The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

The Sons of Darkness 225
the Darkness, the Truth and the Falsehood, the divine Maya
and the undivine, all the Dasyus alike are here identified with
the Darkness; and it is by the birth and shining of Agni that
the Light is created with which he slays the Dasyus and the
Darkness. The historical interpretation will not do at all here,
though the naturalistic may pass if we isolate the passage and
suppose the lighting of the sacrificial fire to be the cause of the
daily sunrise; but we have to judge from a comparative study of
the Veda and not on the strength of isolated passages.
The opposition between the Aryans and the Panis or Dasyus
is brought out in another hymn of the fifth Mandala and in III.34
we have the expression Arya Varna. We must remember that the
Dasyus have been identified with the Darkness; therefore the
Aryans must be connected with the Light and we actually find
that the light of the Sun is called in the Veda the Aryan Light in
contradistinction evidently to the Dāsa darkness. Vasishtha also
speaks of the three Aryan peoples who are jyotiragrāh. ,ledby
the light, having the light in their front (VII.33.7). The Aryan-
Dasyu question can only be adequately treated by an exhaustive
discussion in which all the relevant passages are scrutinised and
the difficulties faced, but for my present purpose this is a sufficient
starting-point. We must remember also that we have in
the Veda the expressions r.ta ˙m jyotih. , hiran. ya ˙m jyotih. , the true
light, the golden light, which give us an additional clue. Now
these three epithets of the solar light, ārya, r.ta, hiran. ya are, I
suggest, mutually illuminative and almost equivalent. The Sun
is the Lord of Truth, therefore its light is the r.ta ˙m jyotih. ;this
light of truth is that which the Aryan, god or mortal, possesses,
and which constitutes his Arya-hood; again the epithet golden
is constantly applied to the Sun and gold is in Veda probably
the symbol of the substance of the truth, for its substance is the
light which is the golden wealth found in Surya and in the waters
of Swar, apsu sūrye, — therefore we have the epithet hiran. ya ˙m
jyotih. . This golden or shining light is the hue, varn. a, of the truth;
it is also the hue of the thoughts full of that illumination won by
the Aryan, the cows who are bright in colour, ´sukra, ´sveta, the
colour of Light; while the Dasyu, being a power of darkness, is