The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

378 Hymns of the Atris
plateau to plateau as of a mountain, it has to cross as in a ship
the waters of existence, traverse its rivers, overcome their deep
pits and rapid currents; its aim is to arrive at the far-off ocean
of light and infinity.
And this is no easy or peaceful march; it is for long seasons
a fierce and relentless battle. Constantly the Aryan man has to
labour and to fight and conquer; he must be a tireless toiler and
traveller and a stern warrior, he must force open and storm and
sack city after city, win kingdom after kingdom, overthrow and
tread down ruthlessly enemy after enemy. His whole progress is
a warring of Gods and Titans, Gods and Giants, Indra and the
Python, Aryan and Dasyu. Aryan adversaries even he has to face
in the open field; for old friends and helpers turn into enemies;
the kings of Aryan states he would conquer and overpass join
themselves to the Dasyus and are leagued against him in supreme
battle to prevent his free and utter passing on.
But the Dasyu is the natural enemy. These dividers, plunderers,
harmful powers, these Danavas, sons of the Mother of
division, are spoken of by the Rishis under many general appellations.
There are Rakshasas; there are Eaters and Devourers,
Wolves and Tearers; there are hurters and haters; there are dualisers;
there are confiners or censurers. But we are given also many
specific names. Vritra, the Serpent, is the grand Adversary; for
he obstructs with his coils of darkness all possibility of divine
existence and divine action. And even when Vritra is slain by
the light, fiercer enemies arise out of him. Shushna afflicts us
with his impure and ineffective force, Namuchi fights man by
his weaknesses, and others too assail, each with his proper
evil. Then there are Vala and the Panis, miser traffickers in
the sense-life, stealers and concealers of the higher Light and
its illuminations which they can only darken and misuse, —
an impious host who are jealous of their store and will not
offer sacrifice to the Gods. These and other personalities — they
are much more than personifications — of our ignorance, evil,
weakness and many limitations make constant war upon man;
they encircle him from near or they shoot their arrows at him
from afar or even dwell in his gated house in the place of the