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T E X T & A U D I O

MAṆḌALA 1

Sūkta 4

1. Info
To: indra
From: madhucchandas vaiśvāmitra
Metres: gāyatrī

2. Audio

▪ by South
Indian 00:00 / 00:00
brahmins

▪ by Sri Shyama
Sundara
Sharma and
Sri Satya
Krishna
Bhatta.
Recorded by 00:00 / 00:00
© 2012
Sriranga
Digital
Software
Technologies
Pvt. Ltd.

3. Preferences

Show these variants of riks numbering:

Mandala. Sukta. Rik

Ashtaka. Adhyaya. Varga. Rik
Mandala. Anuvaka. Rik
 Show these variants of vedic text:

Samhita Devanagari Accent

Samhita Devanagari Without accent
Samhita Transliteration Accent
Samhita Transliteration Without accent
Padapatha Devanagari Accent
Padapatha Devanagari Without accent
Padapatha Transliteration Accent
Padapatha Transliteration Without accent
Show interlinear translation

Show interlinear translation made in Sri Aurobindo’s light [?]

Show grammar forms

3 . Te x t

01.004.01 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

सु॒रू॒प॒कृ॒त्नुमू॒ तये॑ सु॒दुघा॑मिव गो॒दुहे॑ ।

जु॒ हू॒मसि॒ द्यवि॑द्यवि ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

surūpa-kṛtnum ǀ ūtaye ǀ sudughām-iva ǀ go-duhe ǀ

juhūmasi ǀ dyavi-dyavi ǁ

interlinear translation

{We} call day after day for our safety and grouth this
Maker of perfect forms, like a good milch-cow to a
milker.

01.004.02 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

उप॑ नः॒ सव॒ना ग॑हि॒ सोम॑स्य सोमपाः पिब ।

गो॒दा इद्रे॒वतो॒ मदः॑ ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

upa ǀ naḥ ǀ savanā ǀ ā ǀ gahi ǀ somasya ǀ soma-pāḥ ǀ piba ǀ

go-dāḥ ǀ it ǀ revataḥ ǀ madaḥ ǁ

interlinear translation
To our pressings (of soma, i.e. to the hymns-offerings)
do come, O soma-drinker, do drink soma (offering-
hymn) , truly, the intoxication of the opulent {is} giving
a cow (supramental perception) .

01.004.03 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

अथा॑ ते॒ अंत॑मानां वि॒द्याम॑ सुमती॒नां ।

मा नो॒ अति॑ ख्य॒ आ ग॑हि ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

atha ǀ te ǀ antamānām ǀ vidyāma ǀ su-matīnām ǀ

mā ǀ naḥ ǀ ati ǀ khyaḥ ǀ ā ǀ gahi ǁ

interlinear translation

Then let {us} know the most intimate of thy right-

thinkings, do not be seen beyond us, do come.

01.004.04 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

परे॑हि॒ विग्र॒मस्तृ॑त॒मिंद्रं॑ पृच्छा विप॒श्चितं॑ ।

यस्ते॒ सखि॑भ्य॒ आ वरं॑ ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

parā ǀ ihi ǀ vigram ǀ astṛtam ǀ indram ǀ pṛccha ǀ vipaḥ-citam ǀ

yaḥ ǀ te ǀ sakhi-bhyaḥ ǀ ā ǀ varam ǁ

interlinear translation

Go to vigorous, invincible Indra , ask the illumined in

consciousness , which for thy friends {is} best.

01.004.05 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

उ॒त ब्रु॑वंतु नो॒ निदो॒ निर॒न्यत॑श्चिदारत ।

दधा॑ना॒ इंद्र॒ इद्दुवः॑ ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

uta ǀ bruvantu ǀ naḥ ǀ nidaḥ ǀ niḥ ǀ anyataḥ ǀ cit ǀ ārata ǀ

dadhānāḥ ǀ indre ǀ it ǀ duvaḥ ǁ

interlinear translation

And let censurers tell us: “Away, go somewhere else, you

who holding your workings only in Indra ”.

01.004.06 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

उ॒त नः॑ सु॒भगाँ॑ अ॒ रिर्वो॒चेयु॑र्दस्म कृ॒ष्टयः॑ ।

स्यामेदिंद्र॑स्य॒ शर्म॑णि ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

uta ǀ naḥ ǀ su-bhagān ǀ ariḥ ǀ voceyuḥ ǀ dasma ǀ kṛṣṭayaḥ ǀ

syāma ǀ it ǀ indrasya ǀ śarmaṇi ǁ

interlinear translation

And let the Arian people proclaim us perfectly blissful,

O Doer of mighty deeds, let {us} truly be in the peaceful
happiness of Indra .

01.004.07 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

एमा॒शुमा॒शवे॑ भर यज्ञ॒श्रियं॑ नृ॒माद॑नं ।

प॒त॒यन्मं॑द॒यत्स॑खं ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

ā ǀ īm ǀ āśum ǀ āśave ǀ bhara ǀ yajña-śriyam ǀ nṛ-mādanam ǀ

patayat ǀ mandayat-sakham ǁ

interlinear translation

Now, {O Indra}, do bring a swift hearing {of the Truth}

in an offering for a swift {hymn} intoxicating the manly
ones, do make it to fly enjoyng {thy} friends.

01.004.08 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

अ॒ स्य पी॒त्वा श॑तक्रतो घ॒नो वृ॒त्राणा॑मभवः ।

प्रावो॒ वाजे॑षु वा॒जिनं॑ ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

asya ǀ pītvā ǀ śatakrato iti śata-krato ǀ ghanaḥ ǀ vṛtrāṇām ǀ abhavaḥ ǀ

pra ǀ āvaḥ ǀ vājeṣu ǀ vājinam ǁ

interlinear translation

Being drunk with this {Soma}, O thou, who possesses a

hundredfold will , thou becamest the slayer of the
covering Vritras , in plenitudes increasedst further the
plentiful one .

01.004.09 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

तं त्वा॒ वाजे॑षु वा॒जिनं॑ वा॒जया॑मः शतक्रतो ।

धना॑नामिंद्र सा॒तये॑ ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

tam ǀ tvā ǀ vājeṣu ǀ vājinam ǀ vājayāmaḥ ǀ śatakrato iti śata-krato ǀ

dhanānām ǀ indra ǀ sātaye ǁ

interlinear translation

Such thee the plentiful , {we} hasten in plenitudes, O

thou, who possesses a hundredfold will , O Indra , for the
conquest of riches .

01.004.10 (Mandala. Sukta. Rik)

Samhita Devanagari Accented

यो रा॒यो॒३॒॑वनि॑र्म॒हान्त्सु॑पा॒रः सु॑न्व॒तः सखा॑ ।

तस्मा॒ इंद्रा॑य गायत ॥
Padapatha transliteration nonaccented

yaḥ ǀ rāyaḥ ǀ avaniḥ ǀ mahān ǀ su-pāraḥ ǀ sunvataḥ ǀ sakhā ǀ

tasmai ǀ indrāya ǀ gāyata ǁ

interlinear translation

Who is a great stream of wealth , who carries over easily,

a comrade of the presser {of soma} , do sing to this
Indra .
 Translations and commentaries by Sri Aurobindo

1. 1939–40 1

1. We call day by day for our protection the Maker of perfect forms like a
good milch-cow for the milker of the Cows of Light.
2. Come to our wine-offerings; drink of the wine, O wine-drinker; thou art
full of riches and thy ecstasy is a giver of Light.
3. Then may we know thy most intimate right-thinkings; manifest not
beyond us, come.
4. Come over to Indra the vigorous, the unoverthrown, question the
illumined in mind who has given to thy friends their desirable boon.
5. And may the Binders say to us, “Go forth elsewhere also holding in Indra
your work of worship.”
6. And may the enemy peoples call us blessed, O Puissant; may we abide in
Indra’s peace.
7. Bring for the swift this swift glory of the sacrifice that intoxicates the
Gods; may it set on his march him who gives rapture to his friends.
8. Drinking of this, O thou of the hundred works, thou becamest a slayer of
the Coverers and thou hast protected the man of plenitude in his plenty.
9. So we replenish thee in the plenitude of thy plenitude of the plenty, O
Indra of the hundred works, for the winning of the Riches.
10. He who is a great continent of riches and takes us easily over, a friend
of the offerer of the wine, to that Indra sing.

2. August 1915 2

For instance in I.4.2 it is said of Indra, the maker of perfect forms who is as a
good milker in the milking of the cows, that his ecstasy of the Soma-Wine is
verily “cow-giving”, godā id revato madaḥ. It is the height of absurdity and
irrationality to understand by this phrase that Indra is a very wealthy god
and, when he gets drunk, exceedingly liberal in the matter of cowgiving.
It is obvious that as the cow-milking in the first verse is a figure, so the
cow-giving in the second verse is a figure. And if we know from other
passages of the Veda that the Cow is the symbol of Light, we must
understand here also that Indra, when full of the Soma-ecstasy, is sure to
give us the Light.

3. August 1914 3

Indra, Giver of Light

1 The fashioner of perfect forms, like a good yielder for the milker of the
Herds, we call for increase from day to day.
 2 Come to our Soma-offerings. O Soma-drinker, drink of the Soma-wine;
the intoxication of thy rapture gives indeed the Light.
3 Then may we know somewhat of thy uttermost right thinkings. Show not
beyond us, come.
4 Come over, question Indra of the clear-seeing mind, the vigorous, the
unoverthrown, who to thy comrades has brought the highest good.
5 And may the Restrainers 4 say to us, “Nay, forth and strive on even in
other fields, reposing on Indra your activity.”
6 And may the fighters, doers of the work 5 , declare us entirely blessed, O
achiever; may we abide in Indra’s peace.
7 Intense for the intense bring thou this glory of the sacrifice that
intoxicates the Man, carrying forward on the way Indra who gives joy to
his friend.
8 When thou hadst drunk of this, O thou of the hundred activities, thou
becamest a slayer of the Coverers and protectedst the rich mind in its
riches.
9 Thee thus rich in thy riches we enrich again, O Indra, O thou of the
hundred activities, for the safe enjoyment of our havings.
10 He who in his vastness is a continent of bliss,— the friend of the Soma-
giver and he carries him safely through,— to that Indra raise the chant.

S AYA N A’ S I N T E R P R E TAT I O N

1. “The doer of (works that have) a good shape, Indra, we call daily for
protection as (one calls) for the cow-milker a good milch-cow.
2. “Come to our (three) libations, drink of the Soma, O Somadrinker; the
intoxication of thee, the wealthy one, is indeed cow-giving.
3. “Then (standing) among the intelligent people who are nearest to thee,
may we know thee. Do not (go) beyond us (and) manifest (thyself to
others, but) come to us.
4. “Come to him and question about me, the intelligent one, (whether I have
praised him rightly or not),— to the intelligent and unhurt Indra who
gives to thy friends (the priests) the best wealth.
5. “Let of us (i.e. our priests) speak (i.e. praise Indra),— and also, O you
who censure, go out (from here) and from elsewhere too,—(our priests)
doing service all about Indra.
6. “O destroyer (of foes), may even our enemies speak of us as having good
wealth,—men (i.e. our friends will say it of course); may we be in the
peace (bestowed) by Indra.
7. “Bring this Soma, that wealth of the sacrifice, the cause of exhilaration to
men, (the Soma) that pervades (the three oblations) for Indra who
pervades (the Soma-offering), that attains the rites and is friendly to
(Indra) who gives joy (to the sacrificer).
8. “Drinking of this, O thou of many actions, thou becamest a slayer of
Vritras (i.e. enemies led by Vritra) and didst protect entirely the fighter in
the fights.
9. “O Indra of many actions, for enjoyment of riches we make thee
abundant in food who art strong in the battles 6 .
 10. “Sing to that Indra who is a protector of wealth, great, a good fulfiller
(of works) and a friend of the sacrificer.”

C o m m e n ta ry

Madhuchchhandas, son of Vishwamitra, invokes in the Soma-offering

Indra, the Master of luminous Mind, for increase in the Light. The symbols
of the hymn are those of a collective sacrifice. Its subject is the growth of
power and delight in Indra by the drinking of the Soma, the wine of
immortality, and the consequent illumination of the human being so that the
obstructions of his inner knowledge are removed and he attains to the utmost
splendours of the liberated mind.
But what is this Soma, called sometimes amrita, the Greek ambrosia, as if
it were itself the substance of immortality? It is a figure for the divine
Ananda, the principle of Bliss, from which, in the Vedic conception, the
existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of
existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is
spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss
without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad
Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal
Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-
mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d’être of sensation,
or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of
existence into the terms of physical consciousness. But in that
consciousness,– often figured as adri, the hill, stone, or dense substance,–
divine light and divine delight are both of them concealed and confined, and
have to be released or extracted. Ananda is retained as rasa, the sap, the
essence, in sense-objects and sense-experiences, in the plants and growths of
the earth-nature, and among these growths the mystic Soma-plant
symbolises that element behind all sense activities and their enjoyments
which yields the divine essence. It has to be distilled and, once distilled,
purified and intensified until it has grown luminous, full of radiance, full of
swiftness, full of energy, gomat, āśu, yuvāku. It becomes the chief food of
the gods who, called to the Soma-oblation, take their share of the enjoyment
and in the strength of that ecstasy increase in man, exalt him to his highest
possibilities, make him capable of the supreme experiences. Those who do
not give the delight in them as an offering to the divine Powers, preferring to
reserve themselves for the sense and the lower life, are adorers not of the
gods, but of the Panis, lords of the sense-consciousness, traffickers in its
limited activities, they who press not the mystic wine, give not the purified
offering, raise not the sacred chant. It is the Panis who steal from us the Rays
of the illumined consciousness, those brilliant herds of the sun, and pen them
up in the cavern of the subconscient, in the dense hill of matter, corrupting
even Sarama, the hound of heaven, the luminous intuition, when she comes
on their track to the cave of the Panis.
But the conception of this hymn belongs to a stage in our inner progress
when the Panis have been exceeded and even the Vritras or Coverers who
seclude from us our full powers and activities and Vala who holds back the
Light, are already overpassed. But there are even then powers that stand in
the way of our perfection. They are the powers of limitation, the Confiners
or Censurers, who, without altogether obscuring the rays or damming up the
energies, yet seek by constantly affirming the deficiencies of our self-
expression to limit its field and set up the progress realised as an obstacle to
the progress to come. Madhuchchhandas calls upon Indra to remove the
defect and affirm in its place an increasing illumination.
The principle which Indra represents is Mind-Power released from the
limits and obscurations of the nervous consciousness. It is this enlightened
Intelligence which fashions right or perfect forms of thought or of action not
deformed by the nervous impulses, not hampered by the falsehoods of sense.
The image presented is that of a cow giving abundantly its yield to the
milker of the herds. The word go means in Sanskrit both a cow and a ray of
light. This double sense is used by the Vedic symbolists to suggest a double
figure which was to them more than a figure; for light, in their view, is not
merely an apt poetic image of thought, but is actually its physical form.
Thus, the herds that are milked are the Herds of the Sun,– Surya, God of the
revelatory and intuitive mind, or else of Dawn, the goddess who manifests
the solar glory. The Rishi desires from Indra a daily increase of this light of
Truth by his fuller activity pouring rays in a rich yield upon the receptive
mind.
The activity of the pure illuminated Intelligence is sustained and increased
by the conscious expression in us of the delight in divine existence and
divine activity typified by the Soma wine. As the Intelligence feeds upon it,
its action becomes an intoxicated ecstasy of inspiration by which the rays
come pouring abundantly and joyously in. “Light-giving indeed is the
intoxication of thee in thy rapture.”
For then it is possible, breaking beyond the limitations still insisted upon
by the Confiners, to arrive at something of the finalities of knowledge
possible to the illuminated intelligence. Right thoughts, right sensibilities,–
this is the full sense of the word sumati; for the Vedic mati includes not only
the thinking, but also the emotional parts of mentality. Sumati is a light in
the thoughts; it is also a bright gladness and kindness in the soul. But in this
passage the stress of the sense is upon right thought and not on the emotions.
It is necessary, however, that the progress in right thinking should commence
in the field of consciousness already attained; there must not be flashes and
dazzling manifestations which by going beyond our powers elude expression
in right form and confuse the receptive mind. Indra must be not only
illuminer, but a fashioner of right thought-formations, surūpakṛtnu.
The Rishi, next, turning to a comrade in the collective Yoga, or, perhaps,
addressing his own mind, encourages him or it to pass beyond the
obstruction of the adverse suggestions opposed to him and by questioning
the divine Intelligence progress to the highest good which it has already
given to others. For it is that Intelligence which clearly discerns and can
solve or remove all still-existing confusion and obscuration. Swift of
movement, intense, energetic, it does not by its energy stumble in its paths
like the impulses of the nervous consciousness. Or perhaps it is rather meant
that owing to its invincible energy it does not succumb to the attacks whether
of the Coverers or of the powers that limit.
 Next are described the results towards which the seer aspires. With this
fuller light opening on to the finalities of mental knowledge the powers of
Limitation will be satisfied and of themselves will withdraw, consenting to
the farther advance and to the new luminous activities. They will say, in
effect, “Yes, now you have the right which we were hitherto justified in
denying. Not only in the fields won already, but in other and untrod
provinces pursue then your conquering march. Repose this action wholly on
the divine Intelligence, not upon your lower capacities. For it is the greater
surrender which gives you the greater right.”
The word ārata, move or strive, like its congeners ari, arya, ārya, arata,
araṇi, expresses the central idea of the Veda. The root ar indicates always a
movement of effort or of struggle or a state of surpassing height or
excellence; it is applied to rowing, ploughing, fighting, lifting, climbing. The
Aryan then is the man who seeks to fulfil himself by the Vedic action, the
internal and external karma or apas, which is of the nature of a sacrifice to
the gods. But it is also imaged as a journey, a march, a battle, a climbing
upwards. The Aryan man labours towards heights, fights his way on in a
march which is at once a progress forward and an ascent. That is his
Aryahood, his aretē, virtue, to use a Greek word derived from the same root.
Ārata, with the rest of the phrase, might be translated, “Out and push
forward in other fields.”
The idea is taken up again, in the subtle Vedic fashion of thought-
connections by word-echoes, with the ariḥ kṛṣṭayaḥ of the next verse.
These are, I think, not the Aryan nations on earth, although that sense too is
possible when the idea is that of a collective or national Yoga, but the powers
that help man in his ascent, his spiritual kindred bound to him as comrades,
allies, brothers, yoke-fellows (sakhāyaḥ, yujaḥ, jāmayaḥ), for his aspiration
is their aspiration and by his completeness they are fulfilled. As the
Restrainers are satisfied and give way, so they too, satisfied, must affirm
finally their task accomplished by the fullness of human bliss, when the soul
shall rest in the peace of Indra that comes with the Light, the peace of a
perfected mentality standing as upon heights of consummated consciousness
and Beatitude.
Therefore is the divine Ananda poured out to be made swift and intense in
the system and offered to Indra for the support of his intensities. For it is this
profound joy manifest in the inner sensations that gives the ecstasy by which
the man or the God grows strong. The divine Intelligence will be able to
move forward in the journey yet uncompleted and will return the gift by
fresh powers of the Beatitude descending upon the friend of God.
For it was in this strength that the Divine Mind in man destroyed all that
opposed, as Coverers or besiegers, its hundredfold activities of will and of
thought; in this strength it protected afterwards the rich and various
possessions already won in past battles from the Atris and Dasyus, devourers
and plunderers of our gains.
Although, continues Madhuchchhandas, that Intelligence is already thus
rich and variously stored we seek to increase yet more its force of
abundance, removing the Restrainers as well as the Vritras, so that we may
have the full and assured possession of our riches.
 For this Light is, in its entire greatness free from limitation, a continent of
felicity; this Power is that which befriends the human soul and carries it safe
through the battle, to the end of its march, to the summit of its aspiration.

4. 1913–14 7

1 Indra is the God to whom by preference Madhuchchhandas Vaiswamitra

raises the Vedic chant. Agni indeed claims his opening homage; the Aswins
and Vayu, Mitra and Varuna, Saraswati and the Viswadevas have shared
Indra’s praises in the two succeeding hymns; but from the fourth Sukta to the
eleventh we have an unbroken series devoted to the mighty God of his
preference. It is no small advantage for us to possess these eighty riks
occupied by a single deity, yet addressed to him from different standpoints,
composed in different states of mind and expressing a different set of related
ideas about his personality, powers and functions; for from such an ensemble
the figure of the god is likely to emerge with an exceptional fullness and
distinctness. How far do these hymns confirm the ideas about Indra we have
derived from the third Sukta? Indra, whether god of the sky or of the mind,
is the most considerable of the Vedic deities and the most prominent
presence in physical nature or in human psychology; it is right and fitting
that his subjective physiognomy should be the decisive starting point for any
theory of the Veda.
Fortunately, the very first lines of this fourth stotra, this first hymn to Indra
in the Rigveda, supply us with a striking passage in which the question is
raised and solved. It is as if the Rishi were lying in wait for us with his
answer to our difficulty at the very opening of his great Indra series. In the
first word of the first rik he describes Indra as surūpakritnu, a fashioner of
perfect or beautiful images or forms, or possibly a good fashioner of forms.
There is no sense in which this epithet — brought forward so prominently
and strikingly as the opening idea of the hymn — can be appropriate to the
god of sky and rain or opportune in a hymn of material sacrifice. Sayana has
seen the difficulty and met or rather dodged it scholastically in his usual
fashion; surūpa, beautiful form, means, he says, sacrificial action of a
beautiful form! We bow as usual to the learning and the fearless ingenuity of
the great scholiast and we pass on. The epithet is nothing to the purpose in a
material sacrifice; but if this outer sacrifice be the image of an inner rite, the
use of the epithet becomes quite inevitable in sense and luminously clear in
intention. Indra, god of mental force, is indeed a maker of beautiful forms or
perfect images or a good fashioner of forms. If our hypothesis of Vedic
philosophy is correct, Indra is, indeed, the direct builder of all forms; it is
Mind that measures, limits and by its stress compels the infinite plastic Idea
to objectivise Brahman in fixed mental and material forms. We have,
therefore, at the very outset a difficulty straightforwardly met and
luminously solved by the psychological theory.
Indra, maker of images, is not only a perfect, but an abundant workman.
He is likened in his work to a good milker in the milking of the cows,
sudughām iva goduhe. The balancing of the forms surūpakritnum and
sudughām is strongly in favour of our taking the particle su in both cases as
affected to the act expressed, to kritnu as to dughā. Indra is a good maker of
images, skilful and abundant, like a good milker who knows how to produce
a free yield from the teats of the herd. It is in this capacity that
Madhuchchhanda calls on the god of his preference, juhūmasi dyavi dyavi.
A rich and clear activity of mind, abundant in perfect forms of thought and
inner vision, is the first aim of the sacrifice in this Sukta.
But there is a deeper subtlety concealed in this vigorous pastoral simile
which, once we have grasped its principle, opens new doors on the
significance and value of words in the Veda. Go in the Vedic tongue is not
confined to the ordinary sense, cattle, but means frequently ray or light. In
the language of Madhuchchhanda, we may almost affirm, it has usually this
latter sense and, even when it means primarily cows, always refers obliquely
to rays. We have gobhir in connection with Surya in the seventh sukta,
where it can only mean rays and nothing else; we have the combination
sūnritā gomatī in the eighth where coherence and good sense demand the
rendering “true and luminous”; we have gomat sravah in the ninth, where
ceremonially we may translate “wealth consisting of cows”, but also either
“luminous fame” or, as I shall show, “luminous knowledge”; we have it in
the tenth, twice in successive riks, gavām apa vrajam vridhi and san gā
asmabhyam dhūnuhi, where the sense cows, if it adheres at all to the text, is
only a conventional figure for rays of light; we have it twice again in the
eleventh, vājasya gomatah, which may mean, ceremonially, wealth
consisting of cows, but also, as I shall show, psychologically, “luminous
plenty”, and Valasya gomatah which certainly contains the same use as in
the tenth sukta; we have it finally in the second rik of this very sukta, godā,
where there is a plain allusion to the goduhe of the first line and the sense of
the whole passage demands the rendering “giver of light”. I shall seek to
justify the theory that this distribution represents fairly enough the ordinary
usage of Veda; go means oftenest ray, light or cows as a conventional figure
for rays, is sometimes capable of a double sense, material or psychological,
and, even in the rarer passages where the reference is to physical cattle, there
is usually a play of the mind on the other and figurative sense. These rays
which figure so largely in Vedic imagery are not, as I shall show, the rays of
the physical sun, but of Surya, the brilliant god of knowledge, master of
revelation and ideal perception, the prophetic Apollo. Thus we have such
expressions as gavyatā manasā, with a radiating mind.
In the present rik the image is certainly of physical cows, but the usual
double figure of the Veda familiar to the Rishi colours, as is perfectly natural
and inevitable, the physical image. This is shown by the immediate
repetition of the word in godā of the second verse, where, as we see from the
third verse, athā te vidyāma sumatīnām, it is the light of knowledge that
Indra is praised for giving. We have then the second sense of a great and
abundant activity of luminous mental perceptions out of which are produced
the clear images of thought and vision desired by the Rishi. The rays of
Surya, of ideal knowledge, are the cows of the milking; the constant stream
of thought-forms are their yield. For the aim of the Yogin is to avoid the
confusion which comes from an abundant but hurried and ill formed mental
activity and to effect a perfect distinctness in the forms of his knowledge —
the rashmín vyūha of the Isha Upanishad.
 We are given, finally, an object for this calling of Indra and this abundance
of mental perceptions and thought-images, ūtaye, and a circumstance of the
calling, dyavi dyavi. Ūtaye, Sayana says, means “for protection”. This is
undoubtedly one of the senses of ūti, but not, as I think, either in this Rik or
in any hymn of the Rigveda. It gives here no real sense; for in order to
accept this significance, we have to suppose that ūti has no connection in
thought with the words with which it is most nearly connected in the
structure of the verse. It is obviously meant by its position to be a part of the
idea conveyed in the description of Indra, a good fashioner of forms like a
good milker in the milking of the cows of light; but neither mental activity
nor abundance of thought-forms has anything to do with protection. We must
seek for a more appropriate significance. The only other received value of
ūti, enjoyment, will make good sense in this and a great many other
passages; but I propose throughout the Veda to take ūti in another and more
fundamental meaning not recognised by the lexicographers,— “growth,
expansion, expanded being, greater fullness, richness or substance.” Ūti, in
this significance, will not belong to the root av, but to the obsolete roots u, ū
(see Aryan Origins), the primitive base of the U family of roots which has
for its fundamental significance mediality, incomplete being or limited
pervasiveness. It is this sense which is at the basis of udaya, udan, uchchā,
ut, udara, ushas, uru, ūrjas, ūrmi, ūrdhwa and the words of this class which
express the idea of wish and desire. Growth or expansion in richness and
substance of the individual being, (the primary object of all Rigveda), is the
purpose for which this luminous mental activity and abundant formation is
desired by the Rishi,— growth especially of mental force, fertility and
clearness.
Again, this process with its resultant growth is desired, dyavi dyavi, from
day to day,— say the scholiasts. A daily growth, as we see in the first hymn
of the Veda, rayim posham eva dive dive, is the object of the daily sacrifice
and the daily invocation. On the other hand dyavi dyavi may equally mean,
in sky and sky; for dyu and its congeners have the basic sense of light from
which arise diversely the idea of day as in diva, divasa, dina, and of sky or
heaven as in divi, dyu-loka, dyuksha; dyu shares in both meanings. It may
therefore well be that we have here an allusion to the Vedic theory of the five
earths and the three or sometimes five heavens, which correspond to the five
principles and the three bodies of our complex existence,— the 5 principles,
earth, matter or body, prana, midair or nervous vitality, manas, heaven or
mentality, mahas or pure idea, and mayas or ananda, the divine state of bliss,
and the three bodies, physical, subtle and typal (sthūla, sūkshma and
kārana). This system, as can be established from a hundred indications, was
not a creation of Vedantic or Puranic mystics but well known already to the
Vedic Rishis. We shall then have a very strong and pregnant sense; the Rishi
invokes in each of these ethers the activity of Indra, abundant in mental
perceptions and thought-images, so that there may be growth in mind,
growth in physical and sensational receptiveness, growth in ideal
knowledge, ūtaye .. dyavi dyavi.
Such is the significance, deep, pregnant, rich in psychological suggestions
we have gathered in the light of the words surūpakritnu and go from this
first rik of the fourth sukta. But our system is to hold nothing for certain
from a single text,— to demand rather confirmation from the whole context
and the whole hymn before we are satisfied. We proceed then to question the
second verse.

2 “Thou, the Soma-drinker,” cries Madhuchchhandas, “come to our

outpourings and drink of the Soma, for verily light-giving is the intoxication
of thee in thy impetuosity.” Savana is the Soma-offering, but the word often
retains something of its basic meaning,— the outpressing or outpouring of
the Soma, and the insistence here, savanā .. somasya somapāh, justifies the
supposition that the Rishi wishes to dwell on the characteristic act of the
sacrifice. “We are pressing out for the use of the gods the nectar of joyous
vitality within us,” he says in effect, “come therefore to that rite; thou, the
Soma-drinker, take thy part of the nectar offered to thee.” Then the Rishi
with that admirable logical connection and coherency which is the principal
characteristic of Vedic style — though always in the logical form of poetry
which half-veils the process of reasoning, and not of prose which parades it,
— gives the idea which connects the second rik with the first, the offering of
nectar with the luminous formative activity of the god of Mind. “Verily
light-giving is the intoxication of thee impetuous.” For when the vital force
and joy in us, especially that divine vitality and joy developed by Yoga is
placed at the service of Indra’s luminous mental activity, then the mind
increases in a sort of ecstatic intoxication of energy, vriddho ajāyathāh, and
the abundant light of thought pours forth in the impetuous stream of the
mind’s swiftness.
Sayana would have us render the verse: “thy intoxication, who art wealthy,
is indeed cattle-giving.” Guarda e passa! He connects revān evidently with
rayih and rai in the sense of wealth; but the evidence of the other members
of this root-clan justifies a different interpretation. Rayih itself signifies
primarily motion, energy and then matter or substance; rai is properly
ecstasy or felicity, then by a natural transition well-being or material
prosperity. The primary root rī means to flow, to stream; rīti, motion; rev or
reb, to go or leap; revaṭa, the rushing boar or the whirlwind; revā, the name
of a river, must mean flowing or streaming, revatī, the name of a
constellation, either bright or moving; and we have the Latin rivus, a river,
and the Greek rīpē, rush. The balance of probability is therefore in favour of
revān in the sense of swift, rushing or impetuous. It is here the just and
inevitable epithet describing the ecstatic impetuosity of the Soma-drinker in
his intoxication and rapture, revato madah.
Still, the proof is not complete; for another and materialistic interpretation
of these verses is possible, and it may well be argued, “Ought not a plain
naturalistic sense to be preferred to these too brilliant and illuminating ideas?
True, the expression in the naturalistic interpretation becomes horribly
cramped, awkward and even grotesque and unnatural; no one, ordinarily,
would dream of saying ‘The drunkenness of thee wealthy is truly cattle-
giving’, but what can you expect from a primitive barbarian? And if you
paraphrase the whole thing becomes natural, vivid and convincing.
Madhuchchhandas, the old barbaric sacrificer and medicine man of the tribe,
says to Indra, the god of the sky and rain, the fertiliser, ‘We are calling you
every day, for you are just like a good milker busy with the herd, a very fine
craftsman. Just come and drink this Soma; for you are a very rich fellow but
it is only when you are drunk that you give us plenty of cows.’ ” Such an
argument would square well with the European idea of genial old Vedic
barbarians, lusty, earthy, practical, naturalistic, greedy of wealth and cattle,
who would besides be well-accustomed to the drunken liberality of their
chiefs and easily attribute the same nature to their gods.
We must therefore still go forward and question yet a third verse.

3 This magnificent verse, admirable in rhythm, admirable in thought,

admirable in poetical nobility and force, is reduced by Sayana to the last
bathos and incoherency. “Then may we know thee in the midst of
intellectual people who are in thy vicinity”, or “May we know thee for
getting good ideas about sacrificial operations.” The plain sense of the
words, for sumatīnām is here obviously a genitive of vague possession as in
somasya piba, is perfectly easy to grasp. “Then indeed” says
Madhuchchhandas, “may we know somewhat of thy most intimate felicities
of thinking, manifest not a thought beyond us, come.” The whole thought of
these opening verses is here summed up and receives its rich and inevitable
consummation. Then indeed when the ecstatic activity of the mind is most
luminous we can open the inner eye to those most intimate and felicitous
perceptions of true and profound thinking of which the mental energy in us
is capable. “But” says the Rishi “let not thy revelation of thought be beyond
our capacities already developed”; for then there will no longer be the
clearness of thought images and the entire inner satisfaction attending
fulfilment, but rather a vagueness and straining with a waste of vital force
and joy and not its self-renewing contentment. In this idea, for this deep,
precise and limited purpose, “come”.
We are, therefore, justified by the succession of these three riks in holding
the psychological intention of the hymn to be well-established. And when we
proceed, when the Rishi turns to another strain of thought, that intention
becomes yet clearer and more perfectly indisputable. “Parehi vigram
astritam Indram prichchhā vipaschitam”, “Approach Indra the vigorous,
the uno’erthrown; question him who has the discerning eye.” Not for cattle,
but for light is Indra called to the sacrifice of the Veda. Of no mortal herds is
he the giver, but of the luminous kine of Swar, (swarwatīr apah san gā
asmabhyam dhūnuhi), sumatīnām sūnritānām, of the rich illuminations,
the right thinkings, the right feelings, the perfect states of mind which the
seeker after perfection desires. These he carries to us in his force, san ..
dhunoti, in the divine ecstasy, so delightful and precious to mankind in its
youth, of a luminous and joyous mental activity. The succession of the
thoughts is clear and natural. Indra is a rich fashioner of clear mental images,
an abundant milker of the luminous kine; as such we call him in each layer
of our consciousness, dyavi dyavi, in sensational perception, in mental and
emotional thinking, in ideal vision and experience. But only when by the
Soma wine of Ananda, our vitalities are pure, perfect and intense, does he
give of his fullness; therefore we offer him the sacrifice of that
immortalising nectar, āyus, amritam. Then indeed, when he is drunk with it
and impetuous, we may attain all the felicities of thought which our deepest
mental capacities are ready to seize; but let him not go beyond; for we
should exchange clearness and definite possession for an ungrasped
possession. Dhanānām sātis, ktēmatōn sōsis, the safe possession of what we
have, is the condition of the sacrifice. To such a Soma-offering, for such
activities, O Indra, arrive.

II

The three opening riks of the Sukta have been admirably clear and
straightforward in thought and expression; the three that follow present a
number of difficulties, not, I think, because their style or thought is at all
harsh or obscure, but because they contain a number of unfamiliar words or
familiar words used in an antique and unfamiliar sense, over which the
tradition of the scholiasts has seriously stumbled. I will therefore begin by
giving first Sayana’s solution and then my own with my justification for
differing from the accepted renderings.
4–6 Sayana renders: “O sacrificer, do thou approach Indra the intelligent
and uninjured, and ask of me the clever priest (whether I have praised him
well or not),— Indra who gave perfectly the best wealth to thy friends, the
sacrificial priests. Let (the priests connected) with us praise Indra (so Sayana
amazingly interprets uta no bruvantu), also, O our censurers, go out (from
this country) and from elsewhere (another country),— (the priests)
maintaining service to Indra. O destroyer, our enemies have called us
wealthy, men (our friends) of course say it, so let us, being wealthy, be in the
ease given by Indra.” Whatever else may or may not be the sense of the
Veda, this confused and ungrammatical rigmarole cannot be that sense. Apart
from the questionable interpretation of particular words, Sayana drags into
the fourth verse a non-existent mām, which unnecessarily disturbs syntax
and sense, for vipaschitam can only refer like the other epithets to Indra and,
indeed, if it did not, the relative yah could not refer back to the god, as
Sayana would have it, over the head of this new antecedent. In the fifth rik
equally, he drags in a non-existent ritwijah; no cannot conceivably stand for
nah sambandhino ritwijah, as the scholiast wishes,— the thing is
preposterous,— and if it did, dadhānā could not refer back over the head of
nidah and a whole clause to a far back unexpressed ritwijah which the
hearer, if indeed he ever guessed at its existence, has long ago forgotten. In
the sixth verse, to take krishtayah as a sort of algebraical symbol for a
whole clause, krishtayah tad vocheyur eva, is to establish a kind of syntax
which a grammarian in a difficulty may admit, but no writer in his senses
would use. We must reject Sayana’s interpretation totally and start afresh
with a clean slate.
I reject to begin with vigram in the sense of wise or intelligent,— for it
would then be identical with vipaschitam and lead to a heavy tautology; I
take it in the sense of vigorous. The root vij expresses any intensity of
motion, emotion, thought or being; it signifies “to tremble”, “to be
disturbed”, “to be keen-minded”, “to be vigorous”; for the Latin vigor
undoubtedly represents an old Aryan vijās and we have in Veda itself
vijarbhrit, which signifies, I suggest, “strength-holding”. Vigra, the
adjective, may well mean energetic or vigorous. If we take it in this perfectly
easy and natural significance, we are at once taken back in thought to the
revatah of the second verse and go forward to the epithet astritam that
follows. Indra, the impetuous, the intoxicated Soma-drinker, is also a god of
vigorous strength, “uno’erthrown”, capable of bearing without a stagger or a
fall the utmost burden of activity demanded of him. He is vigra, vijarbhrit.
Parehi, says the singer; him approach, have recourse or take refuge with
him; for he will bear triumphantly all the swift and impetuous activity that is
demanded of him and lead you mightily into the peace of self-fulfilment. We
shall see how the idea thus thrown out in these four simple and vigorous
words stands as the basis of all the riks that follow. The Rishi adds,
prichchhā vipaschitam; question him, for he has the eye of discerning
thought.

5. Circa 1913 8

1. From sky to sky, its Rishi says to Indra, thou callest forth for uti, (for
favour or kindness, as the ordinary interpretation would have it or for
manifestation, expansion in being, as I suggest), the maker of beautiful
forms, (who, being compared with a cow, must be some goddess), who is
like one that gives milk freely to the milker of the cows, or, as I suggest, who
milks freely to the milker of the rays.

2. “Come to us, O bringer out of the nectar (savanā), thou the Soma-drinker;
drink of the ecstatic Soma wine, a giver of illumination, enraptured” or in
better English bringing out the sense and association of the words, “Come to
us, O thou who art a distiller of the nectar, thou, the Soma-drinker, drink of
the impetuously ecstatic Soma wine and be in the rapture of its intoxication
our giver of illuminating light.”

3. Then may we know thy ultimate perceptions of the intellect. Pass us not
by — O come!

Notes

“Come to us, O bringer out of the nectar (savana), thou the Soma-drinker;
drink of the ecstatic Soma wine, a giver of illumination, enraptured” or in
better English bringing out the sense and association of the words, “Come to
us, O thou who art a distiller of the nectar, thou, the Soma-drinker, drink of
the impetuously ecstatic Soma wine and be in the rapture of its intoxication
our giver of illuminating light. Then may we know thy ultimate perceptions
of the intellect. Pass us not by — O come!” Id lays emphasis on goda as the
capacity in which, the purpose for which Indra is to drink. Revato and
madah give the conditions under which Indra becomes a giver of
illumination, the rushing and impetuous ecstasy produced by the Soma wine.
It is then that men know the ultimate perceptions of mind, the highest
realisations that can be given by the intellect when Indra, lord of mental
force and power, is full of the ecstasy of the immortalising juice. This clear
and easy sense being fixed for these two verses, we can return to the first and
discover its connection with what follows.
From sky to sky, its Rishi says to Indra, thou callest forth for uti, (for
favour or kindness, as the ordinary interpretation would have it or for
manifestation, expansion in being, as I suggest), the maker of beautiful
forms, (who, being compared with a cow, must be some goddess), who is
like one that gives milk freely to the milker of the cows, or, as I suggest, who
milks freely to the milker of the rays. Undoubtedly, sudugham goduhe may
be translated, a good milch cow to the milker of the cows; undoubtedly the
poet had this idea in his mind when he wrote. The goddess is in the simile a
milch cow, Indra is the milker. In each of the skies (the lower, middle and
higher) he calls to her and makes her bring out the beautiful forms which she
reveals to the drinker of the Soma. But it is impossible, when we take the
connection with the two following verses, to avoid seeing that he is taking
advantage of the double sense of go, and that while in the simile Indra is
goduh the cow-milker, in the subject of the comparison he is goduh, the
bringer out of the illumination, the flashes of higher light which produce the
beautiful forms by the power of the goddess. The goddess herself must be
one who is habitually associated with illumination, either Ila or Mahi. To
anyone acquainted with the processes of Yoga, the whole passage at once
becomes perfectly clear and true. The forms are those beautiful and myriad
images of things in all the three worlds, the three akashas, dyavi dyavi,
which appear to the eye of the Yogin when mental force in the Yoga is at its
height, the impetuous and joyous activity (revato madah) of the mingled
Ananda and Mahas fills the brain with Ojas and the highest intellectual
perceptions, those akin to the supra-rational revelation, become not only
possible, but easy, common and multitudinous. The passage describes the
condition in which the mind, whether by drinking the material wine, the
Karanajal of the Tantrics, or, as I hold, by feeding on the internal amrita, is
raised to its highest exalted condition, before it is taken up into mahas or
karanam, (whether in the state of Samadhi or in the waking state of the man
who has realised his mahan atma, his ideal self), a state in which it is full of
revealing thoughts and revealing visions which descend to it from the supra-
rational level of the mahat, luminous and unerring, sunrita gomati mahi,
where all is Truth and Light. Uti is the state of manifestation in Sat, in being,
when that conscious existence which we are is stimulated into intensity and
produces easily to the waking consciousness states of existence, movements
of knowledge, outpourings of bliss which ordinarily it holds guha, in the
secret parts of being.

1 CWSA.– Vol. 14.– Vedic and Philological Studies.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, 2016, pp. 199-201.
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2 The Secret of the Veda. XII. The Herds of the Dawn // CWSA.– Vol. 15.– The
Secret of the Veda.– Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998, pp. 123-130. 1-st
published: Arya: A Philosophical Review. Monthly.– Vol.2, No 1 – August 1915, pp.
20-28.
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 3 Indra, Giver of Light // CWSA.– Vol. 15.– The Secret of the Veda.–
Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998, pp. 257-265. 1-st published: Arya: A
Philosophical Review. Monthly.– Vol.1, No 1 – August 1914, pp. 21-29.
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4 Or Censurers, Nidaḥ. The root nid bears, I think, in the Veda the sense of
“bondage”, “confinement”, “limitation”, which can be assigned to it with entire
certainty by philological deduction. It is the base of nidita, bound, and nidāna, tether.
But the root also means to blame. After the peculiar method of the esoteric diction
one or other sense predominates in different passages without entirely excluding the
other.
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5 Ariḥ kṛṣṭayaḥ may also be translated, “the Aryan people”, or “the warlike
nations”. The words kṛṣṭi and carṣaṇi, interpreted by Sayana as “man”, have as their
base the roots kṛṣ and carṣ. which originally imply labour, effort or laborious action.
They mean sometimes the doer of Vedic Karma, sometimes, the Karma itself,— the
worker or the works.
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6 Note that Sayana explains vājinam in v. 8 as “fighter in the fights” and the
same expression in the very next verse as “strong in the fights” and that in the
phrase vājeṣu vājinaṃ vājayāmaḥ he takes the base word vāja in three different
significances, “battle”, “strength” and “food”. This is a typical example of the
deliberate inconsistency of Sayana’s method. I have given the two renderings
together so that the reader may make an easy comparison between both methods
and results. I enclose within brackets the commentator’s explanations wherever they
are necessary to complete the sense or to make it intelligible. Even the reader
unacquainted with Sanskrit will be able, I think, to appreciate from this single
example the reasons which justify the modern critical mind in refusing to accept
Sayana as a reliable authority for the interpretation of the Vedic text.
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7 R.V. 1.4 // CWSA.– Vol. 14.– Vedic and Philological Studies.– Pondicherry: Sri
Aurobindo Ashram, 2016, pp. 364-374. (Часть 3 № 5).
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8 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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