The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

Note on the Texts
In August 1914, Sri Aurobindo began to publish The Secret of the
Veda in the first issue of the philosophical review Arya. This series was
accompanied by a related one, Selected Hymns. Selected Hymns was
followed a year later by Hymns of the Atris. These works, written and
published in monthly instalments between 1914 and 1917, form Parts
One to Three of the present volume.
Besides Selected Hymns and Hymns of the Atris, other Vedic translations
appeared in the Arya at various times between 1915 and 1920.
They were usually introduced when a page or two had to be filled at
the end of a 64-page issue. These translations have been placed in the
order of their original publication in Part Four, “Other Hymns”.
Thus this volume contains all writings on and translations of the
Veda published by Sri Aurobindo in the Arya. Some of what appeared
in the Arya was prefigured by essays, translations and notes on the
Veda written between 1912 and 1914. However, none of this earlier
material was incorporated directly in the works that came out in the
Arya. Sri Aurobindo’s manuscript writings on the Veda are included in
Vedic Studies with Writings on Philology, volume 14 of THE COMPLETE
WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO. His translations of hymns to Agni are
published in volume 16, Hymns to the Mystic Fire.
The Secret of the Veda. This, Sri Aurobindo’s most important expository
work on the Veda, appeared in the Arya in twenty-four consecutive
instalments between August 1914 and July 1916. (The second chapter
was printed in two instalments.) Sri Aurobindo never revised it, apart
from minor alterations in Chapter 17. The last instalment of this work
in the Arya ended with the following footnote:
We propose for the present to discontinue the Secret of the
Veda so as to make room in the third year of the Arya for
other matter, but we shall subsequently resume and complete
the series.