Rig Veda

Text & Audio

MAṆḌALA 1

Sūkta 8

2. Audio

▪   by South Indian brahmins
▪   by Sri Shyama Sundara Sharma and Sri Satya Krishna Bhatta. Recorded by © 2012 Sriranga Digital Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

1. May 1915¹

1.8.8. Thus Mahi for Indra full of the rays, overflowing in her abundance, in her nature a happy truth, becomes as if a ripe branch for the giver of the sacrifice.

Mahi, then, is the luminous vastness of the Truth, she represents the Largeness, bṛhat, of the superconscient in us containing in itself the Truth, ṛtaṃ. She is, therefore, for the sacrificer like a branch covered with ripe fruit.

2. 1913–14²

1.8.1. Bring to us, O Indra, for our increase a stable and victorious felicity ever forceful and fullest of lordship,

1.8.2. by which we shall hold back all obstructing things with destruction of confining limit, strengthened (or protected) by thee as thou warrest.

1.8.3. O Indra, by thee protected (or in that strength) we may make to blaze up thickly the force of the lightning and conquer utterly in the battle our enemies.

1.8.4. We by thy armed heroes, we, O Indra, by thee yoked to us in the fight may put forth might in the battle.

1.8.5. Vast (now) is Indra and very high, may his vastness dwell with the lord of the lightnings and brilliant might like the heaven in its wide-extending.

1.8.6. Those he beareth up who enjoy in their strength with safety of that which they have created or who are illumined and full of understanding.

1.8.7. For he is a gulf that drinks in the Soma utterly even as the sea drinks in the wide waters that have descended from the mountaintops.

1.8.8. So in him is the luminous Vastness rich in its truth and vigorous in its works like a ripe branch to the giver.

1.8.9. So in thee, O Indra, all wide pervadings and increasings become at once full of perception to him who can hold them, to him who gives.

1.8.10. So is the confirming of him and the expressing desirable and to be brought forth by speech,— for Indra to drink the Soma-wine.

3. Circa 1913³

8. In this sense I shall take it. I translate the line “For thus Mahi the true, manifest in action, luminous becomes like a ripe branch to the giver” — or, again in better English, For thus Mahi the perfect in truth, manifesting herself in action, full of illumination, becomes as a ripe branch to the giver.

NOTES

The next passage to which I shall turn is the eighth verse of the eighth hymn, also to Indra, in which occurs the expression सूनृता ... गोमती मही, a passage which when taken in the plain and ordinary sense of the epithets sheds a great light on the nature of Mahi. Sunrita means really true and is opposed to anrita, false — for in the early Aryan speech su and sû would equally signify, well, good, very; and the euphonic n is of a very ancient type of sandhi — originally, it was probably no more than a strong anuswar — traces of which can still be found in Tamil; in the case of su this n euphonic seems to have been dropped after the movement of the literary Aryan tongue towards the modern principle of Sandhi,— a movement the imperfect progress of which we see in the Vedas; but by that time the form an, composed of privative a and the euphonic n, had become a recognised alternative form to a and the omission of the n would have left the meaning of words very ambiguous; therefore n was preserved in the negative form, omitted from the affirmative where its omission caused no inconvenience,— for to write âgni instead of anagni would be confusing, but to write svagni instead of sunagni would create no confusion. In the pair sunrita and anrita it is probable that the usage had become so confirmed, so much of an almost technical phraseology, that confirmed habit prevailed over new rule. The second meaning of the word is auspicious, derived from the idea “good or beneficent in its regular action”. The Vedic scholars give a third sense, quick, active; but this is probably due to confusion with an originally distinct word derived from the root नृ, to move on rapidly, to be strong, swift, active from which we have नृत् to dance, नृ and नर strong and a number of other derivatives, for although ri means to go, it does not appear that rita was used in the sense of motion or swiftness. In any case our choice (apart from unnecessary ingenuities) lies here between “auspicious” and “true”. If we take Mahi in the sense of earth, the first is its simplest and most natural significance. We shall have then to translate “the earth auspicious (or might it mean true in the sense observing the law of the seasons), wide-watered, full of cows becomes like a ripe branch to the giver.” This gives a clear connected sense, although gross and pedestrian and open to the objection that it has no natural and inevitable connection with the preceding verses. My objection is that sunrita and gomati seem to me to have in the Veda a different and deeper sense and that the whole passage becomes not only ennobled in sense, but clearer and more connected in sense if we give them that deeper significance. Gomatir ushasah in Kutsa’s hymn to the Dawn is certainly the luminous dawns; Saraswati in the third hymn who as chodayitri sunritanam chetanti sumatinam shines pervading all the actions of the understanding, certainly does so because she is the impeller to high truths, the awakener to right thoughts, clear perceptions and not because she is the impeller of things auspicious — a phrase which would have no sense or appropriateness to the context. Mahi is one of the three goddesses Ila, Saraswati and Mahi who are described as tisro devir mayobhuvah, the three goddesses born of delight or Ananda, and her companions being goddesses of knowledge, children of Mahas, she also must be a goddess of knowledge, not the earth; the word mahi also bears the sense of knowledge, intellect, and Mahas undoubtedly refers in many passages to the vijnana or supra-rational level of consciousness, the fourth Vyahriti of the Taittiriya Upanishad. What then prevents us from taking Mahi, here as there, in the sense of the goddess of suprarational knowledge or, if taken objectively, the world of Mahat? Nothing, except a tradition born in classical times when mahi was the earth and the new Nature-worship theory. In this sense I shall take it. I translate the line “For thus Mahi the true, manifest in action, luminous becomes like a ripe branch to the giver” — or, again in better English, For thus Mahi the perfect in truth, manifesting herself in action, full of illumination, becomes as a ripe branch to the giver. For the Yogin again the sense is clear. All things are contained in the Mahat, derived from the Mahat, depend on the Mahat, but we here in the movement of the alpam, have not our desire, are blinded and confined, enjoy an imperfect, erroneous and usually baffled and futile activity. It is only when we regain the movement of the Mahat, the large and uncontracted consciousness that comes from rising to the infinite,— it is only then that we escape from this limitation. She is perfect in truth, full of illumination; error and ignorance disappear; she manifests herself virapshi in a wide and various activity; our activities are enlarged, our desires are fulfilled. The connection with the preceding stanzas becomes clear. The Vritras, the great obstructors and upholders of limitation, are slain by the help of Indra, by the result of the yajnartham karma, by alliance with the armed gods in mighty internal battle; Indra, the god within our mental force, manifests himself as supreme and full of the nature of ideal truth from which his greatness weaponed with the vajra, vidyut or electric principle, derives (mahitwam astu vajrine). The mind, instinct with amrita, is then full of equality, samata; it drinks in the flood of activity of all kinds as the sea takes in the rivers. For the condition then results in which the ideal consciousness Mahi is like a ripe branch to the giver, when all powers and expansions of being at once (without obstacle as the Vritras are slain) become active in consciousness as masterful and effective knowledge or awareness (chit). This is the process prayed for by the poet. The whole hymn becomes a consecutive and intelligible whole, a single thought worked out logically and coherently and relating with perfect accuracy of ensemble and detail to one of the commonest experiences of Yogic fulfilment. In both these passages the faithful adherence to the intimations of language, Vedantic idea and Yogic experience have shed a flood of light, illuminating the obscurity of the Vedas, bringing coherence into the incoherence of the naturalistic explanation, close and strict logic, great depth of meaning with great simplicity of expression, and, as I shall show when I take up the final interpretation of the separate hymns, a rational meaning and reason of existence in that particular place for each word and phrase and a faultless and inevitable connection with what goes before and with what goes after.

¹ The Secret of the Veda. IX. Saraswati and Her Consorts // CWSA.– Vol. 15.– The Secret of the Veda.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998, pp. 91-99. 1-st published: Arya: A Philosophical Review. Monthly.– Vol.1, No 10 – May 1915, pp. 593-601.

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² CWSA.– Vol. 14.– Vedic and Philological Studies.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2016, pp. 203-204.

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³ Note on the Word Go // CWSA.– Vol. 14.– Vedic and Philological Studies.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2016, p. 99-110. 1-st published: Sri Aurobindo: Archives & Research: a biannual journal.– Volume 9, No1 (1985, April), pp. 50-60.

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