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The Third Hymn to Mitra-Varuna
THE LEADERS TO THE BLISSFUL HOME
[The Rishi invokes the Lords of the infinite wideness and harmony whose arms embrace the soul's highest plane of the Truth and Bliss, to extend to him those arms of awakened consciousness and knowledge, so that he may have their all-embracing delight. He aspires by the path of Mitra to the joy of his harmonies in which there is no wound nor hurt; conceiving and holding the highest by the power of the illumining word, he would aspire to an increase in that plane, the proper home of the gods. Let the two great gods create in his being that wide world of their divine strength and vastness; let them bring to him its plenitude and felicity in the dawning of the divine light and the divine force.]
1. Varuna, destroyer of the foe, and Mitra we call to you by the word of illumination; their arms encompass the world of the power of Light1 as if cast around the pens of the shining herds.
1 Swarnara. Swar is the solar world of the Truth and the herds are the rays of its solar illuminations, therefore it is compared to the pens of these shining Vedic cattle.
Page – 526 2. Stretch out your arms of awakened knowledge2 to the human being when he chants to you the illumining word; your bliss adorable shall reach through all our earths.3
3. May I go by the path of the Friend4 that even now I may attain to the goal5 of my journey; so men cling firmly to the bliss of that Beloved in whom there is no wounding.
4. O Mitra and Varuna, may my thought hold by the illumining word that highest which is your possession, so that it shall aspire6 to the home of the masters of plenitude for them and for men who affirm you.
5. O Mitra, come to us with thy perfect givings and Varuna in the world of our session, for increase in their own home of the masters of plenitude7 and for increase of your companions.
2 The epithet shows how entirely symbolic are the bodies and members of the Gods as well as their other physical belongings, weapons, chariots, horses. 3 All the planes of our being. 4 Mitra, who creates the perfect and unhurt harmonies of our higher, divine existence. 5 Gati. The word is still used for the spiritual or supraterrestrial status gained by man’s conduct or efforts upon earth. But it may also mean the movement to the goal or the way, “May I even now attain to the Way, go by the path of Mitra.” 6 That is, manifesting in men it shall strive to raise them up to its own proper station, the Truth-plane. 7 The gods. Swar is the “own house” of the Gods.
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6. For in them you twain bring to us, O Varuna, the might8 and the vastness; form in us the wide world for the conquest of our plenitudes, for bliss, for our soul’s happiness.
7. To me, O lords of sacrifice, in the breaking of the dawn, in the flashing of the ray, in the force of the gods, to my wine pressed out as if9 by men with hands come racing with your trampling steeds, O gods who bring, —to the pilgrim of the Light.10
8 The divine force of the Truth-conscious being, called in the next verse “the force of the gods”; the Vast, brhat, is the constant description of that plane or "wide world", — the Truth, the Right, the Vast. 9 “As if”, —showing, as often, that the wine and its pressing are figures and symbols. 10 Arcanānas, he who travels to the illumination created by the word, the significant name of the Rishi of this hymn, one of the line of Atri.
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