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The Twenty-Eighth Hymn to Agni
A HYMN OF THE HIGH-BLAZING FLAME, KING OF IMMORTALITY
[The Rishi celebrates the flame of the Will high-blazing in the dawn of knowledge as the King of Immortality, the giver to the soul of its spiritual riches and felicity and of a well-governed mastery of Nature. He is the bearer of our oblation, the illumined guide of our sacrifice to its divine and universal goal.]
1. The Flame of Will burning high rises to his pure light in the heaven of mind; wide he extends his illumination and fronts the Dawn. She comes, moving upward, laden with all desirable things, seeking the gods with the oblation, luminous with the clarity.
2. When thou burnest high thou art king of immortality and thou cleavest to the doer of sacrifice to give him that blissful state; he to whom thou comest to be his guest, holds in himself all substance and he sets thee within in his front.
Page – 469 3. O Flame, put forth thy battling might for a vast enjoyment1 of bliss, may there be thy highest illumination; create a well governed union of the Lord and his Spouse, set thy foot on the greatness of hostile powers.
4. I adore, O Flame, the glory of thy high-blazing mightiness. Thou art the Bull with the illuminations; thou burnest up in the march of our sacrifices.
5. O Flame that receivest our offerings, perfect guide of the sacrifice, high-kindled offer our oblation to the godheads; for thou art the bearer of our offerings.
6. Cast the offering, serve the Will with your works2 while your sacrifice moves forward to its goal, accept the carrier of our oblation.3
1 The Vedic immortality is a vast beatitude, a large enjoyment of the divine and infinite existence reposing on a perfect union between the Soul and Nature; the soul becomes King of itself and its environment, conscious on all its planes, master of them, with Nature for its bride delivered from divisions and discords into an infinite and luminous harmony. 2 Or, set the Will to its workings. 3 This hymn closes the series addressed to Agni and forming the first twenty-eight hymns of the fifth Mandala of the Rig Veda.
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