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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 Page – 66 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. Page – 67
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.
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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
Page – 69 1. Bum 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 naming 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!
Page – 70 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!
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 longing¹ 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
¹Or, high-uplifted lustre seeking for the Gods Page – 71 thoughts, men’s priest of the call,¹ 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 on² that fullness of him on the upper levels, this Fire the vision of whom is brighter in the night than in
¹Or, the priest of the call for men who see, ²or, we hold Page – 72 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.¹ 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.
¹Or, in the esoteric sense, the army of the Life-Powers moving with fertilising rain over our tilled and our waste lands. Page – 73 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, Page – 74 for the enjoying; for those who hymn thee, O Lord of plenty, churn out a great hero-strength as one puissant by his force.
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 bright¹ 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 one² he is the strong master and enjoyer, with the other he engirdles and crushes in his embrace³ 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 child4 for his tongue is lifted upward, he destroys and rushes swiftly through and should be chosen, increasing his father.5
¹Or,
white; śukra, a white brightness. ³Mṛś is used of the sexual contact; vāraṇaḥ from vṛ to cover, surround. 4Or, following their child 5Expl. 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. Page – 75
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 on¹ 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.²
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 bodies³ and like a fierce beast hard to seize he tosses his horns.4
7. He whether contracted in being or wide-extended seizes on them utterly; he knowing, they knowing the eternal Agni enjoys5 them, then again they increase and go to the state
¹Or, speed and pervade ²Mahīmavanim might mean the vast earth, but avanī and pṛthivī are not used in the Veda invariably, the former not usually, to mean earth, but stray or return to their original sense — sapta avanayaḥ. ³Or, he makes blissful the forms of things 4Babhṛūsu, the cows, aruṇayaḥ of a later verse — knowledge in the mortal mind. 5Or, lies with Page – 76
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;¹ 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.²
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.³
11. This, O Agni, is that which is well-established upon the ill-
¹Mamruṣīḥ is uncertain. It may be dead or dying. Rebhire == delight, is here perfectly proved. ²Rihan, rerihat are uncertain. ³Śvasi is the Greek Kasis and an old variant of śvasṛ wife or sister. Therefore it is coupled with vṛṣā like patnī. Page – 77 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. Page – 78 |
