The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

Note on the Texts 601
Thought-Gods” in the next section.) Sri Aurobindo later retranslated
the hymns to Agni from the fifth Mandala; the versions that appeared
in the Arya are reproduced here, while the revised translations are
published in Hymns to the Mystic Fire.
Other Hymns. These sixteen translations from various books of the
Rig Veda were published in the Arya at different times between 1915
and 1920. They are reproduced here in the order in which they originally
appeared. The last nine form a series. Apart from two pairs of
related hymns, the rest have no obvious connection with each other,
but illustrate a wide range of approaches to rendering the Veda into
English.
A Vedic Hymn (Rig Veda VII.60). This translation of a hymn of
Vasishtha to Surya and Mitra-Varuna, arranged in three paragraphs,
was published in the Arya in August 1915.
A Hymn of the Thought-Gods. Published in the Arya in February
1916. This is not a translation but a paraphrase of the hymns to
the Maruts by the Rishi Shyavashwa of the Atri clan; it is based on
Rig Veda V.52 and, in the last three paragraphs, on scattered verses
from V.53 – 61. It appeared in the Arya while Hymns of the Atris was
running, but did not form part of that series.
The God of the Mystic Wine (Rig Veda IX.75, 42). Published in the
Arya in September 1916. These two hymns to Soma were “rendered
as literally as possible”, in contrast to the method of interpretative
translation usually employed in the Arya. The Sanskrit text in transliteration
was printed at the bottom of the page in the Arya. It has been
replaced in this edition by the text in Devanagari before each verse, as
has been supplied for the other translations.
The Vedic Fire (Rig Veda I.94, 97). These two hymns to Agni were
published in the Arya in September 1917. In translating the first hymn,
Sri Aurobindo joined the first half of the last verse with the preceding
verse. He omitted the second half of the verse, a formula which occurs
at the end of most of the hymns of Kutsa Angirasa and is unrelated to
the rest of this hymn.
A Vedic Hymn to the Fire (Rig Veda I.59). Published in the Arya
in January 1920, after a gap of two years during which no Vedic
translations came out in the review. The translation is missing the