Sri Aurobindo
Archives and Research
a biannual journal
April 1977
Volume I; No 1
Usha Stotra
Bengali text
Hymn to Dawn
Lo, Dawn, the Beloved, appears in her gleaming young body. She impels all Life on the path towards the goal. Fire, the Divine Force, is born to be kindled in man. Dawn drives away all Darkness and fulfils herself in creating Light.
She, the Goddess, rises lifting her forward gaze towards the Vast, the Universal. She has put on the robe of Light and displays the white brilliance of her subtle norms of Truth. Heaven-gold is her hue, her vision is all-round seeing: verily, she is the mother of the herd of brilliances of knowledge, a leader of our bright days; her luminous body is disclosed.
The Goddess, All-Enjoyment she is: she comes carrying the Sun, the Eye of the Gods, bringing here the white Life-steeds that have the perfect vision, she comes, the Goddess wholly revealing herself in the rays of the Sun. Behold her in her multiple divine riches, behold her manifest everywhere, in all things, behold her the Mother of Radiance.
All delight is within, all that is hostile to man is afar: so let it be in thy dawning. Build our pasture of infinity, illumined with truth, build our home of delight freed from fear. Drive away all that divides and antagonises, bring to us all the wealth of the human soul, O Mother of Plenty, send forth into life all the plenitude of delight.
Goddess Dawn, manifest thyself in our hearts in the play of thy supreme Effulgence, widen the life of this embodied being. O Mother of Delight, give us stable impulsion. Give us that plenty whose wealth is the luminous herd of Truth, where range the chariots and horses of Life moving towards Infinity.
We are rich in those riches, we the steadfast aspirants, O Goddess, born in perfection, Daughter of Heaven! We foster Thee with our thought-streams and Thou too holdest in our bosom the knowledge won and the Vast and the Seas of Delight.
1 Translated by Shri Nolini Kanta Gupta from Sri Aurobindo's original Bengali. The hymn, written in the manner of the Suktas of the Rigveda, was composed in Pondicherry.