The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

360 Selected Hymns
immortal state. Like a Sun or a fire, as Surya, as Agni, engirt with
a thousand blazing energies he conquers the vast regions of the
inspired truth, the superconscient knowledge; rājā pavitraratho
vājam āruhah. , sahasrabhr.s.t.ir jayasi ´sravo br.hat. The image is
that of a victorious king, sun-like in force and glory, conquering
a wide territory. It is the immortality that he wins for man in
the vast truth-consciousness, ´sravas, upon which is founded the
immortal state. It is his own true seat, itthā padam asya, that the
God concealed in man conquers ascending out of the darkness
and the twilight through the glories of the Dawn into the solar
plenitudes.
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With this hymn I close this series of selected hymns from the
Rig Veda. My object has been to show in as brief a compass
as possible the real functions of the Vedic gods, the sense of
the symbols in which their cult is expressed, the nature of the
sacrifice and its goal, explaining by actual examples the secret of
the Veda. I have purposely selected a few brief and easy hymns,
and avoided those which have a more striking depth, subtlety
and complexity of thought and image, — alike those which bear
the psychological sense plainly and fully on their surface and
those which by their very strangeness and profundity reveal
their true character of mystic and sacred poems. It is hoped
that these examples will be sufficient to show the reader who
cares to study them with an open mind the real sense of this,
our earliest and greatest poetry. By other translations of a more
general character it will be shown that these ideas are not merely
the highest thought of a few Rishis, but the pervading sense and
teaching of the Rig Veda.