Rig Veda

Text & Audio

MAṆḌALA 1

Sūkta 9

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. February 1916¹

[Notes]

1.9.4. Indra is, we have supposed, the Power of luminous Mind, master of the world of Light and its lightnings; the words or the thoughts are constantly imaged as cows or women, Indra as the Bull or husband, and the words desire him and are even spoken of as casting themselves upwards to seek him

2. Circa 1913²

2. ... delight-giving for Indra the enjoyer, effective of action for the doer of all actions

3. Circa 1913³

7. O Indra, life of all, order for us an inspired knowledge full of illumination and substance, wide and great and unimpaired.

I pass now to a third passage, also instructive, also full of that depth and fine knowledge of the movements of the higher consciousness which every Yogin must find in the Veda. It is in the 9th hymn of the Mandala and forms the seventh verse of that hymn. Sam gomad Indra vajavad asme prithu sravo brihat, visvayur dhehi akshitam. The only crucial question in this verse is the signification of sravas. With our modern ideas the sentence seems to us to demand that sravas should be translated here ‘fame’. Sravas is undoubtedly the same word as the Greek ϰλέος (originally ϰλέFος); it means a thing heard, rumour, report, and thence fame. If we take it in that sense, we shall have to translate “Arrange for us, O universal life, a luminous and solid, wide and great fame unimpaired.” I dismiss at once the idea that go and vaja can here signify cattle and food or wealth. “A herded and fooded or wealthy fame” to express “a fame for wealth of cattle and food” is a forceful turn of expression we might expect to find in Aeschylus or in Shakespeare; but I should hesitate, except in case of clear necessity, to admit it in the Veda or in any Sanscrit style of composition; for such expressions have always been alien to the Indian intellect. Our stylistic vagaries have been of another kind. But is luminous and solid fame much better? I shall suggest another meaning for sravas which will give as usual a deeper sense to the whole passage without our needing to depart by a hair’s breadth from the etymological significance of the words. Sruti in Sanscrit is a technical term, originally, for the means by which Vedic knowledge is acquired, inspiration in the suprarational mind; srutam is the knowledge of Veda. Similarly, we have in Vedic Sanscrit the forms srut and sravas. I take srut to mean inspired knowledge in the act of reception, sravas the thing acquired by the reception, inspired knowledge. Gomad immediately assumes its usual meaning “illuminated, full of illumination”. Vaja I take throughout the Veda as a technical Vedic expression for that substantiality of being-consciousness which is the basis of all special manifestation of being and power, all utayah and vibhutayah — it means by etymology extended being in force, va or vâ to exist or move in extension and the vocable j which always gives the idea of force or brilliance or decisiveness in action or manifestation or contact. I shall accept no meaning which is inconsistent with this fundamental significance. Moreover the tendency of the old commentators to make all possible words, vaja, ritam etc mean sacrifice or food, must be rejected, — although a justification in etymology might always be made out for the effort. Vaja means substance in being, substance, plenty, strength, solidity, steadfastness. Here it obviously means “full of substance”, just as “gomad” full of luminousness,— not in the sense arthavat, but with another and psychological 106 connotation. I translate then, “O Indra, life of all, order for us an inspired knowledge full of illumination and substance, wide and great and unimpaired.” Anyone acquainted with Yoga will at once be struck by the peculiar and exact appropriateness of all these epithets; they will admit him at once by sympathy into the very heart of Madhuchchhanda’s experience and unite him in soul with that ancient son of Visvamitra. When Mahas, the supra-rational principle, begins with some clearness to work in Yoga, not on its own level, not swe dame, but in the mind, it works at first through the principle of Sruti — not Smriti or Drishti, but this Sruti is feeble and limited in its range, it is not prithu; broken and scattered in its working even when the range is wide, not unlimited in continuity, not brihat; not pouring in a flood of light, not gomat, but coming as a flash in the darkness, often with a pale glimmer like the first feebleness of dawn; not supported by a strong steady force and foundation of being, Sat, in manifestation, not vajavad, but working without foundation, in a void, like secondhand glimpses of Sat in nothingness, in vacuum, in Asat; and, therefore, easily impaired, easily lost hold of, easily stolen by the Panis or the Vritras. All these defects Madhuchchhanda has noticed in his own experience; his prayer is for an inspired knowledge which shall be full and free and perfect, not marred even in a small degree by these deficiencies.

4. 1912–13⁴

1.9.1. Come, O Indra, thou takest rapture by all the bodily parts of this Matter, full of the great, setting thyself to it by thy force.

1.9.2. Increase thy strength, and do ye when the nectar is expressed create rapture for Indra the taker of joy, activity for the doer of all actions.

1.9.3. Rejoice, O swift of mood, with praises that awake delight, O thou all-doer; attach thyself to these outpourings.

1.9.4. When thou comest not to them, O Indra, thy voices laugh up to thee, seeking unfulfilled satisfaction to their lover and lord.

1.9.5. Excite entirely, O Indra, that manifold highest ecstasy below, — that Is of thee which is universal being and supreme.

1.9.6. Us too in that, O Indra, wholly excite to bliss; make us full of strong ecstasy and victorious strength, O thou brilliant in steadfast force.

1.9.7. So do thou dispose to us, O Indra, wide knowledge full of light, full of substance, in nature of that greatness, enduring all our life unimpaired.

1.9.8. Dispose to us knowledge of the large, a brilliance of utterly forceful steadfastness and, Indra, those rapturous masteries.

1.9.9. Declare ye with your words Indra of the Substance, lord of substance, full of the rik (knowledge); as he goeth we call on him for expansion of our being.

1.9.10. In every pouring of the nectar for capacity, of the large and increaser of the large, for Indra proceeds.

¹ The Secret of the Veda. XVIII. The Human Fathers // CWSA.– Vol. 15.– The Secret of the Veda.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998, pp. 187-198. 1-st published: Arya: A Philosophical Review. Monthly.– Vol.2, No 7 – February 1916, pp. 422-434.

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² The Secret of the Veda // CWSA.– Vol. 14.– Vedic and Philological Studies.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2016, pp. 149-154.

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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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⁴ CWSA.– Vol. 14.– Vedic and Philological Studies.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2016, pp. 204-208.

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