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MANDALA TEN TRITA APTYA
sukta 1
1. High and vast the Fire stood in front of the dawns; issuing out of the darkness he came with the Light: Fire, a perfect body of brilliant lustre, filled out at his very birth all the worlds.
2. Thou art the child born from earth and heaven, the child beautiful carried in the growths of earth; an infant many-hued, thou goest forth crying aloud from the mothers around the nights and the darknesses.
3. Vishnu knowing rightly the supreme plane of this Fire, born in his vastness, guards the third (plane); when in his mouth they have poured the milk (of the cow), conscious they shine here towards his own home.
4. Hence the mothers who bear that draught come with their food to thee, and thou growest by the food: to them the same, but other in their forms, thou comest (returnest) again, then art thou Priest of the call in human beings. Page – 379
5. The Priest of the call of the pilgrim-rite with his many-hued chariot, in the brilliant ray of intuition of sacrifice on sacrifice, Fire the guest of man who takes to himself the half of each god in might and glory.
6. Putting on robes, putting on forms. Fire in the navel-centre of the earth is born a ruddy flame, in the seat of Revelation. O King, as the Priest set in front sacrifice to the gods.
7. Ever, O Fire, thou hast stretched out earth and heaven, as their son thou hast built up thy father and mother: O ever young, journey towards the gods who desire thee; then bring them to us, O forceful Flame! sukta 2
1. Satisfy the desire of the gods, O thou ever young, do sacrifice here, a knower of its order and its times, O master of the order and time of things; with those who are divine priests of the order of the work thou, O Fire, art the strongest for sacrifice.
¹¹In the exoteric sense, "ṛtu" seems to mean the rites of the sacrifice. Page – 380 2. Thou comest to men’s invocation, thou comest to the purification, thou art the thinker, the giver of the riches, the possessor of the Truth: may we make the offerings with svaha; may Fire, availing, do the sacrifice, a god to the gods.
3. We have come to the path of the gods, may we have power to tread it, to drive forward along that road. The Fire is the knower, let him do sacrifice; he verily is the Priest of the call, he makes effective the pilgrim-sacrifices and the order of our works.
4. Whatever we may impair of the laws of your workings, O gods, we in our ignorance maiming your workings who know, all that may the Fire who is a knower make full by that order in time with which he makes effective the gods.
5. What in thee sacrifice mortals in the ignorance of their minds, poor in discernment, cannot think out, that the Fire knows, the Priest of the call, the finder of the right-will, strongest of sacrificants and does the sacrifice to the gods in the order and times of the truth.
6. The father brought thee to birth, the force of all pilgrim-sacrifices, the many-hued ray of intuition; so do thou win for us by sacrifice in the line of the planes with their god- Page – 381 heads, their desirable and opulent universal forces.
7. Thou whom heaven and earth, thou whom the waters, thou whom the form-maker, creator of perfect births, have brought into being; O Fire, luminously along the path of the journey of the Fathers, knowing it beforehand, high-kindled blaze.
sukta 3
1. He is seen high-kindled, the master ruling all, the traveller, the terrible, he who creates perfectly right understanding, awake to knowledge he shines wide with a vast lustre; driving the ruddy bright cow he comes to the dark one.
2. When he overspread with his body the black night and the dappled dawn bringing to birth the young maiden born from the great Father, pillaring the high-lifted light of the sun, the traveller shines out with the riches¹ of heaven.
3. He has come closely companioning her, happy with her happy, a lover he follows behind his sister; Fire spreading out with his lights full of conscious knowledge overlays her beauty with his ruddy shining hues.
¹Or, the shining ones Page – 382
4. His movements flaming send forth as if vast callings of Fire the beneficent comrade in the march of this mighty and adorable flame, the vast and beautiful his radiances blazing have waked to knowledge.,
5. His blazings as he shines stream like sounds of bright heaven in its vastness; with his greatest, most splendid and opulent lights at play he travels to heaven.
6. His strengths are those of a thunderbolt seen in the hurling, they neigh aloud in their teams; he, the traveller, most divine, shines wide-pervading with his ancient ruddy chanting fires.
7. So carry for us, so take thy seat, the mighty traveller of the young earth and heaven. Fire the swift and vehement with his swift and vehement horses, — so mayst thou come to us here. sukta 4
1. To thee I sacrifice, to thee I send forth my thought so that thou mayst manifest thyself adorable at our call; thou art Page – 383 like a fountain in the desert to longing men, O ancient king, O Fire.
2. O ever-young flame, towards thee men move, like herds that go to a warm pen; thou art the messenger of gods and mortals, thou movest between them vast through the luminous world.
3. The mother bears thee like an infant child clinging cherishingly to thee, increasing thee to be a conqueror; headlong down over the dry land he goes rejoicing, he is fain to go like an animal let loose.
4. O thou who art conscious and free from ignorance, ignorant are we and we know not thy greatness, thou only knowest. Covert he lies, he ranges devouring with his tongue of flame, he licks the young earth and is the master of her creatures.
5. Anywhere he is born new in eternal wombs; he stands in the forest hoary-old with smoke for his banner: a bull unbathed he journeys to the waters and mortals who are conscious lead him on his way.
Page – 384 6. Two robbers abandoning their bodies, rangers of the forest, -have planted him in his place with ten cords. This is thy new thinking, O Fire, yoke thyself to it with thy illumining limbs like a chariot.
7. Thine is this wisdom-word, O knower of all things born, and this prostration, this utterance is thine; may it have ever the power to make thee grow. Guard all that are offspring of our begetting, guard undeviatingly our bodies. sukta 5
1. One sole ocean holding all the riches, born in manifold births from our heart it sees all; there cleaves to the teat in the lap of the two secret ones in the midst of the fountain-source the hidden seat of the being.
2. The stallions inhabiting a common abode, the great stallions have met with the mares. The seers guard the seat of the Truth, they hold in the secrecy the supreme Names.
3. The two mothers in whom is the Truth, in whom is the mage-wisdom, formed him and brought to birth like an infant child, they have put him firm in his place and make him grow. Page – 385 Men found in him the navel-centre of all that is moving and stable and they weave by the mind the weft of the seer.
4. Him well-born the routes of the Truth and its ancient impulsions close companion for the plenitude. Heaven and earth give lodging to him whose dwelling is above them¹ they make him grow by the lights and foods of their sweetnesses.
5. Desiring the seven shining sisters, the knower bore on high their sweetnesses that he might have vision; he who was born from of old laboured within in the mid-world, he wished for and found the covering of the all-fostering sun.
6. The seers fashioned the seven goals,² towards one of them alone goes the narrow and difficult road. A pillar of the supreme being in its abode, he stands at the starting-out of the ways, in the upholding laws.
7. He is the being and non-being in the supreme ether, in the birth of the Understanding in the lap of the indivisible mother. Fire comes to us as the first-born of the Truth, he is the Bull and milch-Cow in the original existence.
¹Or, as their inhabitant, ²Or, the seven frontiers, Page – 386
sukta 6
1. This is he in whose peace,¹ and in his approach to it grows by his guardings the worshipper of the Fire, who encompasses all and is spread everywhere luminous with the largest lights of the wise.²
2. Fire, who shines perpetual, possessor of the Truth, luminous with divine lights, he who follows out the works of a comrade for his comrades like a courser running straight to his goal.
3. He who has power for every advent of godhead, who has power for the outbreak of the dawn and is the life of all, Fire in whom our thinkings are cast as offerings, his chariot goes unhurt and he supports all his strengths.
4. Increasing by his strengths, rejoicing in his illuminations he goes a swift galloper towards the gods; he is the rapturous Priest of the call, strong to sacrifice with his tongue of flame, inseparable from the gods the Fire sheds on them his light.
¹Or, house of refuge, ²Or, with his largest lights for the wise. Page – 387 5. Him fashion for you with your words and your obeisances as if Indra quivering at the dawn-ray, him whom illumined sages voice with their thoughts, the knower of all things born, the overpowering Flame.
6. Thou in whom all the Riches meet together in the plenitude like horses by their gallopings in their speed towards the goal, the protections most desired by Indra to us make close, O Fire.
7. Now, indeed, taking thy seat in thy greatness, O Fire, in thy very birth thou hast become the one to whom we must call; the gods walked by the ray of thy intuition, then they grew and were the first and supreme helpers.
sukta 7
1. Found for us felicity of earth and heaven and universal life that we may worship thee with sacrifice, O god; O doer of works, may we keep close to thy perceptions of knowledge; guard us, O god, with thy wide utterances.
2. For thee these thoughts are born, O Fire, towards thee they voice our achievement of riches with its horses of power and Page – 388 herds of light when the mortal upheld by his thoughts following thee attains to thy enjoyment, O Fire, perfectly born, O shining One.
3. I think of the Fire as my father, my ally, my brother, ever my comrade; I serve the, force of vast Fire, his bright and worshipped force of the Sun in heaven.
4. O Fire, effective in us are thy thoughts and conquerors of our aims: he whom thou deliverest, thou the eternal Priest of the call in the house, who art that driver of the red horses, possessed of the Truth, possessor of the much store of riches, may happiness be his through the shining days.
5. The Fire founded by the heavens¹ as our friend and the means for our works, the ancient Priest of the pilgrim-rites, the lover men brought into being by the strength of their two arms and seated within as the Priest of the call in beings.
6. Thyself sacrifice in heaven to the gods, for what shall man immature in thought and unconscious of the knowledge do of thy work ? Even as thou didst sacrifice in the order and times of the Truth, a god to the gods, O perfectly born Fire, so sacrifice to thy body.
¹Or, with his lights Page – 389
7. O Fire, become our guardian and protector, become the creator of our growth and of our growth the upholder, O mighty One, give to us what we shall give as offerings to the gods, and unfailing our bodies deliver.
sukta 8
1. The Fire journeys on with his vast ray of intuition, the Bull bellows to earth and heaven; he has reached up to the highest extremities of heaven, the mighty one has grown in the lap of the waters.
2. The Bull of the heights,1 the new-born rejoiced, the unfailing child worker rejoiced and shouted aloud; in the formation of the gods he does his exalted works and comes the first in his own abodes.
3. He who grasps the head of the father and mother they set within in the pilgrim-sacrifice, a sea from the Sun-world; in his path are the shining rays that are the foundations of the Horse of Power and they accept embodiment in the native seat of the Truth.
1Or, the humped-Bull, Page – 390
4. O shining One, thou comest to the front of dawn after dawn, thou hast become luminous in the Twins; thou boldest the seven planes for the Truth bringing Mitra to birth for thy own body.
5. Thou becomest the eye of the vast Truth; when thou journeyest to the Truth thou becomest Varuna, its guardian; thou becomest the child of the waters, O knower of all things born, thou becomest the messenger of the man in whose offering thou hast taken pleasure.
6. Thou art the leader of the sacrifice and leader to the mid-world to which thou resortest constantly with thy helpful team of mares; thou upholdest in heaven thy head that conquers the Sun-world, thy tongue thou makest, O Fire, the carrier of our offerings.
7. By his will Trita in the secret cave desiring by his movements the thinking of the supreme Father cherished in the lap of the Father and Mother, speaking the companion-word, seeks his weapons.
8. Trita Aptya discovered the weapons of the Father and missioned by Indra went to the battle; he smote the Three- Page – 391 headed, the seven-rayed and let loose the ray-cows of the son of Twashtri the form-maker.
9. Indra, the master of beings, broke that great upstriving meditating force and cast it downward and making his own the ray-cows of Twashtri’s son of the universal forms he took away from him his three heads.
sukta 11
1. Mighty from the mighty, strong and inviolable, he milked by the milking of heaven the streams of the Indivisible; Varuna knew all by his right thought. A lord of sacrifice, may he perform the order of the rites of the sacrifice.
2. May the Gandharvi speak to me and the Woman born from the Waters, may her protection be around my mind midst the roar of the river; may the indivisible mother establish us in the heart of our desire: my brother the greatest¹ and first declares it to me.
3. She the happy, and opulent and glorious, dawn has shone
¹Or, the eldest Page – 392 out for man bringing the Sun-world with her. When they . gave birth to this Fire, an aspirant doing the will of the aspirants for the discovery of knowledge.
4, Now the Bird, the missioned Hawk, has brought the draught of the great and seeing wine to the pilgrim-sacrifice. When the Aryan peoples chose the doer of works. Fire the Priest of the call, then the thought was born.
5. Ever art thou delightful like grasses to that which feeds on them, O Fire, doing well with thy voices of invocation the pilgrim-sacrifice for man when thou givest utterance to the plenitude of the word of the illumined sage, as one who has conquered, thou comest with thy multitude.
6. Upward lift the Father and Mother; the lover aspires to his enjoyment, rejoicing he obeys the urgings from his heart: a bearer of the word he speaks and jocund longs for the good work, the Mighty One puts forth his strength and is illumined by the Thought.
7. O Fire, O son of Force, the mortal who attains to thy right thinking goes forward and hears the truth beyond; holding the impelling force, borne by the horses of power, luminous and mighty he seeks to possess the heavens. Page – 393
8. When, O Fire, takes place that sacrificial assembly, O master of sacrifice, the assembly divine among the gods, when thou distributes! the ecstasies, O lord of nature, an opulent portion bring to us
9. Hear us, O Fire, in thy house, in the hall of thy session, yoke the galloping car of the Immortal; bring to us heaven and earth, parents of the gods; let none of the gods be away from us and mayst thou be here. sukta 12
1. Heaven and earth are the first to hear and by the Truth become possessed of the true speech when the god fashioning the mortal for the sacrificial act takes his seat as his Priest of the call and turned towards its own force moves towards it.
2. A god encompassing the gods with the Truth, carry our offering, the first to awake to the knowledge; erect, thy light rises by the kindling with smoke for thy banner; thou art the rapturous eternal Priest of the call strong by speech for the sacrifice. .
Page – 394 3. When perfectly achieved is the immortality of the godhead, the immortality of the Light, men born in this world hold wide earth and heaven; all the gods follow in the track of that sacrificial act1 of thine when the white cow is milked of her stream of divine Light.
4. O earth and heaven, I sing to you the word of illumination, pouring your light make my work grow, may the two firmaments hear me; when the days and the heavens have come by the guidance of the force, may the Father and Mother quicken us here with the sweetness of the wine.
5. On something in us the king has laid hold; what have we done that transgresses his law who can know ? Even if the Friend is dealing crookedly with the gods there is as if a call to us as we go, there is upon us a plenitude.
6. Hard to seize by the mind in this world is the name of the immortal because he puts on features and becomes divergent forms; he who grasps perfectly with his mind and his thought seizes its controlling law, him, O Fire, O mighty One, undeviatingly protect.
7. The discovery of knowledge in which the gods find their rapture they hold in the house of the radiant sun; they have
¹Or, sacrificial word Page – 395 set in the sun its light, in the moon its rays and both circle unceasingly around its illumination.
8. The thought in which the gods meet together, when it is occult we know not of it. May Mitra and the indivisible mother and the godhead of the creative sun declare us sinless to Varuna.
9. Hear us, O Fire, in thy house, in the hall of thy session, yoke the galloping car of the Immortal; bring to us heaven and earth, parents of the gods; let none of the gods be away from us and mayst thou be here. VIMADA AINDRA OR PRAJATYA OR VASUKRIT VSUKRA
SUKTA 20
1. Bring to us a happy mind.
2. I pray the Fire, the friend who is irresistible in his own command, in whose law the white rays attend on the Sun-world, serve the teat of the mother.
Page – 396 3. Fire whom face to face a home of light, one who brings the ray of intuition by his lustre they increase; he blazes with his row of flaming tusks.
4. He comes to us as a noble path for men when he travels to the ends of heaven; he is the seer and he lights up the sky.1
5. Accepting the oblation of man he stands high exalted in the sacrifice, a skilful craftsman; he goes in our front building our home.
6. He is our secure foundation, he is our offering, he is the sacrifice; his path goes swiftly to its goal: the gods call Fire with its adze.
7. I desire from the Fire, powerful for the sacrifice the work of the supreme bliss;2 they speak of him as the living son of the stone.3
8. Whatever men are with us may they in all ways abide in happiness making the Fire to grow by the offerings. 1Or, the cloud. 2Or, the work that brings the supreme bliss; 3Or, of the Rock, or the Peak. Page – 397
9. Black is his movement and white and luminous and crimson-red, it is large and straight and glorious; golden of form the father brought into being.
10. So, O Fire, rapturous thou bearest thy thinking mind, O son of energy, companioning the immortals, coming to us thou bearest thy words and thy right thinkings, thou bringest impelling force, energy, happy worlds of habitation, all.1
sukta 21
1. By our self-purifications we elect thee, the Fire as our Priest of the call, for the sacrifice where strewn is the grass, — in the intoxication of your rapture, — intense with thy purifying light of flame, — and thou growest to greatness.
2. Those who have achieved possession of the Horse, are very close to thee and glorify thee; the ladle goes to thee, — in the intoxication of your rapture, — direct, carrying the oblation, O Fire, — and thou growest to greatness.
1Or, Vimada, the rapturous one, coming carries to thee, O Fire, his thinking mind, to thee his words and his right thinkings, brings etc. Page – 398 3. In thee the upholding laws reside; sprinkling out their contents as with ladle black forms and white — in the intoxication of your rapture — all glories thou boldest — and thou growest to greatness.
4. O forceful and immortal Fire, whatever wealth thou deemest fit, that for the winning of the plenitudes,. — in the intoxication of your rapture, — bring to us a wealth of various lights in the sacrifices, — and thou growest to greatness.
5. The Fire born from Atharvan knows all seer-wisdoms, he becomes the messenger of the luminous sun, — in the intoxication of your rapture, — dear and desirable to the lord of the law, — and thou growest to greatness.
6. Thee they pray in the sacrifices, O Fire, as the pilgrim-sacrifice goes on its way; all desirable treasures — in the intoxication of your rapture — thou foundest for the giver, and thou growest to greatness.
7. Thee as the Priest of the rite in the sacrifices men have seated, O Fire, beautiful, luminous of front, — in the intoxication of your rapture, —bright and, with thy eyes, most conscious of knowledge, — and thou growest to greatness. Page – 399
8. O Fire, with thy bright light of flame thou spreadest the wide Vast, clamouring thou becomest the bull, — in the intoxication of your rapture, — and settest the child of the womb in the sisters, — and thou growest to greatness.
sukta 45
1. Above heaven was the first birth of the Fire, over us was his second birth as the knower of all things born, his third birth was in the waters, a god-mind; him continuously one kindles and with one’s thought perfectly fixed on him adores.
2. O Fire, we know the triple three of thee, we know thy seats borne widely in many planes, we know thy supreme Name which is in the secrecy, we know that fount of things whence thou earnest.
3. He of the god-mind kindled thee in the Ocean, within the Waters, he of the divine vision kindled thee, O Fire, in the teat of heaven; the mighty ones made thee to grow where thou stoodest in the third kingdom, in the lap of the waters.
Page – 400 4. Fire cried aloud like heaven thundering, he licked the earth – revealing its growths: when kindled and born, at once he saw all this that is; he shines out with his light between earth and heaven.
5. An exalter of glories, a holder of the riches, a manifester of thinking mind, a guardian of the wine of delight, a shining One, the son of force, the king in the Waters, he grows luminous as he burns up in the front of the dawns.
6. The ray of intuition of the universe, the child in the womb of the world, in his coming to birth he filled earth and heaven; going beyond them he rent even the strong mountain when the peoples of the five births sacrificed to the fire.
7. An aspirant and traveller and wise of mind, a purifying flame, the Fire who is set within as the immortal in mortals, he sends forth and carries a ruddy smoke striving with his bright flame of light to reach heaven.
8. Visible, golden of light, widely he shone; resplendent in his glory he is life hard to violate: the Fire by his expandings became immortal when heaven with its strong seed had brought him to birth. Page – 401
9. O god, O happy light, O Fire, he who has prepared for thee the luminous honeycomb1 him lead forward towards a more opulent state, O youthful godhead, even to the bliss enjoyed by the gods.
10. O Fire, bestow on him his share in the things of inspired knowledge, in word upon word as it is spoken: he becomes dear to the sun, dear to Fire; upward he breaks with what is born in him, upward with the things that are to be born
11. O Fire, men who sacrifice to thee day after day hold in themselves all desirable riches; desiring the treasure in thy companionship, aspiring, they burst open the covered pen of the Ray-Cows.
12. The Fire has been affirmed in their lauds by the sages, he who is full of bliss for men, the Universal Godhead, guardian of the wine of delight. Let us invoke earth and heaven free from hostile powers; found in us, O gods, a wealth full of hero-mights.
sukta 46
Page – 402 1. The great Priest of the call has been born; the knower of the heavens, he who is seated in man, may he take his seat in the lap of the waters: he who upholds us and who is held in us, rules for thee his worshipper thy expandings and thy riches and is the protector of thy body.
2. They worshipped him in the session of the waters, as if the cow of vision lost they followed him by his tracks; where he hid in the secret cavern, aspiring with obeisance the Flame-Seers, the wise thinkers desired and found him.
3. Him greatly desiring Trita, son of the master of wide riches,¹ found on the head of the light unslayable; he is born the youth who increases the felicity in our mansions and becomes the navel-centre of the luminous world.
4. In their aspiration they created him by their obeisance and set him in men as the rapturous Priest of the call, the sacrificer ever-moving forward, the leader of the pilgrim-sacrifices, the traveller, the carrier of the offering, the purifying Flame.
5. He has come into being and leading him like a golden-maned war-horse, the great, the victorious, the founder of the Light, men ignorant, one who is free from ignorance, the render ¹Trita the triple born from the All-pervading Substance, Page – 403 of the cities, the child of the forests, whose wealth is the illumined word¹ —they established the thought.
6. May Trita in the homesteads holding all firmly² take his session in his native seat within and all-encompassing; thence, a dweller in man’s home, taking all into his grasp, by a wide law of his action, by unrestrained movements he journeys to the gods.
7. His ageless and purifying fires are the defenders of our homes, lifting their luminous smoke; white-flaming, dwellers in the Tree, they are our strengtheners and supporters and like winds and like wine.
8. Fire carries with his tongue the illumination of wisdom, he carries in his consciousness earth’s discoveries of knowledge; him men hold the illuminating and purifying rapturous Priest of the call most strong for sacrifice.
9. This is the Fire to whom earth and heaven gave birth; and the waters, the form-maker and the Flame-Seers by their strengths, and life that grows in the mother and the gods have fashioned for man desirable, first and supreme, a master of sacrifice.
¹Or, the illumination ²Or, setting himself firmly Page – 404
10. Thou art he whom the gods have set as the carrier of the offerings and men with their many desires as the lord of sacrifice; so do thou, O Fire, found in thy journeying wide expansion for him who lauds thee and making him divine gather in him many glorious things.
sukta 51
1. Large was the covering and it was dense in which thou wert wrapped when thou didst enter into the waters; one was the god who saw thee but many and manifold were thy bodies which he saw, O Fire, O knower of all things born.
2. Which of the gods was he who saw everywhere my bodies in many forms ? O Mitra and Varuna, where then dwell all the blazings of the Fire which are paths of the gods ?
3. We desire thee, O Fire, O knower of all things born, when thou hast entered manifoldly into the growths of the earth and into the waters; there the lord of the law grew aware of thee, O thou of the many diverse lights, shining luminous beyond the ten inner dwelling-places. Page – 405
4. O Varuna, fearing the sacrificants’ office that so the gods might not yoke me to that work; so my bodies entered manifoldly, for I, Fire, was not conscious of this goal of the movement.
5. Come to us; the human being, god-seeking, is desirous of sacrifice, he has made all ready but thou dwellest in the darkness, O Fire. Make the paths of the journeying of the gods easy to travel, let thy mind be at ease, carry the offerings.
6. The ancient brothers of the Fire chose this goal to be reached as charioteers follow a path; therefore in fear I came far away, O Varuna. I started back as a gaur from the bow-string of the archer.
7. Since we make thy life imperishable, O Fire, O knower of all things born, so that yoked with it thou shalt not come to harm, then with thy mind at ease thou canst carry their share of the offering to the gods, O high-born Fire.
8. Give me the absolutes that precede and follow the sacrifice as my share of the oblation packed with the energy; give me the light from the waters and the soul from the plants and let there be long life for the Fire, O gods. Page – 406
9. Thine be the absolute precedents and consequents of the sacrifice, the portions packed with energy of the oblation; thine, O Fire, be all this sacrifice; may the four regions bow down to thee.
sukta 69
1. Happy are the seeings of the Fire of the gelded Horse, pleasurable his guidance, delightful his approaches; when the friendly peoples set him ablaze in their front, fed with the oblations of the Light he flames up for his worshipper.
2. The Light is the increasing of the Fire of the gelded Horse, Light is his food. Light is his fattening: fed with the oblation of the Light wide he spread; he shines as the Sun when there is poured on him its running stream.
3. The force of flame which thinking man, which the friendly one, set ablaze, this is that new force, O Fire; so opulently shine, so accept our words, so take the plenitude by violence, so found here the inspired knowledge.
Page – 407 4. That flame of thine of old which the gelded Horse, when prayed, set blazing high, O Fire who art that flame, this too accept; as that flame, become the protector of our stable erections and the protector of our bodies, guard this giving of thine which is here in us.
5. Become full of light, O gelded Horse, and become our protector, let not the assault of men pierce thee; thou art like a hero, a violent overthrower and the good Friend: lo, I have uttered the names of the Fire of the gelded Horse.
6. Thou hast conquered the riches of the plains and the riches of the mountain, the destroyer foemen, and the Aryan freemen: like a hero art thou, a violent overthrower of men, O Fire, mayst thou overcome those who battle against us.
7. This Fire is the long Thread, the vast Bull, one with a thousand layers and a hundred leadings, he is the Craftsman; luminous in men luminous, made bright by the hands of men, may he flame out in the strivers after godhead, in the friendly people.¹
8. In thee is the good milch-cow, O knower of all things born, as if unstayingly equal in its yield, giving its nectar-milk. ¹In the Sumitras, the name of the Rishi; but throughout the hymn there is a double or symbolic meaning in the names. Page – 408 O Fire, thou art set alight by men who have the intuitive judgment, strivers after godhead, the friendly people.
9. Even the immortal gods proclaim thy greatness, O knower of all things born, O Fire of the gelded Horse. That which I sought by questioning, coming to the human peoples, thou hast conquered by men who grow by thee.¹
10. Thee, as the father carries his son in his lap so the gelded Horse carried and tended thee, O Fire; O youthful god, accepting his fuel thou didst conquer even the supreme and mighty.
11. Fire has ever conquered the enemies of the gelded Horse by men who have pressed the Soma-wine; O thou of the bright diverse lights, thou hast broken and cast down the foe that was equal and the foe that was mighty and thou hast given him increase.
12. This Fire is the slayer of the enemies of the gelded Horse, lit from of old and to be invoked with obeisance; so do thou assail those who attack him, both the uncompanioned and the one with many companions, O Fire of the gelded Horse.
¹Or, who make thee grow in them. Page – 409
SUKTA 70 1. O Fire, accept the fuel I give thee; in the seat of revelation take joy in the luminous Thought: on the high top of earth, in the brightness of the days, become high uplifted by worship of sacrifice to the gods, O strong of will!
2. May he who travels in front of the gods, he who voices the godhead, come here with his horses of universal forms; pure and most divine, may he hasten with our obeisance on the path of the Truth to the gods.
3. Men bringing their offerings ask for the Fire everlasting to be their envoy: so do thou with thy horses strong to bear and thy swiftly moving car bring to us the gods; take here thy seat as the Priest of the call.
4. May the seat acceptable to the gods spread wide in us and all its long horizontal length become fragrant. Occupy that seat, O god, with a mind not inclining to wrath, and to the gods with Indra for their greatest offer sacrifice.
Page – 410 5. Touch either heaven’s superior peak or swing wide open . with all the extent of earth, O doors of aspiration, who desire the chariot of the gods, hold in your greatness and by the great the divine car.
6. Let the two divine daughters of heaven, formed beautifully, dawn and night, sit in their native seat; O dawn and night, O you who aspire, may the gods aspiring sit on your wide lap, O blissful ones.
7. High stands up the stone of the pressing, high the Fire is kindled, may it touch the vast and the seats dear to us in the lap of the infinite mother; O you who are vicars and ordinants of the rite in this sacrifice, you twain who have greater knowledge, may you win for us by sacrifice the Treasure.
8. O ye three goddesses, sit on the superior seat which we have made delightful for you; may the mother of Revelation and the two goddesses with the luminous feet accept our firmly placed offerings and our human worship of sacrifice.
9. O divine maker of forms, since thou hast reached beauty in thy works, since thou hast become companion in thy being to the Angiras seers, forward then to the goal of the journeyings of the gods, for thou knowest it! Aspiring, perfect in ecstasy, sacrifice to the gods, O giver of the treasure. Page – 411
10 O Tree, knowing the goal of the journeying of the gods, bear us to it binding with the radiant cord. May the godhead fashion the offerings in which he takes pleasure : may heaven and earth protect our call.
11. O Fire, bring Varuna to our sacrifice, Indra from heaven, the Life-Gods from mid-air; may all the lords of sacrifice sit on our sacred seat, may the immortal gods take rapture in the svaha.
sukta 79
1. I have seen the greatness of this great one, the Immortal in the mortal peoples. The jaws of this abundant eater, separate and held apart, are brought close together, devouring, insatiable.
2. His head is in the secrecy, his eyes wide apart, insatiable he eats up the forest with his tongue of flame. They bring together his foods for him with the pacings of their feet, their hands of obeisance are outstretched in the peoples. Page – 412
3. Desiring the secret place of the mother farther beyond he crawls like a child over the wide growths of earth. One finds him shining like ripe corn, licking away the hurts, within in her lap.
4. O heaven and earth, I declare to you that Truth of you, — in his very birth the child of your womb devours his parents. I am mortal and know not of the godhead; Fire is the all-conscious knower and he is the thinker.
5. He who sets swiftly for him his food casts on him the outpourings of light by which he is nourished, for him he sees with a thousand eyes: O Fire, thou frontest us on every side.
6. What omission or sin hast thou done before the gods, I ask thee, O Fire, for I know not. In his play unplaying a tawny lion, eating only to devour, he has cut all asunder limb by limb, as a knife cuts the cow.
7. He who is born in the forests has yoked his horses tending all ways but caught back by straight-held reins. Mitra, wellborn, has distributed to him the treasures and he has grown to completeness increasing in every member. Page – 413 sukta 80
1. Fire gives to us the Horse that carries the plenitude. Fire gives the Hero who has the inspired hearing and stands firm in the work; Fire ranges through earth and heaven revealing all things. Fire gives the Woman, the tenant of the city,¹ from whose womb is born the hero.
2. May there be a happy fuel for Fire at his labour. Fire enters into the great earth and heaven: Fire urges on one who is all alone in his battles. Fire cleaves asunder the multitude of the enemy.
3. Fire has protected the ear² of the worshipper,³ Fire burnt out the Waster4 from the waters; Fire delivered Atri within the blaze,5 Fire united man’s sacrifice with its progeny.6
4. May Fire in the hero’s shape give us the Treasure, may Fire give us the sage who wins the thousands; Fire has extended the offering in heaven, his are the planes upheld separately in many spaces.
¹Or, the many-thoughted, ²"Tyam", "that other" ear, the inner ear which listens to inspired knowledge. ³Sayana takes the two words "jarataḥ", "karṇam" as if they were one indicating the name of the Rishi "jaratkarna". 4 Sayana renders "jarūtha" "a demon". 5 Sayana renders "in the hot cauldron in the earth". 6Sayana readers "gave progeny to the Rishi Nrimedha". Page – 414
5. Fire the sages with their utterances call to every side, to Fire men call who are opposed in their march, to Fire the Birds flying in mid-air; Fire encircles the thousands of the Ray-Cows.
6. Fire the peoples pray who are human. Fire men of different birth who dwell as neighbours. Fire brings the Gandharvi to the path of the Truth, the Fire’s path of the ray-cows is settled in the Light.
7. The divine craftsmen have fashioned the Wisdom-Word for the Fire, the Fire we have declared as a vast purification. O ever-youthful Fire, protect thy worshipper; O Fire, win for him by sacrifice the great Treasure.
sukta 87
1. I set ablaze Fire of the plenitude, the slayer of the Rakshasas, I approach him as a friend and the widest house of refuge;1 the Fire has been kindled and grows intense by the workings of the will, may he protect us from the doer of hurt, by the day and by the night. ¹Or, a widest peace; Page – 415
2. O knower of all things born, high-kindled, iron-tusked, touch with thy ray the demon-sorcerers; do violence to him with thy tongue of flame, the gods who kill,¹ the eaters of flesh, putting them off from us shut them into thy mouth.
3. Destruction, whetting set upon them both thy tusks, the higher and the lower, O thou who art of both worlds,² thou circle in the mid-air, O king, and snap up in thy jaws the demon-sorcerers.
4. Turning on them by our sacrifices thy arrows, O Fire, by our speech thy javelins, plastering them with thy thunderbolts pierce with these in their hearts the demon-sorcerers who confront us, break their arms.
5. O Fire, tear the skin of the demon-sorcerer; let the cruel thunderbolt slay him in its wrath; rend his limbs, O knower of all things born; hungry for its flesh let the carrion-eater pick asunder his mangled body.
6. Wherever now thou seest him, O knower of all things born, whether standing or walking, or flying on the paths in the
¹Or, the gods of ignorance, ²Or, O thou who hast both, Page – 416 mid-air, a shooter sharpening his weapon, pierce him with . thy arrow.
7. Rescue from the assault of the demon-sorcerer with his spears the man touched by his grasp, O knower of all things born, O Fire, blazing supreme slay these devourers of the flesh; let the brilliant birds of prey eat him up.
8. Here proclaim which is he, O Fire, what demon-sorcerer, who is the doer of this deed ? To him do violence with thy blaze, O youthful god, subject him to the eye of thy divine vision.
9. O Fire, guard with thy keen eye the sacrifice, lead it moving forward to the Shining Ones, O conscious thinker; O thou of the divine vision, when thou blazest fierce against the Rakshasas let not the demon-sorcerers overcome thee.
10. Divine of vision, see everywhere the Rakshasa in the peoples, cleave the three peaks of him; his flanks, O Fire, cleave with thy wrath, rend asunder the triple root of the demon-sorcerer.
Page – 417 11. Triply may the demon-sorcerer undergo thy onrush, he who slays the Truth by falsehood; him overspreading with thy ray, O knower of all things born, fell down in front of him who hymns thee.
12. Set in thy singer, O Fire, the eye with which thou seest the trampler with his hooves, the demon-sorcerer; even as did Atharvan, burn with the divine Light this being without knowledge who does hurt to the Truth.
13. The cursing with which today couples revile each other, the curses which are born in the imprecations of the singers, the arrow which is born from the mind of wrath, with that pierce through the heart the demon-sorcerers.
14. Away from us cleave by thy burning energy the demon-sorcerers, away from us cleave by the heat of thy wrath the Rakshasa, O Fire, away from us cleave by thy ray these slayer gods,¹ blazing away from us cleave these who glut themselves with men’s lives.
15. May the gods cleave away today the crooked one, may harsh curses come to confront him, may the shafts enter into the vital part of one who thieves by speech, may he undergo the
¹Or, the gods of ignorance, Page – 418 onset of each and every one, the demon-sorcerer.
16. The demon-sorcerer who feeds on the flesh of human beings, who feeds on horses and on cattle, the one who carries away the milk of the Cow unslayable, cut asunder their necks with the flame of thy anger, O Fire.
17. O thou who hast the divine vision, let not the demon-sorcerer partake of the yearly milk of the shining cow; O Fire, whichever of them would glut himself on the nectar him pierce in front in his vital part with thy ray of light.
18.May the demon-sorcerers drink poison from the Ray-Cows, may they be cloven asunder who are of evil impulse before the infinite mother, may the divine sun betray them to thee, may they be deprived of their share of the growths of earth.
19. Ever dost thou crush the demon-sorcerer, O Fire, never have the Rakshasas conquered thee in the battles; burn one by one from their roots the eaters of raw flesh, may they find no release from thy divine missile.
20. O Fire, do thou guard us from above and from below, thou Page – 419 from behind and from the front; may those most burning ageless flames of thine blazing burn one who is a voice of evil.
21. From behind and from in front, from below and from above, a seer by thy seer-wisdom protect us, O king; a friend protect thy friend, ageless protect from old age, immortal protect us who are mortals, O Fire.
22. O forceful Fire, let us think of thee, the illumined sage as a fortress around us, one violent of aspect, slayer from day to day of the crooked ones.
23. Consume with poison the crooked Rakshasas; O Fire, burn them with thy keen flame, with thy fiery-pointed spears.
24. Burn the bewildered demon-sorcerer couples; I thee whet to sharpness, inviolate, with my thoughts, O illumined sage; awake.
25. Q Fire, cleave asunder their wrath with thy flame of wrath to every side; break utterly the strength, the energy of the Rakshasa, of the demon-sorcerer. Page – 420 |
