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MANDALA SIX BHARADWAJA BARHASPATYA
SUKTA 11 1. Missioned and strong to sacrifice, offer the sacrifice. Priest of the call; O Fire, put away from us as if by the applied force of the Life-gods all that opposes. Turn in their paths towards our offering Mitra and Varuna and the twin Lords of the journey and Earth and Heaven.
2. To us thou art our priest of the invocation, harmless and perfect in ecstasy; thou art the god within in mortals that makes the discoveries of knowledge; thou art the carrier with the burning mouth, with the purifying flame of oblation. O Fire, worship with sacrifice thy own body.
3. In thee the understanding is full of riches and it desires the gods, the divine births, that the word may be spoken and the sacrifice done, when the singer, the sage, wisest of the Angirasas chants his honey-rhythm in the rite.
4. He has leaped into radiance and is wise of heart and wide of light; O Fire, sacrifice to the largeness of Earth and Heaven. All the five peoples lavish the oblation with obeisance of surrender and anoint as the living being Fire the Page – 266 bringer of their satisfactions.
5. When the sacred grass has been plucked with prostration of surrender to the Fire, when the ladle of the purification full of the light-offering has been set to its labour, when the home has been reached in the house of Earth and the sacrifice lodged like an eye in the sun, —
6. O Son of Force, O Fire, kindling with the gods thy fires, Priest of the call. Priest with thy many flame-armies, dispense to us the Treasures; shining with light let us charge beyond the sin and the struggle. SUKTA 12
1. In the midmost of the gated house Fire, the Priest of the call, the King of the sacred seat and the whip of swiftness, to sacrifice to Earth and Heaven! This is the Son of Force in whom is the Truth; he stretches out from afar with his light like the sun.
2. When a man sacrifices in thee, O King, O Lord of sacrifice? when he does well his works in the wise and understanding Fire like Heaven in its all-forming labour, triple thy session; Page – 267 thy speed is as if of a deliverer, when thou comest to give the sacrifice whose offerings are man’s human fullnesses.
3. A splendour in the forest, most brilliant-forceful is the speed of his journeying; he is like a whip on the path and ever he grows and blazes. He is like a smelter who does hurt to none; he is the Immortal who wakes of himself to knowledge: he cannot be turned from his way mid the growths of the earth.
4. Fire, the knower of all things born, is hymned by our paeans in the house as if in one that walks on the way. He feeds on the Tree and conquers by our will like a war-horse; this shining Bull is adored by us with sacrifice like a father.
5. And now his splendours chant aloud and he hews with ease and walks along the wideness of the earth. He is rapid in his race and in a moment is loosed speeding to the gallop: he is like a thief that runs; his light is seen beyond the desert places.
6. O War-Horse, us from the bondage deliver, kindling, O Fire, with all thy fires; for thou travellest to the Riches and scatterest the forces of affliction and sorrow. May we revel in the rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters. Page – 268 SUKTA 13
1. O felicitous Fire, of thee are all felicities and they grow wide from thee like branches from a tree. For quickly come, in the piercing of the Python adversary, the Riches and the desirable plenty and the Rain of Heaven and the flowing of the Waters.
2. Thou art Bhaga of the felicities and thou pourest on us the ecstasy and takest up thy house in us, a pervading presence and a potent splendour. O divine Fire, like Mitra thou art a feeder on the vast Truth and the much joy and beauty.
3. O Fire born of the Truth, O thinker and knower, when consenting with the Child of the Waters thou takest pleasure in a man and speedest him with the Treasure, he becomes a master .over beings and in his might slays the Python adversary and becomes a seer and carries out with him the riches of the Dweller in the Cave.
4. O Son of Force, the mortal who has reached to the intensity of thee by the word and the utterance and the altar and the sacrifice, draws to him sufficiency of every kind of wealth, O divine Fire, and walks on the way with his riches. Page – 269
5. O Fire, O Son of Force, found for men that they may grow, happy riches of inspiration with strength of its hero-keepers, — many herds, thy creation in thy might, but now a food for the wolf and the foe and the destroyer.
6. O Son of Force, become the vast speaker within us; give us the Son of our begetting, give us all that is packed with the plenitudes; let me enjoy by my every word satisfaction of fullness. May we revel in the rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.
SUKTA 14
1. When mortal man by his musings comes to take pleasure of work and thought in the Fire, he shines with light and is one supreme; he receives the impulsion that leads him to safety.
2. The Fire is the thinker and knower, the Fire is a mightiest disposer of works and a seer. To Fire the Priest of the in-vocation the peoples of men aspire in their sacrifices.
3. Of many kinds are they who seek thy safeguard and strive with the Fire for his riches; men breaking through the Page – 270 Destroyer seek to overcome his lawless strength by the order of their works.
4. The Fire gives to, man a Master of beings, a Warrior who overbears the charge of the foe and wins the Waters; the enemies are afraid at his very sight and scatter in panic from his puissance.
5. The Fire is the godhead who rescues mortal man by knowledge from the Binder. A forceful thing is the treasure of his riches, unencircled by the adversary, unbesieged in its plenitudes.
6. O Fire, O friendly Light, O Godhead turn to the Godheads, mayest thou
speak for us the true thought of Earth and Heaven; march in peace to the
happy abode and the Men of Heaven. Let us pass safe beyond the foe and the
sin and the Page – 271 BHARADWAJA BARHASPATYA OR VITAHAVYA ANGIRASA
SUKTA 15
1. Thou must crown with the word the guest who wakes from sleep with the dawn. Master of all these peoples. He is pure from his very birth and surely he comes to us from heaven in his time; long too, a child from the womb, he feeds on all that is unfallen.
2. The Bhrigus set in the Tree the godhead of our aspiration with his high flame of light like a friend well-confirmed in his place. And now, O Wonderful, well-pleased in him who has cast to thee the offering, thou art magnified by wordings of thy power from day to day.
3. Be in us the one whom the wolf cannot rend, the god who makes grow the discernment, makes grow the supreme inner Warrior who delivers.¹ O Son of Force, extend in mortals the Riches, the wide-spreading House, for the caster of the offering, for Bharadwaja the wide-spreading House.
4. Crown must thou the guest shining with light, the Male of the Sun-world, the Priest of man’s invocation who makes perfect the Rite of the Path. Crown with your acts of purification the Seer whose speech has its home in the Light,² the Carrier of offerings, the Traveller, the Godhead of Fire.
¹Or,
be our deliverer from the enemy beyond and within us. Page – 272 5. He shines with the light that makes pure, the light that awakens to knowledge, shines in beauty on the earth as if with a splendour of Dawn. He is as if one hewing his way in the march and battle of the shining Horse; he is like one athirst and luminously blazing, the ageless Fire.
6. Fire and again Fire set to work with your fuel, chant with your speech the dear, the beloved Guest. Approach and set the Immortal alight with your words; a god he enjoys in the gods our desirable things, — a god, he enjoys our works in the gods.
7. I chant the Fire that is kindled with the word for fuel, the Fire that is pure and makes pure; Fire that is steadfast for ever and marches in front in the Rite of the Path. We desire with his felicities the Illumined, the Priest of the call, the harmless, rich with many blessings, the Seer who knows all births that are.
8. O Fire, they have set thee here the Messenger, the Immortal in generation after generation, the Carrier of offerings, protector of man and the Godhead of his prayer. Gods alike and mortals sit with obeisance before the all-pervading Master of the peoples, the ever-wakeful Fire.
Page – 273 9. O Fire, according to the laws of thy works thou pervadest either race; thou art the messenger of the Gods and rangest both the worlds. Since we have accepted thy thinking and the right understanding that is thine, be to us our triple armour of defence and benignant helper.
10. May we who know not come into touch with this great knower with his true front and just walk and perfect vision. May he who knows all manifested things¹ do sacrifice for us, may Fire voice our offering in the world of the Immortals.
11. O heroic Fire, thou guardest and bringest safe to the other side the man who has reached to the Thought for thee the Seer and achieved the intensity of the sacrifice or its ascending movement; thou fillest him with might and riches.
12. O Fire that hast the Force, guard us from fault, guard from one who would subject us. May there come to thee along the path full of destructions the thousandfold delectable treasure.
13. Fire, the Priest of the invocation, is a king and the Master in our house; all the births he knows, he is of all things born the Knower. He is strong to sacrifice and the Truth is in him; let him do sacrifice for gods and mortals.
¹Or, all kinds of knowledge Page – 274
14. O Fire, O Light that makest pure, O summoning Priest of man’s sacrifice, today when thou comest as a doer of worship, today when thou growest all-pervading in thy greatness and offerest the things of the Truth for sacrifice, today carry with thee our offerings, O ever-youthful Fire, even the truths that are thine.
15. Open thy manifesting eye on our firm-based pleasant things; let a man set thee within him to sacrifice to Earth and Heaven. Protect us, O King of Riches, in our conquest of the plenitudes; O Fire, may we pass safe through all the stumbling-places. Let us pass beyond these things, pass in thy keeping through them safe.
16. O Fire with thy strong armies of flame, sit with the gods, first of them all, in the wool-flecked lair where the Nest is ready and the light-offering; lead for the doer of the rite, for the presser of the wine rightly on its paths the sacrifice.
17. This is that Fire whom the ordainers of works churn out like Atharvan of old; a Power unbewildered, they led him in his zigzag walk from the dusky Nights.
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18. Be born to us in our all-forming labour for the coming of the Gods, for our peace. Bring the gods to us, the Immortals, the builders of the growing Truth; give to our sacrifice touch on the gods.
19. O Fire, O man’s master of the house, we have fed thee with our fuel and made thee a vastness; let the works of the house-master be unhalting, make us utterly keen with thy intense force of light.
SUKTA 16
1. O Fire, thou art set here in all as the Priest of the call in the sacrifice, set by the gods in the human being.
2. Offer worship with thy rapturous tongues in the Rite of the Path to the Great Ones. Bring the gods to us, do them sacrifice.
3. O ordainer of works, mighty of will, by thy revealing light¹ in the sacrifice thou knowest the tracks of the gods and their highways.
¹Or, with thy straight going Page – 276
4. Now has the Bringer of the Treasure with his horses of swiftness aspired to thee for a twofold bliss; he has sacrificed in the sacrifices to the king of sacrifice.
5. O Fire, for the Servant of Heaven¹ who presses the wine, for Bharadwaja the giver of the offering, the multitude of these desirable things!
6. Thou art the Immortal messenger; lend ear to the laud of the seer and bring the Divine People.
7. Men deeply meditating aspire to thee that the godheads may come to them; mortals they aspire to the God in the sacrifice.
8. Bring into sacrifice thy perfect sight and thy will; rich are thy gifts and in thee is the joy of all who desire.
9. Thou art the Priest of the call set here in thinking man, his carrier with mouth of flame wiser in knowledge than he. O Fire, sacrifice to the people of heaven.
¹Divodasa Page – 277
10. Come, O Fire, for the advent; voiced by the word, come for the gift of the oblation: sit, the Priest of our invocation, on the grass of the altar.
11. O Angiras, we make thee to grow by our fuel and our offering of the clarity; flame into a vast light, O ever-youthful Fire.
12. O God, O Fire, thou illuminest towards us a wide light of inspired knowledge and the vastness of a perfect force.
13. O Fire, Atharvan churned thee out from the Lotus, from the head of every chanting sage.¹
14. And Dadhyang too, the Seer, Atharvan’s son, kindled thee a slayer of the Python adversary and shatterer of his cities.
15. Thee the Bull of the paths set full alight, most mighty to slay the Destroyers, a conqueror of riches in battle upon battle.
¹Or, on Pushkara; or, the Lotus of the head of every chanting sage. Page – 278
16. Come to me and let me voice to thee, O Fire, true other words; for thou growest by these moon-powers of the Wine.
17. Wheresoever is thy mind and thou plantest that higher discernment, there thou makest thy house.
18. O Prince of Riches, the fullness of thy treasures meets not the eye and it is for the few;¹ take then joy in our work.
19. Fire of the Bringers is approached by us, the slayer of the Python adversary conscious with a multiple knowledge, the Servant of Heaven’s Fire, master of beings.
20. This is he that unconquered, unoverthrown shall by his greatness win and give to us a treasure beyond all earthly things.
21. O Fire, by a new illumination like the old and joining it, thou hast stretched out the Vast with thy light.²
¹Or, let not the fullness of thy treasures meet the eye only of the few; ² Or, built the Vast with thy light. Page – 279
22. O friends, offer to the impetuous violence of Fire the hymn and the sacrifice; sing the illumining verse, chant to the Ordainer of works.
23. This is he that must sit through the human generations, man’s Priest of the call with the seer-will, the Messenger, the Carrier of the oblation.
24. O Prince of the Treasure, do worship here with sacrifice to the Two
Kings who are ever pure in their works, to the sons
25. O Fire, O Child of Energy, full of riches is thy vision for the mortal, the vision of the immortal, and it imparts to him its impulse.
26. Let the giver be the best by work of the will; today winning thee let him become one overflowing with affluence: a mortal, he shall taste the perfect purification.
Page – 280 27. These are thy men whom thou guardest, O Fire, and they find the speed of thy impulse and move to universal Life, fighters piercing through the armies of the enemy, fighters conquering the armies of the enemy.¹
28. Let the Fire with his keen energy of light overwhelm every devourer; Fire conquers for us the riches.
29. O wide-seeing Fire, God who knowest all births that are, bring to us the treasure with its strength of the Heroes; O mighty of will, slay the demon-keepers.
30. O God who knowest all births that are, guard us from sin and from him that worketh calamity; O Seer of the Word, protect us.
31. The mortal of evil movements who gives us over to the stroke, guard us, O Fire, from him and his evil.
32. O God, repulse on every side with thy tongue of flame that doer of wickedness; oppose the mortal who would slay us.
¹Or, piercing through the enemies who war against them, (bis). Page – 281
33. O forceful Fire, extend to Bharadwaja the peace¹ with its wideness; extend to him the desirable riches.
34. Let Fire the seeker of the treasure kindled and brilliant and fed with our offerings slay with his flame of illumination the encircling Adversaries.
35. Let him become the father of the Father in the womb of the Mother; let him break out into lightnings in the Imperishable, let him take his seat in the native home of the Truth.
36. O wide-seeing Fire, God who knowest all births that are, bring us the Word with its issue, the Word whose light shines in Heaven.
37. O thou who art made by our force, we come to thee of the rapturous vision bringing our offerings for thy pleasure and let forth towards thee, O Fire, our words.
38. Like men that take refuge in the shade, we have arrived to
¹Or, the wide-spreading house of refuge Page – 282 the refuge of thy peace, there where thou blazest with light and art a vision of gold, O Fire.
39. Thou art like a fierce fighter shooting arrows and like a sharp-horned Bull; O Fire, thou breakest the cities.
40. They bring him like a beast of prey, like a new-born child they bear him in their hands. Fire that effects the Rite of the Path for the peoples.
41. Bring to us this great discoverer of riches, bring the god for the coming of the gods; let him take his seat in his own native home.
42. In the felicitous Fire that knows all things born the Master of your House is born to you; sharpen to his intensity the beloved guest.
43. O God, O Fire, yoke those horses of thine that do well the work and can bear thee sufficient for our passion.
Page – 283 44. Come to us, bear towards us the Gods that they may eat of¹ our pleasant offerings and drink our Soma-wine.
45. O Fire of the Bringers luminously lightening with thy incessant flame upward burn; spread wide thy light, O ageless² power.
46. Let the mortal who would serve with his works the God in the advent, aspire bringing his offering to the Fire in the Rite of the Path; let him with uplifted³ hands and with obeisance of surrender make shine the summoning Priest of Earth and Heaven, the fire of true sacrifice.4
47. We bring to thee, O Fire, by the illumining word an offering that is shaped by the heart. Let there be born from it thy impregnating bulls and thy heifers.
48. The Gods kindle, most strong to slay the Python adversary, the supreme Fire, the Horse of swiftness by whom the Riches are brought and pierced the demon-keepers.
¹Or, come to ²Or, imperishable ³Or, outstretched 4Or, who worships the Truth with sacrifice. Page – 284 |
