janaloka). But even so

the agents are not sufficient; for Being, Consciousness, Bliss are

universal & infinite in nature, indivisible & undividing realities.

[There] is a particular faculty of Consciousness, Vijnana, which

790brings in the element of differentiation. Vijnana, pure Idea, is

that which perceives the thing itself as thing in itself, as a whole

& in its parts. It introduces the element of Nama, name. The

Vedic word Nama connotes definition, distribution & law, (cf

from nam, Greek nomos, law, nemo, to distribute, Latin nu-

795merus, number) & is, in its nature, defining idea. The Nama,

the name of a thing, the defining idea about it, is both its nomen

& numen, & carries in itself the swabhava of the thing, its nature

or self-being and prakriti or natural working; as soon as thing

in itself gets its n´ama, it gets also its sw´ah´a & swadh´a — sw´ah´a,

800self-luminous self-existence manifested in self-force & swadh´a,

self-fixity in that self-being; & these two, the self-force & the

self-fixity, produce naturally & inevitably all the workings of the

thing-in-itself, its vrat´ani, by the guna or gana, quality or number

(ratio) of the nature, the swadh´a. The Nature works out by three

805processes, Manas, the measuring or limiting of thing in itself in

consciousness by the number or ratio, the gana, Prana (Ashwa,

the Horse) the energy of the sw´ah´a, movement of consciousness

accommodating itself to the limitations of the Idea & confining

itself to an action appropriate to the single form of the Idea

810which has been separated by distributing Manas & numbering

Ratio, and Annam, existence in form of substance created by

the limiting Mind & the self-confining energy of the Prana. This

form of substance presents itself to the human mind as Matter;

cosmic energy of being working in form of substance presents

815itself to us most strikingly in the phenomenon of animate Life

but is also present in what we see as inanimate forms; Manas

working through the nervous Life-energies & their organs, the

senses, presents itself to us as human & animal Mind, but is a

constant force by other workings & other instruments even in

820lifeless forms which have not organised nervous energies. These

seven principles constitute the world, & are known in Veda as

Mandala Five

the ´apas or sapta sindhavah, the waters of creative being, the

seven elements of one ocean, the sapta dhenavah or sapta g´avah,

825the seven fostering forms of divine consciousness and each of

them forms for itself a separate world in which it predominates

& is the governing principle of consciousness & existence but to

which it necessarily admits its six sisters. These seven worlds are

the sapta dh´am´ani or pad´ani, seven established places or seats of

830being, the seven footholds or goals of existence, with the sapta

ratn´ani, the seven forms of [delight]; five of them give entrance

to the human soul in its present workings and are the pancha

jan´ah or pancha kshitayah, five births or five inhabitable worlds

& their peoples.

835Consciousness is the base of all world existence, but

consciousness develops itself in two forms, manifestion &

non-manifestation, Dawn & Night, or from our point of view,

Knowledge & Ignorance, Chittam & Achittam, Vidya & Avidya,

consciousness illumined in the form it has taken as in the seer,

840consciousness dark & involved in the form it has taken as in the

clod & less rigidly in the tree. For it is evident that in the highest

principles of Sat, Chit, Ananda, there is universal knowledge,

unlimited, inherent in the self-luminous unity of the Cosmic

Being; even in Vijnana the element of limitation or bheda has

845not really entered, for differentiation by Vijnana exists in the

cosmic sense of oneness as a play of oneness & is not a real

difference; the knowledge of the many is illumined always by

the knowledge of the one. The Gods of Sat, Tapas & Jana know

themselves as one, Agni there is Varuna & Varuna is Agni; even

850in Mahas or Brihat, the uru loka, the wide & vast world, the

world of Vijnana, the devas know themselves as one even in

their multitude. There, however, the first possibility of limitation

in consciousness is adumbrated. But it is not till Manas gets full

play that limitation sets in, but so long as Manas is pure

855rishimedh´a, not separated from Vijnana, [the] movement from

[.................................................................] Therefore in Swar,

the world of pure Mind [...........................................................]

the stress is not yet a bondage. There is a limited working of

being, knowledge & power, which may ignore for the time being

860Commentaries and Annotated Translations

the wider being, knowledge & action & thus generate ignorance,

but is not fatally ignorant of it & is not therefore bound by its

self-chosen ignorance. The gods know themselves as one, as

Purushas of the universal Deva even when they act as if they

865were entirely different personalities. In this world, therefore,

there is no real birth & death, no real day & night, but only

the taking & putting off [of] forms, the bringing forward & the

putting back of Light from the frontal outward action of the

consciousness. In Bhuvar, the worlds of Prana, the conscious

870energy put out seems to be really absorbed in her outward

workings only, in the energy itself, in the form of her own works

& to forget her own more universal reality; a veil falls between

manas & vijn´ana, the veil of Achitti or ignorance. In Bhu, the

world of Matter, this movement is complete. Consciousness is

875involved in its forms & has to be rescued out of it by beings

who bring conscious life & mind into the mechanism of its

formal energies & the inertia of its substantial forms. Man

is the nodus, the agent & instrument of the gods for the full

recovery of Consciousness in material Energy, universal being in

880particular Form. Man, the mental being in Bhu, shares with the

Gods the appellation, Nri, the Purusha; he too is a guiding Soul

of consciousness & not the mere gana, formal executive energy

& mechanical ratio of things which is the outward aspect of

Nature.

885Man is able to bring out, to express the divine consciousness

& nature in the prison of matter or, as the Vedic hymns express it,

to manifest the gods — he is devavyach´ah, effects by the yajna

the devav´ıti, god-manifestation, in himself, because he is able

to use fully the principle of Mind with its powers of mental

890realisation and verbal expression, manma & vachas, mati &

g´ıh. In the lower forms of life this is not possible. Mind there is

dumb or only partly vocal; it is therefore unable to bring into

expression, into shansa, the secret name of things, their guhyam

n´ama; he first is able to define them in mind by speech & to

895arrive from this mental definition to the divine idea in them

and from the divine idea to the one truth of which all ideas are

expressions. By vachas in mati one arrives at Nama in vijn´anam.

Mandala Five

For all sound has a creative & expressive power; each activity of

900sound in existence creates its corresponding physical & mental

forms; all activity of forms in their turn creates a corresponding

vibration of sound. But human speech informed with mind is the

highest creative & expressive power of sound. It tends to bring

about in life & being that which it expresses in thought. We can

905see this easily enough in psychological phenomena. By dwelling

on an idea, by tapas on it, we can create not only the image

of that idea in our minds, but its form in emotion, its truth in

quality of character, its experience in terms of inner being. By

dwelling with the will on the idea of courage or virtue it has

910been found that we can create courage or virtue in ourselves

where they were formerly wanting. By brooding on an object

with the will in mind in a state of masterful concentration it has

been found that we can command the knowledge we need about

the object. But the Indian theory of concentration goes farther

915& asserts that even events, things, objects can be controlled

by this inner Tapas & brought about or reduced to subjection

without any ostensible material means. This concentration in

mind is the manma of the Vedic rishis. The concentration may

be on the object or idea itself or on the name of the object

920or on some form of words which expresses the idea. But even

when the concentration is on idea or object & not on name or

word, there is still, in all mental concentration, a silent or half-

expressed word or v´ak by which the idea or object is brought

before mind. The v´ak may be repeated aloud and then it becomes

925the hymn, s´ukta or rik of the Vedic Rishi, or the n´amak´ırtana

of the modern devotee; or it may be repeated only by subtle

sound in the subtle matter of mind, then it is the mantra of the

silent Yogin; or it may be involved and silent at the back of

the image, object or unexpressed idea in the mind. The Vedic

930manma or mantra is of the first variety, — although we need

not assume that the Rishis were ignorant of the more silent

forms of meditation. Nevertheless, they attached a preeminent

importance to the v´ak, the expressed mental realisation.

The process of the Vedic mantra involves three movements,

935corresponding to three psychological activities necessary to the

Commentaries and Annotated Translations

act of meditation or realisation, a movement from soul into

mind, a movement from mind into speech, & the movement

of speech itself reacting on mind and soul. In all forms there

940is the soul or [....................................] partially expressed in

the two primary constituents [................................................]

& temperament sometimes called manyu or more widely mati,

and [an] intellectual part, usually termed dh´ı or man´ısh´a. The

man´ısh´a first brought out the Nama out of the soul in which all

945things are latent into the heart where the general bh´ava (char-

acter, temperament, sense & feeling) of the Nama manifested

itself to the sensationally perceiving mind & then raised it by

distinct concept into the thinking mind. The mind by dwelling

on the v´ak brings out the thing defined by Nama into being in

950the experience of the thinker & there establishes it as a living

& acting presence. The mantra then, when it is thought of as

operating to bring out the ukthyam, the thing desired & to be

expressed, out of the soul into the mind state, mati, is called

brahma or ´ang´usham brahma or, briefly, ´ang´usham; when it is

955thought of as mentalising the ukthyam, it is called manma or

mantra, when it is thought of as expressing by speech the uk-

thyam in the thinker’s practical experience it is called vachas or

gir. Moreover, the vachas may be either of the nature of prayer or

praise; as prayer, it is called uktha; as praise it has two functions,

960the expression in the s´adhaka of the divine activity, when it is

termed shansa, and the confirmation or firm establishment of

the activity once expressed, when it is termed stoma. All these

expressions, brahma, manma, vachas, shansa, stoma, stava or

stavas, can be and are often used to express the effect of the

965mantra no less than the mantra itself, — brahma then means the

soul-movement or soul-state expressed in the heart or temper-

ament, manma the mental realisation, vachas the expression of

the god or his divine activities in the mortal nature, shansa the

expression of the man’s higher being which is brought about by

970the mantra, stoma the firm established condition of the manifest

god in the man. Nor are these the only terms which are applied

to the mantra in the Vedic s´uktas. It is also called rik, g´ayatram,

g´atha or s´ama. It is the rik when it is considered as the mantra

Mandala Five

975of realisation & the word arka is used to express the act of

divine realisation by the mantra; g´ayatram when it is considered

as the means of attainment to the power, felicity or wideness

of the divine being or nature through the path of the Truth or

Ritam manifested by the mantra; s´ama when it brings about the

980harmony or equality of the different constituents of our nature,

body, life-energy, mind, pure ideation in one divine ´anandamaya

consciousness. By the mantra the god, entering into the speech

and the thought, the soul-state, takes possession of his seat in

man & makes manifest there his activities.

985The Lords of Light, the Solar Purushas, are already active

in the mind purified by the activities of Agni. They have there

already not only their rare illuminations, but their established

working and their increasing strength, gayam pushtim cha. The

expression by vachas, by the girah has been attained. It is their

990fullnesses, magh´ani that the Rishi now covets, for the word

magha in Veda means a full & copious state or satisfying and

abundant possession as opposed to rare & exceptional visi-

tations or enjoyments and to small & limited seeings. These

fullnesses the Solar Purushas enjoy by means of the stomas, the

995mantras of praise which help to confirm the gods in possession of

their manifested activities. The wide illuminations of the Ritam,

the supra-intellectual revelatory, inspirational, intuitional truth

come to man first by rare visitations as the purified mind med-

itates on the godhead above our mortal minds, above even the

1000pure levels of Swar. These visitations increase in frequency and

intensity and leave behind a store of ideal knowledge, of vision

& inspiration, & an increasing power of the ideal faculties.

By these increasing & repeated confirmations they arrive at an

assured and abundant fullness of the divine faculty & its results

1005in the human mind. Ye stomebhih pra s´urayo naro magh´ani

´ana´suh.

The Rishi proceeds to dwell more fully on the whole process

by which the knowledge in man is changed & elevated from the

mental or sensational to the ideal type. It is done by a process

1010of natural awakening out of the joy & strength of the divine

Tapas generated by the inner sacrifice. The joy of Agni by his

Commentaries and Annotated Translations

self-expression in thought & verbal form of thought is the first

necessary condition. Agne chandra te girah. When we feel the

1015divine, the immortal force working in us & lifting us beyond

mortality, the divine joy comes with it, — the joy that wakes in

the poet, the artist, the saint, the seer, the hero, in all who have

any sort of communion with the divine Nature & draw from

it their force of vision or their force of being or their force of

1020action. They are the girah of Agni, his self-expressions through

the word into which human [.................] form themselves or

from which our actions draw their force and inspiration. The

second requisite is the joy of our nervous & vital parts in this

divine activity. The Narah, the Purushas, must be a´swar´adhasah.

1025A´swa, the Horse, the Steed, is the Vedic figure for the Prana, for

the Life-Energy pouring itself through nature & through man’s

nervous activities, the strong impetuous swift galloper of the

worlds that bears gods & men on the journey of life, up the

ascent of spiritual evolution, through the battles of the great war

1030which is the Cosmos. Without a strong & joyous vital energy

to support it, human mind cannot bear the tremendous shocks

of the divine activity, the divine knowledge, the divine [?vision].

The mortal system would break down under the intense touch

of the immortal powers, [?sink] back into disintegration, dark-

1035ness & suffering more intense than the ordinary [?conditions] of

mortality. But with a strong & rapturous vital energy & activity

supporting the play of a joyous divine energy in the mind, the

Solar Purushas become strong with the strengths, mental & vital,

which the expressions of Agni Chandra generate and are able to

1040feel an unmixed sense of pleasure & well-being in all Agni’s self-

expressions in man, — this, I think, is the meaning of ´sumbhanti

in this passage. Or, if it has an active sense, it must mean, as

Sayana suggests, that they make those expressions entirely aus-

picious & pleasurable, ´sobhan´ah kurvanti; free from the touch

1045of pain & suffering or the ill-results which may come from a pre-

mature activity of the higher elements in an ill-prepared & unfit

receptacle. Ye Agne chandra te girah ´sumbhanti a´swar´adhasah.

´Sushmebhih ´sushmin.o naro.

When there is this strong & blissful action, blissful in the

1050Mandala Five

vital energy supporting it, blissful in the divine force working in

the mind, blissful in the easy & auspicious self-expressions of

that force, then the perfection of the illuminative Powers awakes

of itself or by the force of the Self in the pure mentality. This

1055spontaneous self-action of the power, the knowledge, the being,

the bliss of the Godhead in man, no longer secured or assured

by struggle, no longer needing to be protected against legions of

spiritual enemies who seek to perpetuate the reign of darkness,

suffering, limitation & mortality, but assured & established, but

1060easily, swiftly & mightily developing & reaching its glorious self-

perfection, suk´ırtih, is the last stage of the Vedic Yoga and the

desired state of the Vedic s´adhaka. This natural awakening in

the human consciousness of the perfected divine knowledge in

the comprehensive wideness, brihat, natural to the Mahas, the

1065vijn´ana, takes place diva´s chid, even in the heaven of pure mind,

even without man rising in himself to the plane of consciousness

above pure mind, brihad div, mahas, vijn´ana. For if man were

once on that plane, then there could be no question of struggle.

There intellect & its hosts are quiescent, or have left their mortal

1070parts and been transfigured back into the divine elements from

which they came. Imagination is at rest or has been transfigured

into inspiration, sense observation or insight of intelligence at

rest or transfigured into revelation & luminous vision, judgment,

reasoning & intelligent divination at rest or transfigured into

1075sure intuition & illuminated discrimination. The Solar Purushas

are there swe dame in their own home; the self-awakening of

their perfect activity, suk´ırti, is there natural & inevitable. The

necessity of struggle for man comes from this that he lives on

the lower plane of mind and has to idealise & illumine his men-

1080tal activities. The Purushas have to enter a foreign territory &

conquer & hold it against its established inhabitants & natural

possessors. But even in mind, not the sense mind, not Bhuvar in

man, but in the purified mind, the pure self-intelligence this easy,

natural & victorious awakening is possible under the conditions

1085of a joyous & illuminated vitality, a joyous & illuminated action

of Agni in the mind & the assured sense of ease & well-being

brought into his activities in us by the delightful consciousness

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of a higher knowledge & illumination. Diva´s chid yesh´am brihat

1090suk´ırtir bodhati tman´a.

The final movement of the Solar Purushas is then described

by the Rishi, the movement which takes place when there is the

awakening by self-action of its vast vijn´anamaya perfection in

the pure intelligence. These Solar Purushas, these bright illumi-

1095nations of Vijnana, are the bright-burning flames of the divine

Tapas. Agni, the Divine Being in His aspect of Force, is masked in

our nervous energies as the A´swa, in the mind takes the forms of

the mental gods, in the activities of Surya, he is the divine Power

expressed in Surya himself and these luminous hosts of the Sun-

1100god are his own brilliant liberated energies. Free from the smoke

of the lower regions, free from the excitement and distress of his

lower emotional & sensational movements, the thoughts of the

Rishi, joyous & liberated, move freely in [the] whole heaven of

mind boldly [...........................................................................]