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ayam devāya janmane stomo viprebhirāsayā akāri ratnadhātamaĥ
1. Lo, the affirmation made for the divine Birth with the breath
of the mouth by illumined minds, that gives perfectly the bliss;
ya indrāya vachoyujā tatakşhuĥ manasā harī shamībhiĥ yajňam
āshata
2. Even they who fashioned by the mind for Indra his two bright
steeds that are yoked by Speech, and they enjoy the sacrifice by
their accomplishings of the work.
takşhannāsatyābhyām parijmānam sukham ratham
takşhandhenum sabardughām
3. They fashioned for the twin lords of the voyage their happy car
of the all-pervading movement, they fashioned the fostering cow
that yields the sweet milk.
yuvānā pitarā punaĥ satyamantrā ŗjūyavaĥ ŗbhavo vişhţyakrata
4. O Ribhus, in your pervasion you made young again the Parents,
you who seek the straight path and have the Truth in your
mentalisings.
sam vo madāso agmatendreņa cha marutvatā ādityebhiĥ cha rājabhiĥ
5. The raptures of the wine come to you entirely, to you with
Indra companioned by the Maruts and with the Kings, the sons of
Aditi.
uta tyam chamasam navam tvaşhţuĥ devasya nişhkŗtam
akarta chaturaĥ punaĥĥ
6. And this bowl of Twashtri new and perfected you made again
into four.
te no ratnāni dhattana trirā sāptāni sunvate ekam ekam
sushastibhiĥ
7. So establish for us the thrice seven ecstasies, each
separately by perfect expressings of them.
adhārayanta vahnayo abhajanta sukŗtyayā bhāgam deveşhu yajňiyam.
8. They sustained and held in them, they divided by perfection in
their works the sacrificial share of the enjoyment among the
Gods.
COMMENTARY
The Ribhus, it has been suggested, are rays of the Sun. And it is
true that like Varuna, Mitra, Bhaga and Aryaman they are powers of
the solar Light, the Truth. But their special character in the
Veda is that they are artisans of Immortality. They are
represented as human beings who have attained to the condition of
godhead by power of knowledge and perfection in their works. Their
function is to aid Indra in raising man towards the same state of
divine light and bliss which they themselves have earned as their
own divine privilege. The hymns addressed to them in the Veda are
few and to the first glance exceedingly enigmatical; for they are
full of certain figures and symbols always repeated. But once the
principal clues of the Veda are known, they become on the contrary
exceedingly clear and simple and present a coherent and
interesting idea which sheds a clear light on the Vedic gospel of
immortality.
The Ribhus are powers of the Light who have descended
into Matter and are there born as human faculties aspiring to
become divine and immortal. In this character they are called
children of Sudhanwan, a patronymic which is merely a parable of
their birth from the full capacities of Matter touched by the
luminous energy. But in their real nature they are descended from
this luminous Energy and are sometimes so addressed, "Offspring of
Indra, grandsons of luminous Force" (IV.37.4). For Indra, the
divine mind in man, is born out of luminous Force as is Agni out
of pure Force, and from Indra the divine Mind spring the human
aspirations after Immortality.
The names of the three Ribhus are, in the order of
their birth, rbhu or rbhuksan, the skilful Knower or
the Shaper in knowledge, vibhva or vibhu, the
Pervading, the self-diffusing, and vaja, the Plenitude.
Their names indicate their special nature and function, but they
are really a trinity, and therefore, although usually termed the
Ribhus, they are also called the Vibhus and Vajas. Ribhu, the
eldest is the first in man who begins to shape by his thoughts and
works the forms of immortality; Vibhwa gives pervasiveness to this
working; Vaja, the youngest, supplies the plenitude of the divine
light and substance by which the complete work can be done. These
works and formations of immortality they effect, it is continually
repeated, by the force of Thought, with the mind for field and
material; they are done with power; they are attended by a
perfection in the creative and effective act, svapasyaya,
sukrtyaya, which is the condition of the working out of
Immortality. These formations of the artisans of Immortality are,
as they are briefly summarised in the hymn before us, the horses
of Indra, the car of the Ashwins, the Cow that gives the sweet
milk, the youth of the universal Parents, the multiplication into
four of the one drinking-bowl of the gods originally fashioned by
Twashtri, the Framer of things.
The hymn opens with an indication of its objective. It
is an affirmation of the power of the Ribhus made for the divine
Birth, made by men whose minds have attained to illumination and
possess that energy of the Light from which the Ribhus were born.
It is made by the breath of the mouth, the life-power in the
world. Its object is to confirm in the human soul the entire
delight of the Beatitude, the thrice seven ecstasies of the divine
Life. This divine Birth is represented by the Ribhus who, once
human, have become immortal. By their accomplishings of the work,
the great work of upward human evolution which is the summit of
the world-sacrifice, - they have gained in that sacrifice their
divine share and privilege along with the divine powers. They are
the sublimated human energies of formation and upward progress who
assist the gods in the divinising of man. And of all their
accomplishings that which is central is the formation of the two
brilliant horses of Indra, the horses yoked by speech to their
movements, yoked by the Word and fashioned by the mind. For the
free movement of the luminous mind, the divine mind in man, is the
condition of all other immortalizing works.
The second work of the Ribhus is to fashion the chariot
of the Ashwins, lords of the human journey, - the happy movement
of the Ananda in man which pervades with its action all his worlds
or planes of being, bringing health, youth, strength, wholeness to
the physical man, capacity of enjoyment and action to the vital,
glad energy of the light to the mental being, - in a word, the
force of the pure delight of being in all his members.
The third work of the Ribhus is to fashion the cow who
gives the sweet milk. It is said elsewhere that this cow has been
delivered out of its covering skin, - the veil of Nature's outward
movement and action, - by the Ribhus. The fostering cow herself is
she of the universal forms and universal impetus of movement,
visvajuvam visvarupam, in other words she is the first
Radiance, Aditi, the infinite Consciousness of the infinite
conscious Being which is the mother of the worlds. That
consciousness is brought out by the Ribhus from the veiling
movement of nature and a figure of her is fashioned here in us by
them. She is, by the action of the powers of the duality,
separated from her offspring, the soul in the lower world; the
Ribhus restore it to constant companionship with its infinite
mother.
Another great work of the Ribhus is - in the strength of
their previous deeds, of the light of Indra, the movement of the
Ashwins, the full yield of the fostering Cow - to restore youth to
the aged Parents of the world, Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the
mental consciousness, Earth the physical. These in their union are
represented as lying long -old and prostrate like fallen
sacrificial posts, worn-out and suffering. The Ribhus, it is said,
ascend to the house of the Sun where he lives in the unconcealed
splendour of his Truth and there slumbering for twelve days
afterwards traverse the heaven and the earth, filling them with
abundant rain of the streams of Truth, nourishing them, restoring
them to youth and Vigour. They pervade heaven with their workings,
they bring divine increase to the mentality, they give to it and
the physical being a fresh and young and immortal movements. For
from the home of the Truth they bring with them the perfection of
that which is the condition of their work, the movement in the
straight path of the Truth and the Truth itself with its absolute
effectivity in all the thoughts and words of the mentality.
Carrying this power with them in their pervading entry into the
lower world, they pour into it the immortal essence.
It is the wine of that immortal essence with its
ecstasies which they win by their works and bring with them to man
in his sacrifice. And with them come and sit Indra and the Maruts,
the divine Mind and its Thought-forces, and the four great Kings,
sons of Aditi, children of the Infinite, Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman,
Bhaga, the purity and vastness of the Truth-Consciousness, its law
of love and light and harmony, its power and aspiration, its pure
and happy enjoyment of things.
And there at the sacrifice the gods drink in the
fourfold bowl, chamasam chaturvayam, the pourings of the
nectar. For Twashtri, the Framer of things, has given man
originally only a single bowl, the physical consciousness, the
physical body in which to offer the delight of existence to the
gods. The Ribhus, powers of luminous knowledge, take it as renewed
and perfected by Twashtri's latter workings and build up in him
from the material of the four planes three other bodies, vital,
mental and the causal or ideal body.
Because they have made this fourfold cup of bliss and
enabled him thereby to live on the plane of the
Truth-Consciousness they are able to establish in the perfected
human being the thrice seven ecstasies of the supreme existence
poured into the mind, vitality and body. Each of these they can
give perfectly by the full expression of its separate absolute
ecstasy even in the combination of the whole.
The Ribhus have power to support and contain all these
floods of the delight of being in the human consciousness; and
they are able to divide it in the perfection of their works among
the manifested gods, to each god his sacrificial share. For such
perfect division is the whole condition of the effective
sacrifice, the perfect work.
Such are the Ribhus and they are called to the human
sacrifice to fashion for man the things of immortality even as
they fashioned them for themselves. "He becomes full of plenitude
and strength for the labour, he becomes a Rishi by power of self
expression, he becomes a hero and a smiter hard to pierce in the
battles, he holds in himself increase of bliss and entire energy
whom Vaja and Vibhwa, the Ribhus foster.... For you are seers and
thinkers clear-discerning; as such with this thought of our soul
we declare to you out knowledge. Do you in your knowledge moving
about our thoughts fashion for us all human enjoyings, - luminous
plenitude and fertilizing force and supreme felicity. Here issue,
here felicity, here a great energy of inspiration fashion for us
in your delight. Give to us, O Ribhus, that richly-varied
plenitude by which we shall awaken in our consciousness to things
beyond ordinary men."
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