The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

The Seven Rivers 119
the own or proper seat or home of Agni, sva ˙m damam, sva ˙m
sadah. . Agni is described in this hymn ascending from earth to
his own seat.
This divine Power is found by the gods visible in the Waters,
in the working of the Sisters. These are the sevenfold waters of
the Truth, the divine waters brought down from the heights
of our being by Indra. First it is secret in the earth’s growths,
os.adhīh. , the things that hold her heats, and has to be brought
out by a sort of force, by a pressure of the two aran. is, earth and
heaven. Therefore it is called the child of the earth’s growths
and the child of the earth and heaven; this immortal Force is
produced by man with pain and difficulty from the workings of
the pure mind upon the physical being. But in the divine waters
Agni is found visible and easily born in all his strength and in all
his knowledge and in all his enjoyment, entirely white and pure,
growing ruddy with his action as he increases (v. 3). From his
very birth the Gods give him force and splendour and body; the
seven mighty Rivers increase him in his joy; they move about this
great newborn child and labour over him as the Mares, a´svāh.
(v. 4).
The rivers, usually named dhenavah. , fostering cows, are
here described as a´svāh. , Mares, because while the Cow is
the symbol of consciousness in the form of knowledge, the
Horse is the symbol of consciousness in the form of force.
Ashwa, the Horse, is the dynamic force of Life, and the rivers
labouring over Agni on the earth become the waters of Life,
of the vital dynamis or kinesis, the Prana, which moves and
acts and desires and enjoys. Agni himself begins as material
heat and power, manifests secondarily as the Horse and then
only becomes the heavenly fire. His first work is to give as the
child of the Waters its full form and extension and purity to
the middle world, the vital or dynamic plane, raja ātatanvān.
He purifies the nervous life in man pervading it with his own
pure bright limbs, lifting upward its impulsions and desires,
its purified will in works (kratum) by the pure powers of the
super-conscient Truth and Wisdom, kavibhih. pavitraih. .Sohe
wears his vast glories, no longer the broken and limited activity