Sri Aurobindo’s rendering of eleven Vedic hymns dealing with Varuna and Mitra reveals their greatness, of the mighty and lordly powers. They are the two who along with Aryaman and Bhaga carry sacrificial action and bring to human soul excellent felicity. These are the Four who did rigorous creative tapas, such deep self-concentration that they lost contact with the Origin itself. As a result of this deep extreme self-concentration they became their own opposites. Seeing the horror of this separation, the Supreme himself took a plunge into the state in which they had fallen. That marked the beginning of the evolutionary creation in which there is endless progress, first progress in Ignorance to be followed by progress in Knowledge when the divine potentialities shall manifest in manifold ways, the great Infinity expressing itself infinitely. It might sound all a story, but what a way of making a new beginning! What sacrifices of the kingly Four! And what Sacrifice of the Fourfold Supreme himself! The hymns of the Atris belonging to the fifth Section of the Rig Veda speak of the glories of Varuna and Mitra in various respects, glories in their transcendental action in relation to man and the vast creation; in it they, covered by the Truth, stand ever in the Truth. Summary of the eleven hymns to Varuna and Mitra by the Atris presented here is based on Sri Aurobindo’s translation of the original text as we have in The Secret of the Veda. It must of course be understood that the language of the mystic composers of the Veda is a symbolic language, the symbols often deriving their connotations from the roots of the original Sanskrit words, a language which had a living contact with the spirit of the things which cannot be rendered into any other expression, a revelatory language which discloses itself when one is in contact with that spirit of the things. It is necessary to enter into it if one is to benefit from the Vedic hymns. It is this language which narrates the Story of Creation to give us the process of the progressive manifestation of the Divine in this material world.

...   more »