The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

Chapter XIX
The Victory of the Fathers
THE HYMNS addressed by the great Rishi Vamadeva to
the divine Flame, to the Seer-Will, Agni are among the
most mystic in expression in the Rig Veda and though
quite plain in their sense if we hold firmly in our mind the system
of significant figures employed by the Rishis, will otherwise seem
only a brilliant haze of images baffling our comprehension. The
reader has at every moment to apply that fixed notation which is
the key to the sense of the hymns; otherwise he will be as much at
a loss as a reader of metaphysics who has not mastered the sense
of the philosophical terms that are being constantly used or, let
us say, one who tries to read Panini’s Sutras without knowing
the peculiar system of grammatical notation in which they are
expressed. We have, however, already enough light upon this
system of images to understand well enough what Vamadeva has
to tell us about the great achievement of the human forefathers.
In order to hold clearly in our minds at the start what that
great achievement was we may put before ourselves the clear
and sufficient formulas in which Parashara Shaktya expresses
them. “Our fathers broke open the firm and strong places by
their words, yea, the Angirases broke open the hill by their cry;
they made in us the path to the great heaven; they found the
Day and Swar and vision and the luminous Cows,” cakrur divo
br.hato gātum asme, ahah. svar vividuh. ketum usrāh. , (I.71.2).
This path, he tells us, is the path which leads to immortality;
“they who entered into all things that bear right fruit formed a
path towards the immortality; earth stood wide for them by the
greatness and by the Great Ones, the mother Aditi with her sons
came (or, manifested herself) for the upholding” (I.72.9). 1 That
1 Āyevi´svā svapatyāni tasthuh. ,kr.n. vānāso amr.tatvāya gātum; mahnā mahadbhih.
pr.thivī vitasthe,mātā putrair aditir dhāyase veh. .