The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

224 The Secret of the Veda
isolated passages and give them a particular sense which will do
well enough there only while ignoring the numerous other passages
in which that sense is patently inapplicable. We must take
as a whole all the references in the Veda to the Panis, their wealth,
their characteristics, the victory of the Gods, the seers and the
Aryans over them and adopt uniformly that conclusion which
arises from all the passages thus taken together. When we follow
this method we find that in many of these passages the idea of the
Panis as human beings is absolutely impossible and that they are
powers either of physical or of spiritual darkness; in others that
they cannot at all be powers of physical darkness, but may well
be either human enemies of the god-seekers and sacrificers or
else enemies of the spiritual Light; in yet others that they cannot
be either human enemies or enemies of the physical Light, but
are certainly the enemies of the spiritual Light, the Truth and
the Thought. From these data there can be only one conclusion,
that they are always and only enemies of the spiritual Light.
We may take as the master-clue to the general character
of these Dasyus the Rik V.14.4, “Agni born shone out slaying
the Dasyus, the darkness by the Light; he found the Cows, the
Waters, Swar,” agnir jātoarocata,ghnandasyūn jyotis. ā tamah. ;
avindad gā apah. svah. . There are two great divisions of the
Dasyus, the Panis who intercept both the cows and the waters
but are especially associated with the refusal of the cows, the
Vritras who intercept the waters and the light, but are especially
associated with the withholding of the waters; all Dasyus without
exception stand in the way of the ascent to Swar and oppose
the acquisition of the wealth by the Aryan seers. The refusal
of the light is their opposition to the vision of Swar, svardr. ´s,
and the vision of the sun, to the supreme vision of knowledge,
upamā ketuh. ; the refusal of the waters is their opposition to the
abundant movement of Swar, svarvatīr apah. , the movement or
streamings of the Truth, r.tasya pres. ā, r.tasya dhārāh. ; the opposition
to the wealth-acquisition is their refusal of the abundant
substance of Swar, vasu, dhana, vāja, hiran. ya, that great wealth
which is found in the sun and in the waters, apsu sūrye mahad
dhanam. Still since the whole struggle is between the Light and