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THE FIRST HYMN TO AGNI
A HYMN OF THE MORNING SACRIFICE
[The Rishi hymns the awakening of Agni the Divine Force
to conscious action in the coming of the Dawn. Agni rises towards the luminous Paradise, his goal, feeding on the works of
the Discernment which distributes the gifts and activities of the
sacrifice, becomes a pure energy leading our days and ascends
to the Vastness and the Truth. By the Truth he fashions anew
our two firmaments, the physical and mental consciousness.
This is the golden Affirmation of him in our heavens.]
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Strength is awake by kindling of the peoples and he fronts
the Dawn that comes to him as the Cow that fosters; like mightinesses that rush upward to their expanding his lustres
advancing mount towards the heavenly level
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The Priest of our oblation has awakened for sacrifice to the
gods; with right mentality in him Strength stands up exalted
in our mornings; he is entirely kindled, red-flushing the mass
of him is seen; a great godhead has been delivered out of the
darkness.
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When he has uncoiled the long cord of his hosts. Strength
shines pure by the pure herd of the radiances.¹ For the
goddess who discerns grows in plenitude and is yoked to her
works; he exalted, she extended supine, he feeds on her with
his flames of the offering.
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The minds of men who grow in the godhead move entirely
towards the flame of Will even as all their seeings converge
in the Sun that illumines.² When two Dawns³ of opposite
¹The Cows of the Dawn. Dakshina the goddess of divine discernment, is here a form
of the Dawn herself.
²That is to say, instead of the groping thoughts of other men, their mentality tends to
convert itself into a luminous flame of Will that is knowledge and all their thoughts become a
blaze of direct vision, the rays of the Sun of Truth.
³Day and Night, — the latter the state of Ignorance that belongs to our material Nature,
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forms are delivered of him, he is born as the White Steed in
front of the days.
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Yea, he is born victorious in the front of the days, a ruddy
worker established in the established delights of things;
upholding in house after house the seven ecstasies¹ Strength
has taken his seat as the Priest of the offering mighty for
sacrifice.
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Strength has taken his seat as the
Priest of the offering mighty for sacrifice in the lap of the Mother and in
that rapturous other world,² young and a seer, standing out in
his multitudes, possessed of the Truth, the upholder of those
that do the work; and also in between he is kindled.
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Men seek with their obeisances of submission this illumined
Strength that achieves our perfection in the progressing
sacrifices and is the priest of their oblation, because he
shapes in the power of the Truth both firmaments of our
being. Him they press into brightness by the clarity,³ the
eternal steed of life’s plenitude.
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Bright, he is rubbed bright, expressed by the seer, domiciled
in his own home4 and our beneficent guest. The bull of the
thousand horns, because thou hast that force,5
O Strength,
thou precedest in thy puissance all others.
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At once, O Strength, thou outstrippest
all others, in whomsoever thou art manifested in all the glory of thy beauty, the former the state of illumined Knowledge that belongs to the divine Mind of which our
mentality is a pale and dulled reflection.
¹To each principle of our nature there corresponds a certain divine ecstasy and on each
plane, in each body or house, Agni establishes these ecstasies.
²The mother is Earth, our physical being; the other world is the supramental existence; the vital and emotional being is the world in between. Agni manifests in all of these simultaneously.
³The clarified butter, yield of the Cow of Light and symbol of the rich clarity that comes
to the mind visited by the Light.
4That is to say, having taken his place on the plane of the Truth which is his own proper
home.
5The force of the Truth, the perfect energy that belongs to this perfect knowledge.
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desirable, full of body, extended in light, the beloved guest
of the human peoples.
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To thee, O Strength, O youngest vigour, all the worlds and
their peoples bring from near and bring from afar their
offering. Awake in a man’s knowledge to that right-minded-
ness of his happiest state. A vastness, O Strength, is the
great and blissful peace of thee.
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Mount today with the lords of the Sacrifice,
O luminous
Will, thy luminous complete car! Thou who knowest the
wide middle world¹ in all its paths, bring hither the gods to
eat of our oblation.
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To the Seer, to the Intelligence we have uttered today the
word of our adoration, to the Bull that fertilises the herds;
the Steadfast in the Light by his surrender rises in the flame
of Will as in the heavens to a golden Affirmation manifesting
a vastness.
¹The vital or nervous plane is just above our material earth; through it the gods come
to commune with man, but it is a confused wideness and its paths are many but intricate and
tangled.
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