Rig Veda

Text & Audio

MAṆḌALA 1

Sūkta 86

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. September 1914¹

1.86.9. O ye who have the flashing strength of the Truth, manifest that by your might; pierce with your lightning the Rakshasa

1.86.10. Conceal the concealing darkness, repel every devourer, create the Light for which we long

2. 1912–13²

The eighty fifth and eighty sixth hymns of the first Mandala, hymns of the Rishi Gotama to the Maruts, are of especial importance, because they fix the subjective character and functions of the Maruts with a greater clearness than most of the suktas addressed to these deities; for in these others the material symbol is so prominent as to veil for modern minds the truths of our inner being and experience which it symbolises. I take first the second of the two hymns, because it is the simplest in language and its indications are quite lucid and definite.

In this verse I cannot accept pātha in Sayana’s sense, somam pibatha, drink the nectar. Pātha clearly prepares us for the sugopātamo in the third pāda of the rik and means “protect”. Divo cannot mean “from heaven”, since there is no verb of motion; it must, therefore, be connected with vimahasah. The Maruts are the diffused energies (vi-mahas) of Div, the mental world; they are the rays of the ideal knowledge-force, the Vijnana, pouring itself out in mind and diffusing itself in action of mental knowledge. The expression divo vimahasah gives the justification of sugopātamo; because the Maruts are these diffused energies of the Truth, Right, Wideness above, therefore their protection is perfectly effective for the Sacrificer.

“O Maruts, verily, in whosoever’s dwellings ye protect, the spreading energies of Heaven, he is the most safely guarded of men.”

The Maruts bear the action of the sacrifice, says Gotama, yajnair. We have here the fundamental sense of yajna coming to the surface; yajna is really the putting out of force which constitutes the effort of the Yati; it is yatna applied or devoted to a particular object or to a particular person; from this latter sense we get the idea of giving and sacrifice. The Maruts uphold the sacrifice of force, joy or being in the human individual by sacrifices of force, joy or being from the store, the samudra, of the mental Brahman,— divas. In other words by outpourings into activity of the universal substance which they as gods have at their command they support the outpouring into being by man of the individual store which he has at command.

Vā .. vā means rather, “both .. and”, than “either .. or”. It is affirmative like vai. Vāshabdah samuchchaye, says Sayana. Matīnām depends by a very natural figure on the idea of bearing in “vāhaso”, the second part of the preceding compound, which casts out from itself the shadow of an implied “vahnayah” or “vodhārah”. The Maruts are upholders not only of action, but of the thoughts or mind states that express themselves in action — still, because they are divo vimahasah the thought continues logically from the first verse.

“Ye who by your sacrifices uphold alike our sacrifice, and the thoughts of the seer, O Maruts, hear my call.”

Uta vā, “And besides”, “moreover”; the Rishi is giving a fresh aspect of the activity of the Maruts; as diffused energies of an illuminated mentality and therefore efficient protectors of our mental being, substance and gains, not only are they upholders of our outgoing action and upholders of our illuminated mind states, but they are the formers of being and thought and image, inward and outward, like Indra their chief (Indrajyesthā Marudganāh), who is surūpakritnu, a maker of perfect forms. Vājino may be an epithet either of yasya or of the subject of atakshata. I think that, like vīrasya in the next line, it is meant to describe the state of the sacrificer’s being which is the condition of the action described in the rest of the sentence, not so much the condition necessary in the Maruts for their work of formation, although that also is perfectly suitable to the sense. There is a certain difficulty also about vipram. Is it an accusative governed in sense by anu or by atakshata? The former is only possible if we suppose vipra to have, besides its ordinary sense of enlightened, also, like kavi and rishi, the sense of enlightenment. It would be perfectly legitimate to assign this sense to the word and we may even say that it must, in the origins of the Sanscrit language, have borne it for a time; but it is a question of fact whether it still bore it in the language of the Veda. It is, I think, necessary to take it so here, because of yasya. If vipra meant the seer, we should have yam and not yasya. As it is, vipram is evidently something in the sacrificer which the Maruts mould into shape, anu, according to the energy from the vijnana above. For atakshata is the defining into shape of the indefinite substance of mind in Div, through yajna and mati, putting forth of force for activity and movement of the mind state into mental thought and feeling. By these movements the Maruts shape the mental enlightenment of the seer into a well-arranged and well-formed knowledge. As a result, sa gantā gomati vraje, he has freedom of movement in the luminous ordered motion of the Chit in mind, vraja in the sense of regular movement, or in the luminous throng of thoughts from above, vraja in the sense of herd or assemblage. The rays of thought, descending from above, are assembled in their movement, the rashmīn vyūha of the Isha Upanishad, and among them the man of full substance, right thought and action protected and energised by the Maruts moves a formed and complete thinker and knower, freed from the darkness and the twilight of lower states.

“Then too, whosoever has substance and in him ye have shaped aright his knowledge, moves in the radiant march.”

In these three verses the powers and functions of the Maruts are defined, by virtue of which they are the deities the Rishi chooses for invocation in this hymn. Because they are the supporters, energisers and formers of the knowledge in him, therefore he calls them for the action desired by him in this sukta. So much is praise; the rest of the hymn is prayer.

¹ Indra and the Thought-Forces // CWSA.– Vol. 15.– The Secret of the Veda.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998, pp. 266-275. 1-st published: Arya: A Philosophical Review. Monthly.– Vol.1, No 2 – September 1914, pp. 29-38.

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² CWSA.– Vol. 14.– Vedic and Philological Studies.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2016, pp. 386-388. (Part 3 № 8).

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