The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

220 The Secret of the Veda
the shining glory of the supreme state with its thrice seven seats
of the Godhead. Such an ascent can have no other meaning
than the ascent of the divine powers in man out of their ordinary
cosmic appearances to the shining Truth beyond, as indeed
Parashara himself tells us that by this action of the gods mortal
man awakens to the knowledge and finds Agni standing in the
supreme seat and goal; vidan marto nemadhitā cikitvān, agni ˙m
pade parame tasthivā ˙msam. What is Sarama doing in such a
hymn if she is not a power of the Truth, if her cows are not the
rays of a divine dawn of illumination? What have the cows of old
warring tribes and the sanguinary squabbles of our Aryan and
Dravidian ancestors over their mutual plunderings and cattleliftings
to do with this luminous apocalypse of the immortality
and the godhead? Or what are these rivers that think and know
the Truth and discover the hidden doors? Or must we still say
that these were the rivers of the Punjab dammed up by drought
or by the Dravidians and Sarama a mythological figure for an
Aryan embassy or else only the physical Dawn?
One hymn in the tenth Mandala is devoted entirely to this
“embassy” of Sarama, it is the colloquy of Sarama and the Panis;
but it adds nothing essential to what we already know about her
and its chief importance lies in the help it gives us in forming
our conception of the masters of the cavern treasure. We may
note, however, that neither in this hymn, nor in the others we
have noticed is there the least indication of the figure of the
divine hound which was attributed to Sarama in a possibly later
development of the Vedic imagery. It is surely the shining fairfooted
goddess by whom the Panis are attracted and whom they
desire as their sister, — not as a dog to guard their cattle, but as
one who will share in the possession of their riches. The image
of the hound of heaven is, however, exceedingly apt and striking
and was bound to develop out of the legend. In one of the earlier
hymns we have mention indeed of a son for whom Sarama “got
food” according to an ancient interpretation which accounts for
the phrase by a story that the hound Sarama demanded food
for her offspring in the sacrifice as a condition of her search
for the lost cows. But this is obviously an explanatory invention