The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas 177
of Ayasya to the Navagwas which raises the nine Navagwas
to the number of ten and enables them by his discovery of the
seven-headed Swar-conquering thought to prolong their ninemonths’
sacrifice through the tenth month? Thus they become
the ten Dashagwas. We may note in this connection that the
intoxication of the Soma by which Indra manifests or increases
the might of Swar or the Swar-Purusha (Svarn. ara) is described
as ten-rayed and illuminating (da´sagva ˙m vepayantam).
This conclusion is entirely confirmed by the passage in
III.39.5 which we have already cited. For there we find that
it is with the help of the Navagwas that Indra pursues the trace
of the lost kine, but it is only with the aid of the ten Dashagwas
that he is able to bring the pursuit to a successful issue and find
that Truth, satya ˙m tat, namely, the Sun that was lying in the
darkness. In other words, it is when the nine-months’ sacrifice is
prolonged through the tenth, it is when the Navagwas become
the ten Dashagwas by the seven-headed thought of Ayasya, the
tenth Rishi, that the Sun is found and the luminous world of
Swar in which we possess the truth of the one universal Deva,
is disclosed and conquered. This conquest of Swar is the aim
of the sacrifice and the great work accomplished by the Angiras
Rishis.
But what is meant by the figure of the months? for it now
becomes clear that it is a figure, a parable; the year is symbolic,
the months are symbolic. 3 It is in the revolution of the year that
the recovery of the lost Sun and the lost cows is effected, for we
have the explicit statement in X.62.2, r.tenābhindan parivatsare
valam, “by the truth, in the revolution of the year, they broke
Vala,” or, as Sayana interprets it, “by sacrifice lasting for a year.”
This passage certainly goes far to support the Arctic theory, for
it speaks of a yearly and not a daily return of the Sun. But we
are not concerned with the external figure, nor does its validity
in any way affect our own theory; for it may very well be
that the striking Arctic experience of the long night, the annual
3
Observe that in the Puranas the Yugas, moments, months, etc. are all symbolic and
it is stated that the body of man is the year.