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The God of the Mystic Wine
Rig Veda IX.75 and 42
These two hymns are rendered as literally as possible so as to show the original symbolism of the Veda untranslated into its psychological equivalents. I
1. Placed in delight he flows to the pleasant Names in which he increases; vast and wise he ascends the chariot of the vast sun, the chariot of a universal movement.
2. Tongue of the Truth, a pleasant honey,1 he flows speaker and lord of this Thought and invincible; the Son places the third hidden Name of the Parents2 in the luminous world of Heaven.
1 The sweet wine of the Soma. 2 Heaven and Earth; there are three heavens and three earths and at the summit is the triple luminous world of Heaven called Swar and described lower down as the triple back or threefold level in the Dawn. That is the world of the “vast sun” and is itself described as the Truth, the Right, the Vast.
Page – 565 3. Breaking into light he cries down into the jars, guided by men, in the golden sheath; in him the milkings of the Truth dawn out,3 he shines wide on the triple back of the Dawn.
4. Pressed out by the stones, placed in delight by the thoughts, pure, making to shine out the two mothers, Earth and Heaven, he runs evenly through all the hairs of the Sheep;4 his stream of honey goes on increasing day by day.
5. Race everywhere, O Soma, for our happiness, purified by men clothe thyself with the mixings; with those thy raptures that are smiting and wide-extended, impel Indra to give his plenty.5
II
1. Giving birth to the luminous worlds of heaven,6 giving birth to the Sun in the waters,7 the Brilliant One clothes himself with the waters and the rays.8
3 Or, “to him the milkers of the Truth cry out the chant.” 4 The strainer in which the Soma is purified is made of the fleece of the Ewe. Indra is the Ram; the Ewe must therefore be an energy of Indra, probably the divinised sense-mind, indriyam. 5 The Soma was mixed with water, milk and other ingredients: Soma is said to clothe himself with the Waters and with the “cows”, that is, the illuminations or yield of Dawn, the shining Cow. 6 The three worlds of Swar. 7 Agni, Surya and Soma himself are said to be found in the waters or seven rivers. 8 . Gāh, meaning both cows and rays.
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2. He by the ancient thought flows pressed out in a stream, a god around the gods.
3. For one increasing and swiftly advancing9 there flow for his winning of the plenty the Soma-juices with their thousand strengths.
4. Milked out, the ancient food, he is poured into the strainer that purifies and shouting he brings to birth the gods.
5. Soma, purifying himself, travels to all desirable boons, to the gods who increase the Truth.
6. Stream on us, O Soma, when thou art pressed out, that in which are the Cows, the Heroes, the Steeds, the Plenty; stream impulsions vast.10
9 On the path, through all obstacles; the sacrifice is figured both as a growth of man and as a journey. 10 “Large foods”, according to the ritualist commentator; as there are here two words meaning food in his usual rendering, is and vaja, he gives another meaning to vaja and explains the verse “give us a wealth along with which there are cows, men, horses and battle and give us plentiful food.”
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