The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

The Hound of Heaven 221
which finds no place in the Rig Veda itself. The Veda says, “In the
sacrifice” or, as it more probably means, “in the seeking of Indra
and the Angirases (for the cows) Sarama discovered a foundation
for the Son,” vidat saramā tanayāya dhāsim (I.62.3); for such
is the more likely sense here of the word dhāsim. Thesonisin
all probability the son born of the sacrifice, a constant element
in the Vedic imagery and not the dog-race born of Sarama.
We have similar phrases in the Veda as in I.96.4, mātari´svā
puruvārapus.t.ir vidad gātu ˙m tanayāya svarvit, “Matarishwan
(the Life-god, Vayu) increasing the many desirable things (the
higher objects of life) discovered the path for the Son, discovered
Swar,” where the subject is evidently the same but the son has
nothing to do with any brood of puppies.
The two Sarameya dogs, messengers of Yama, are mentioned
in a late hymn in the tenth Mandala, but without any
reference to Sarama as their mother. This occurs in the famous
“funeral” hymn X.14, and it is worth while noting the real
character of Yama and his two dogs in the Rig Veda. In the
later ideas Yama is the god of Death and has his own special
world; but in the Rig Veda he seems to have been originally a
form of the Sun, — even as late as the Isha Upanishad we find
the name used as an appellation of the Sun, — and then one
of the twin children of the wide-shining Lord of Truth. He is
the guardian of the dharma, the law of the Truth, satyadharma,
which is a condition of immortality, and therefore himself the
guardian of immortality. His world is Swar, the world of immortality,
amr.te loke aks.ite, where, as we are told in IX.113, is
the indestructible Light, where Swar is established, yatra jyotir
ajasra ˙m, yasmin loke svar hitam. The hymn X.14 is indeed not
a hymn of Death so much as a hymn of Life and Immortality.
Yama and the ancient Fathers have discovered the path to that
world which is a pasture of the Cows whence the enemy cannot
bear away the radiant herds, yamonogātu ˙m prathamo viveda,
nais. ā gavyūtir apabhartavā u, yatrā nah. pūrve pitarah. pareyuh. .
The soul of the heaven-ascending mortal is bidden to “outrun
the two four-eyed varicoloured Sarameya dogs on the good (or
effective) path.” Of that path to heaven they are the four-eyed