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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:¹ 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-moving² 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.³
4. O Fire, thou art Varuna the king who holds in his hands the
¹Or,thou art the priest of the pilgrim-rite: ²Or,wide-sung ³Or,the Goddess tenant of the city. Page – 81 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 joumeyest 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 Page – 82 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 Page – 83 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. Page – 84 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 Heaven¹ 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.²
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,³ in the middle world and in his own home, the guardian of the dappled mother who
¹Or, who dwells in the Light ²Or, self-gathered thou illuminest his nights. ³Or, like a thing of delight in his shining beauty, Page – 85 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. Page – 86
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;¹ 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.
¹Or, wake in ourselves a strength of heroes beyond men’s scope by the power of the War-Horse or by the Word; Page – 87
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 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
1. 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. Page – 88
4. O Godhead, strewn is the seat on this altar, the hero-guarded seat that ever grows, the seat well-packed for the riches,¹ 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
¹Or, made strong to bear for the riches, Page – 89 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.¹
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 revealed² 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 svāhā³
SUKTA 4
¹Or, let the way of the Gods come to us. ²Or, triply anointed ³Or,made into svāhā Page – 90 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.¹
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
¹Or, in all from men to the Gods. Page – 91 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 bum 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 of¹ the secret inner spaces.
¹Or, win Page – 92 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,¹ 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 of² That All.
3. When a man has firmly established this Fire, he echoes the Words of knowledge and comes to³ 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 Light4 of this Priest of the lustration, the Sisters who have gone once
¹Or, the wealth that has to be conquered, ²Or, travels to (reaches) ³Or, and comes to know 4Or, the hue of kind Page – 93 and again to that Supreme over the three.¹
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,² what we have given.³
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, for then it is complete, we have moved (on the way),
¹The fourth world, Turiyam above the three, so called in the Rig-veda, turīyam svid. ²Or, for then it is complete, we have moved (on the way), ³Or, let us take full joy of the laud and the sacrifice; for we have given. Page – 94 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 ;¹ 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 ;² thou art like a messenger from a friendly people.³
¹Or, free from all littleness; ²Or, as one who has knowledge between both Births; ³Or, like a friendly universal messenger. Page – 95
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;¹ 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.
¹Or, against us, God and mortal, overmaster us; Page – 96
5. O Fire of the Bringers, thou art called by¹ our bulls and our heifers and by our eight-footed Kine.²
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.
SUKTA 8
1. As if to replenish³ 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.
¹Or, fed with ² Or, by our bulls and by our barren and pregnant kine. Aṣtāpadī literally eight-footed. ³Or, as one seeking for plenitude Page – 97 4. He shines rich with diverse lustres like the heavens of the Sun1 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 like the Sun Page – 98 the Son and the building of the bodies¹awake 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 force² 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.
¹ Or, in the offspring of the son of our bodies ²Or, form Page – 99 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: 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 dwells¹even 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.²
¹ Or, shines ²Or, in the violence of his rapture. Page – 100
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.¹ None can touch the body of the Fire where he plays in his desire of the hues of light,² 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.³
¹Or, with a mind without the will to injure. ²Or, with his desire-waking hue, ³Or, he fills us with the wine of sweetness. Page – 101 |
