The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

Chapter XXI
The Sons of Darkness
WE HAVE seen, not once but repeatedly, that it is impossible
to read into the story of the Angirases, Indra
and Sarama, the cave of the Panis and the conquest of
the Dawn, the Sun and the Cows an account of a political and
military struggle between Aryan invaders and Dravidian cavedwellers.
It is a struggle between the seekers of Light and the
powers of Darkness; the cows are the illuminations of the Sun
and the Dawn, they cannot be physical cows; the wide fearfree
field of the Cows won by Indra for the Aryans is the wide
world of Swar, the world of the solar Illumination, the threefold
luminous regions of Heaven. Therefore equally the Panis must
be taken as powers of the cave of Darkness. It is quite true that
the Panis are Dasyus or Dāsas; they are spoken of constantly by
that name, they are described as the Dāsa Varna as opposed to
the Arya Varna, and varn. a, colour, is the word used for caste
or class in the Brahmanas and later writings, although it does
not therefore follow that it has that sense in the Rig Veda. The
Dasyus are the haters of the sacred word; they are those who give
not to the gods the gift or the holy wine, who keep their wealth
of cows and horses and other treasure for themselves and do not
give them to the seers; they are those who do not the sacrifice.
We may, if we like, suppose that there was a struggle between
two different cults in India and that the Rishis took their images
from the physical struggle between the human representatives of
these cults and applied them to the spiritual conflict, just as they
employed the other details of their physical life to symbolise the
spiritual sacrifice, the spiritual wealth, the spiritual battle and
journey. But it is perfectly certain that in the Rig Veda at least it
is the spiritual conflict and victory, not the physical battle and
plunder of which they are speaking.
It is either an uncritical or a disingenuous method to take