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uşho vājena vājini prachetāĥ stomam juşhasva gŗņato maghoni .
purāņī devi yuvatiĥ purandhiranu vratam charasi vishvavāre.
1. Dawn, richly stored with substance,
conscious cleave to the affirmation of him who expresses thee, O
thou of the plenitudes. Goddess, ancient, yet ever young thou
movest many-thoughted following the law of thy activities, O
bearer of every boon.
uşho devyamartyā vi bhāhi chandrarathā sūnŗtā īrayantī.
ā tvā vahantu suyamāso ashvā hiraņyavarņām pŗthupājaso ye.
2. Dawn divine, Shine out immortal in thy car of happy light
sending forth the pleasant voices of the Truth. May steeds
well-guided bear thee here who are golden-brilliant of hue and
wide their might.
uşhaĥ pratīchī bhuvanāni vishvordhvā tişhţhasyamŗtasya ketuĥ.
samānamartham charaņīyamānā chakramiva navyasyā vavŗtsva.
3. Dawn, confronting all the worlds thou standest high-uplifted
and art their perception of Immortality; do thou move over them
like a wheel, O new Day, travelling over an equal field.
ava syūmeva chinvatī maghonyuşhā yāti svasarasya patnī.
svarjanantī subhagā sudamsā āntāddivaĥ papratha ā pŗthivyāĥ
4. Dawn in her plenitude like one that lets fall from her a sewn
robe moves, the bride of the Bliss; creating Swar, perfect in her
working, perfect in her enjoying, she widens from the extremity of
Heaven over the earth.
achchhā vo devīmuşhasam vibhātīm pra vo bharadhvam namasā suvŗktim
.
ūrdhvam madhudhā divi pājo ashret pra rochanā ruruche raņvasamdŗk.
5. Meet ye the Dawn as she shines wide towards you and with
surrender bring forward your complete energy. Exalted in heaven
is the force to which she rises establishing the sweetness; she
makes the luminous worlds to shine forth and is a vision of
felicity.
ŗtāvarī divo arkairabodhyā revatī rodasī chitramasthāt.
āyatīmagna uşhasam vibhātī vāmameşhi draviņam bhikşhamāņaĥ.
6. By heaven’s illuminings one perceives her a bearer of the
Truth and rapturous she comes with its varied light into the two
firmaments. From Dawn as she approaches shining out on thee, O
Agni, thou seekest and attainest to the substance of delight.
ŗtasya budhna uşhasāmişhaņuanvŗşhā mahī rodasī ā videsha.
mahī mitrasya varuņasya māyā chandreva bhānum vi dadhe purutrā .
7. Putting forth his impulsions in the foundation of the Truth,
in the foundation of the Dawns, their Lord enters the Vastness of
the firmaments. Vast the wisdom of Varuna, of Mitra, as in a
happy brightness, orders multitudinously the Light.
COMMENTARY
Surya Savitri in his task of illumination follows the
progress of the Dawn. In another hymn the movements of the mind
have been described as growing conscient and brilliant by the
bright power of the continuous Dawns. Throughout the Veda Usha,
daughter of Heaven, has always the same function. She is the
medium of the awakening, the activity and the growth of the other
gods; she is the first condition of the Vedic realization. By her
increasing illumination the whole nature of man is clarified;
through her he arrives at the Truth, through her he enjoys the
Beatitude. The divine dawn of the Rishis is the advent of the
divine Light throwing off veil after veil and revealing in man's
activities the luminous godhead. In that light the Work is done,
the sacrifice offered and its desirable fruits gathered by
humanity.
Many are the hymns, indeed, in which rich and beautiful
figures of the earthly dawn veil this inner truth of the goddess Usha, but in this hymn of the great Rishi Vishwamitra the
psychological symbolism of the Vedic Dawn is apparent from
beginning to end by open expressions and on the surface of the
thought. "O Dawn rich of store in thy substance," he cries to her,
"conscient cleave to the affirmation of him who expresses thee, O
thou who hast the plenitudes." The word prachetas and the
related word, vichetas, are standing terms of Vedic
phraseology; they seem to correspond to the ideas expressed in
later language by the Vedantic prajnana and vijnana.
Prajnana is the consciousness that cognizes all things as objects
confronting its observation; in the divine mind it is knowledge
regarding things as their source, possessor and witness. Vijnana
is comprehensive knowledge containing, penetrating into things,
pervading them in consciousness by a sort of identification with
their truth. Usha is to occupy the revealing thought and word of
the Rishi as a power of Knowledge conscient of the truth of all
that is placed by them before the mind for expression in man. The
affirmation, it is suggested, will be full and ample; for Usha is
vajena vajini, maghoni; rich is the store of
her substance; she has all the plenitudes.
This dawn moves in her progression always according to
the rule of a divine action; many are the thoughts she brings in
that motion, but her steps are sure and all desirable things, all
supreme boons, the boons of the Ananda, the blessings of the
divine existence, - are in her hands. She is ancient and eternal,
the dawn of the Light that was from the beginning, purani,
but in her coming she is ever young and fresh to the soul that
receives her.
She is to shine wide, she that is the divine Dawn, as the
light of the immortal existence bringing out in man the powers or
the voices of Truth and Joy, (sunrtah, - a word which
expresses at once both the true and the pleasant); for is not the
chariot of her movement a car at once of light and of happiness?
For again, the word chandra in chandraratha, -
signifying also the lunar deity Soma, lord of the delight of
immortality pouring into man, ananda and amrta, -
means both luminous and blissful. And the horses that bring her,
figure of the nervous forces that support and carry forward all
our action, must be perfectly controlled; golden, bright in hue,
their nature (for in this ancient symbolism colour is the sign of
quality, of character, of temperament) must be a dynamism of ideal
knowledge in its concentrated luminousness; wide in its extension
must be the mass of that concentrated force, -prthupajaso ye.
Divine Dawn comes thus to the soul with the light of her
knowledge, prajnana, confronting all the worlds as field of
that knowledge, - all provinces, that is to say, of our universal
being, - mind, vitality, physical consciousness. She stands
uplifted over them on our heights above mind, in the highest
heaven, as the perception of Immortality or of the Immortal,
amrtasya ketuh, revealing in them the eternal and beatific
existence or the eternal all-blissful Godhead. So exalted she
stands prepared to effect the motion of the divine knowledge,
progressing as a new revelation of the eternal truth, navyasi,
in their harmonised and equalized activities like a wheel moving
smoothly over a level field; for they now, their diversities and
discords removed, offer no obstacle to that equal motion.
In her plenitude she separates, as it were, and casts down
from her the elaborately sown garment that covered the truth of
things and moves as the wife of the Lover, the energy of her
all-blissful Lord, svasarasya patni. Full in her enjoyment
of the felicity, full in her effectuation of all activities,
subhaga sudamsah, she brings into existence in us by her
revelations Swar, the concealed luminous mind, our highest mental
heaven; and thus from the farthest extremities of mental being
extends herself over the physical consciousness.
As this divine Dawn pours out widely its light upon
them, so have men by submission to the law of her divine act and
movement to bring forward for her the fully energized completeness
of their being and their capacities as a vehicle for her light or
as a seat for her sacrificial activities.
The Rishi then dwells on the two capital works of the
divine Dawn in man, - her elevation of him to the full force of
the Light and the revelation of the Truth and her pouring of the
Ananda, the Amrita, the Soma-wine, the bliss of the immortal
being into the mental and bodily existence. In the world of the
pure mind, divi, she rises into the full force and mass of
the Light, urdhvam pajo asret, and from those pure and high
levels she establishes the sweetness, madhu, the honey of
Soma. She makes to shine out the three luminous worlds, rochana;
she is then or she brings with her the beatific vision. By the
effectual illuminations of the pure mentality, through the
realizing Word, divo arkaih, she is perceived as the bearer
of Truth and with the Truth she enters from the world above Mind,
full of the delight, in a varied play of her multiple thought and
activity, into the mental and bodily consciousness, those
established limits between which man's action moves. It is from
her, as she comes thus richly laden, vajena vajini, that
Agni, the divine Force labouring here in body and mind to uplift
the mortal, prays for and attains to the Soma, the wine of the
Beatitude, the delightful substance.
The supramental world in us, foundation of the Truth,
is the foundation of the Dawns. They are the descent upon mortal
nature of the light of that immortal Truth, rtam jyotih.
The Lord of the Dawns, Master of Truth, Illuminer, Creator,
Organiser, putting forth in the foundation of Truth, above mind,
the impulsion of his activities, enters with them by this goddess
into a bodily and mental existence no longer obscured but released
from their limits and capable of vastness, mahi rodasi. The
Lord of Truth is the sole Lord of things. He is Varuna, soul of
vastness and purity; he is Mitra, source of love and light and
harmony. His creative Wisdom, mahi mitrasya varunasya maya,
unlimited in its scope, - for he is Varuna, - appearing,
candreva, as a light of bliss and joy, - for he is Mitra, -
arranges, perfectly organises, in multitudinous forms, in the
wideness of the libe- rated nature, the luminous expansions, the
serene expressions of the Truth. He combines the various
brilliancies with which his Dawn has entered our firmaments; he
blends into one harmony her true and happy voices.
Dawn divine is the coming of the Godhead. She
is the light of the Truth and the Felicity pouring on us from the
Lord of Wisdom and Bliss, amrtasya ketuh, svasarasya patni.
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