SUKTA 1

1. O potent Fire, thou wert the first thinker of this thought and the Priest of the call. O Male, thou hast created everywhere around thee a force invulnerable to overpower every force.

2. And now strong for sacrifice, thou hast taken thy session in the seat of aspiration, one aspired to, a flamen of the call, an imparter of the impulse. Men, building the godheads, have grown conscious of thee, the chief and first, and followed to a mighty treasure.

3. In thee awake, they followed after the Treasure as in the wake of one who walks on a path with many possessions, in the wake of the vast glowing-visioned embodied Fire that casts its light always and for ever.

4. Travellers with surrender to the plane of the godhead, seekers of inspired knowledge, they won an inviolate inspiration, they held the sacrificial Names and had delight in thy happy vision.

5. The peoples increase thee on the earth; both kinds of riches of men increase thee. O Fire, our pilot through the battle, thou art the deliverer of whom we must know, ever a father and mother to human beings.

6. Dear and servable is this Fire in men; a rapturous Priest of the call has taken up his session, strong for sacrifice. Pressing the knee may we come to thee with obeisance of surrender when thou flamest alight in the house.

7. O Fire, we desire thee, the god to whom must rise our cry, we the right thinkers, the seekers of bliss, the builders of the godheads. O Fire, shining with light thou leadest men through the vast luminous world of heaven.

8. To the seer, the Master of creatures who rules over the eternal generations of peoples, the Smiter, the Bull of those that see, the mover to the journey beyond who drives us, the purifying Flame, the Power in the sacrifice, Fire the Regent of the Treasures!

9. O Fire, the mortal has done his sacrifice and achieved his labour who has worked out the gift of the oblation with the fuel of thy flame and wholly learned the way of the offering by his prostrations of surrender; he lives in thy guard and holds in himself all desirable things.

10. O Fire, O son of Force, may we offer to thy greatness that which is great, worshipping thee with the obeisance and the fuel and the offering, the altar and the word and the utterance. For we would work and strive in thy happy right thinking, O Fire.

11. O thou who art filled with inspiration and a passer of barriers, O thou who has extended earth and heaven by the wideness of thy light and thy inspired discoveries of knowledge, shine wider yet in us with thy large and solid and opulent amassings, O Fire.

12. O Prince of Riches, fix always in us that in which are the Gods, settle here many herds for the begotten son. In us may there be the happy things of true inspiration and the multitude of the large impulsions from which evil is far.

13. O King, O Fire, let me enjoy by thee and thy princehood of the riches many riches in many ways; for, O Fire of many blessings, there are many treasures for thy worshipper in thee, the King.

SUKTA 2

l. O Fire, thou travellest like a friend to the glory where is our home. O wide-seeing Prince of the Treasure, thou nurturest our inspiration and our growth.

2. Men who see aspire to thee with the word and the sacrifice. To thee comes the all-seeing Horse that crosses the mid world, the Horse that no wolf tears.

3. The Men of Heaven with a single joy set thee alight to be the eye of intuition of the sacrifice when this human being, this seeker of bliss, casts his offering in the pilgrim-rite.

4. The mortal should grow in riches who achieves the work by the Thought for thee, the great giver; he is in the keeping of the Vast Heaven and crosses beyond the hostile powers and their evil.

5. O Fire, when mortal man arrives by the fuel of thy flame to the way of the oblation and the sharpening of thy intensities, he increases his branching house, his house of the hundred of life.

6. The smoke from thy blaze journeys and in heaven is out stretched brilliant- white. O purifying Fire, thou shinest with a flame like the light of the sun.

7. Now art thou here in men, one to be aspired to and a beloved guest; for thou art like one delightful and adorable in the city and as if our son and a traveller of the triple world.

8. O Fire, thou art driven by the will in our gated house like a horse apt for our work; thou art by thy nature like a far-spreading mansion and like a galloper of winding ways and a little child.

9. O Fire, thou art like a beast in thy pasture and devourest even the unfallen things; the lustres of thy blaze tear to pieces the woodlands, O ageless Flame.

10. O Fire, thou comest a Priest of the call into the house of men that do the Rite of the Path. Make us complete in the treasure, O Master of men! O Angiras flame-seer, rejoice in our oblation.

11. O Fire, O friendly Light, O Godhead, turn to the Godheads, mayst thou speak for us the true thought of Earth and Heaven; move to the peace and the happy abode and the men of Heaven. Let us pass beyond the foe and the sin and the stumbling; let us pass beyond these things, pass in thy keeping through them safe.

SUKTA 3

1. The mortal who longs for the Godhead shall take up his home with thee, O Fire, he is born into the Truth and a guardian of the Truth and comes to thy wide Light, -- he in whom thou being Varuna takest with Mitra a common delight and thou guardest that mortal, O God, by thy casting away from him of evil.

2. He has sacrificed with sacrifices, he has achieved his labour by his works, he has given to the Fire whose boons grew ever in opulence. And so there befalls him not the turning away of the Glorious Ones; evil comes not to him nor the insolence of the adversary.

3. Faultless is thy seeing like the sun's; terrible marches thy thought when blazing with light thou neighest aloud like a force of battle. This Fire was born in the pleasant woodland and is a rapturous dweller somewhere in the night.

4. Fiery- sharp is his march and great his body, -- he is like a horse that eats and champs with his mouth: he casts his tongue like an axe to every side, like a smelter he melts the log that he burns.

5. He sets like an archer his shaft for the shooting, he sharpens his powers of light like an edge of steel. He is the traveller of the night with rich rapid movements; he has thighs of swift motion and is like a bird that settles on a tree.

6. This friendly Light is like a singer of the word and clothes himself with the Rays, he rhapsodises with his flame. This is the shining One who journeys by night and by day to the Gods, the shining Immortal who journeys through the day to the Gods.

7. The cry of him is like the voice of ordaining Heaven; [[Or, the cry of him in his worship of sacrifice is like the voice of Heaven;]] he is the shining Bull that bellows aloud in the growths of the forest. He goes with his light and his race and his running and fills Earth and Heaven with his riches; they are like wives happy in their spouse.

8. He flashes like the lightning with his own proper strength, his own founding and helpful illuminations. As if heaven's craftsman he has fashioned the army of the Life-Gods and lightens ablaze in his exultant speed.

SUKTA 4

1. O Son of Force, O Priest of the call, even as always in man's forming of the godhead thou sacrificest with his sacrifices, sacrifice so for us to the Gods today, O Fire, an equal power to equal powers, one who desires to the Gods who desire.

2. He is wide in his light like a seer of the Day; he is the one we must know and founds an adorable joy. In him is universal life, he is the Immortal in mortals; he is the Waker in the Dawn, our Guest, the Godhead who knows all births that are.

3. The heavens seem to praise his giant might; he is robed in lustre and brilliant like the Sun. Ageless the purifying Fire moves abroad and cuts down even the ancient things of the Devourer. [[Or, the enjoyer.]]

4. O Son, thou art the speaker, thy food is thy seat; Fire from his very birth has made his food the field of his race. O Strength-getter, found strength in us! Thou conquerest like a king and thy dwelling is within, there where there comes not any render.

5. He eats his food and sharpens his sword of defence; he is like the Life-God a master of kingdoms and passes beyond the nights. O Fire, may we pierce through the foe, O thou who breakest like a galloping steed all that battle against thy appointings, hurting around thee our hurters as they fall upon us.

6. O Fire, thou art like the Sun with thy splendid illuminations and hast wide extended Earth and Heaven with thy light. Smeared with lustre, [[Or, anointed with light,]] rich in brilliance he shepherds away the darkness and like a son of the desire of the Gods rushes onward in his march.

7. We have chosen thee most rapturous with the flaming lights of thy illuminations; O Fire, hear for us that which is great. O Godhead of Fire, the most strong Gods fill thee like Indra with might and like the Life-God with riches.

8. O Fire, thou journeyest happily to the treasures by paths where the wolf rends not, and carriest us beyond all evils. These high things thou givest to the luminous wise; thou lavishest the bliss on him who voices thee with the word. May we revel in rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 5

1. I call to you by my thoughts, Fire, the youngest of the gods in whose words is no bale, the Youth, the Son of Force. He is a mind of the knowledge free from all that hurts; his gifts are many and he journeys to the riches where all boons are.

2. O Priest of the call, Priest with thy many flame-forces, [[Or, forms of flame,]] in the night and in the light the Lords of sacrifice cast on thee their treasures. As in earth are founded all the worlds, they founded all happinesses in the purifying Fire.

3. Thou art the Ancient of Days and hast taken thy seat in these peoples and becomest by the will their charioteer of desirable things. O Conscient, O thou who knowest all births that are, thou walkest wide for thy worshipper in unbroken order to the Treasures.

4. O Fire, O friendly Light, O most burning Power, the enemy who is hidden and would destroy us, the enemy who is within us and would conquer, leap fiery-forceful with thy affliction of flame and consume him with thy male and ageless fires.

5. When man gives to thee with the sacrifice and the fuel and with his spoken words and his chants of illumination, he becomes, O Immortal, O Son of Force, a mind of knowledge among mortals and shines with the riches and inspiration and light.

6. Missioned create that swiftly, O Fire. Force is thine, resist with thy force our confronters. When revealed by thy lights, thou art formulated by our words, rejoice in the far-sounding thought of thy adorer.

7. O Fire, may we possess in thy guard that high desire, -- possess, O Lord of the treasures, that Treasure and its heroes, possess replenishing thee thy plenitude, possess, O ageless Fire, thy ageless light.

SUKTA 6

1. Man turns with a new sacrifice to the Son of Force when he desires the Way and the guard. He arrives in his journeyings to the heavenly Priest of the call, the Priest shining with light, but black is his march through the forests he tears.

2. He grows white and thunderous, he stands in a luminous world; he is most young with his imperishable clamouring fires. This is he that makes pure and is full of his multitudes and, even as he devours, goes after the things that are many, the things that are wide.

3. O Fire, thy lights range wind-impelled on every side, pure as thou art pure. Many things they violate and break in their rashness and enjoy the forests of their pleasure, heavenly lights, seers of the ninefold-ray.

4. O Fire of the burning purities, pure and flaming-bright are these thy horses that loosed to the gallop raze the earth. Then wide is thy wandering and its light shines far as it drives them up to the dappled Mother's heights.

5. Then the tongue of the Bull leaps constantly like the thunderbolt loosed of the God who fights for the herds of the Light. The destruction of Fire is like the charge of a hero; he is terrible and irresistible, he hews the forests asunder.

6. Thou hast spread out the earthly speed-ranges by thy light and the violence of thy mighty scourge. Repel by thy forceful powers all dangerous things; turn to conquer those who would conquer us, shatter our confronters.

7. O rich in thy brilliances, Fire with thy manifold luminous mights, rivet to us the rich and various treasure, most richly diverse, that awakens us to knowledge and founds our expanding growth. O delightful God, to him who voices thee with delightful words the vast delightful wealth and its many hero-keepers!

SUKTA 7

1. Head of heaven and traveller of the earth a universal Power was born to us in the Truth, a Guest of men, a seer and absolute King; the Gods brought to birth universal Fire and made him in the mouth a vessel of the oblation.

2. All they together came to him, a navel knot of sacrifice, a house of riches, a mighty point of call in the battle. Charioteer of the Works of the way, eye of intuition of the sacrifice, the Gods brought to birth the universal Godhead.

3. O Fire, from thee is born the Seer, the Horse and of thee are the Heroes whose might overcomes the adversary. O King, O universal Power, found in us the desirable treasures.

4. O Immortal, all the Gods come together to thee in thy birth as to a new-born child. O universal Power, they travelled to immortality by the works of thy will when thou leapedst alight from the Father and Mother.

5. O Fire, universal Godhead, none could do violence to the laws of thy mighty workings because even-in thy birth in the lap of the Father and the Mother thou hast discovered the light of intuition of the Days in manifested things. [[Or, in all sorts of knowledge.]]

6. The heights of heaven were measured into form by the eye of this universal Force, they were shaped by the intuition of the Immortal. All the worlds are upon his head; the seven far-flowing rivers climbed from him like branches.

7. The Universal mighty of will measured into form the kingdom of middle space; a Seer, he shaped the luminous planes of Heaven. He has spread around us all these worlds; he is the guardian of immortality and its indomitable defender.

SUKTA 8

1. Now have I spoken aloud the force of the brilliant Male who fills the world, the discoveries of knowledge of the god who knows all things that are. A new and pure and beautiful thought is streaming like sacramental wine to Fire, the universal Godhead.

2. Fire is the guardian of the laws of all workings and he kept safe the laws of his action and motion even in the moment of his birth in the supreme ether. The Universal mighty of will measured into shape the middle world and touched heaven with his greatness.

3. The Wonderful, the Friend propped up earth and heaven and made the darkness a disappearing thing by the Light. He rolled out the two minds like skins; the Universal assumed every masculine might.

4. The Great Ones seized him in the lap of the waters and the Peoples came to the King with whom is the illumining Word. Messenger of the luminous Sun, Life that expands in the Mother brought Fire the universal Godhead from the supreme Beyond.

5. Found for those who from age to age speak the word that is new, the word that is a discovery of knowledge, O Fire, their glorious treasure; but cut him in twain who is a voice of evil, cast him low by thy force of light like a tree with the thunderbolt, imperishable [[Or, ageless]] king.

6. O Fire, uphold in our masters of the treasure their indestructible [[Or, unaging]] hero-force and unbending might of battle. O universal Fire, may we by thy safe keepings conquer the plenitude of the hundreds and the plenitude of the thousands.

7. O our impeller, [[Or, O doer of sacrifice,]] holder of the triple session, shield our luminous seers with thy indomitable guardian fires. Keep safe, O Fire, the army of those who have given, O Universal, hearing our hymn to thee deliver to its forward march.

SUKTA 9

1. A day that is black and a day-that is argent bright, two worlds revolve in their different paths by forces that we must know. Fire, the universal Godhead, like a king that comes to birth has thrust the Darknesses down by the Light.

2. I know not the woof, I know not the warp, nor what is this web that they weave moving to and fro in the field of their motion and labour. There are secrets that must be told and of someone the son speaks them here, one highest beyond through his father lower than he.

3. He knows the warp, he knows the woof, he tells in their time the things that must be spoken. This is the guardian of immortality who wakes to the knowledge of these things; walking here below he is one highest beyond who sees through another.

4. This is the pristine Priest of the call, behold him! this is the immortal Light in mortals. This is he that is born and grows with a body and is the Immortal seated and steadfast for ever.

5. An immortal Light set inward for seeing, a swiftest mind within in men that walk on the way. All the Gods with a single mind, a common intuition, move aright in their divergent paths towards the one Will.

6. My ears range wide to hear and wide my eyes to see, wide this Light that is set in the heart; wide walks my mind and I set my thought afar; something there is that I shall speak; something that now I shall think.

7. All the gods were in awe of thee when thou stoodest in the darkness and bowed down before thee, O Fire. May the Universal Godhead keep us that we may be safe, may the Immortal keep us that we may be safe.

SUKTA 10

1. When the pilgrim-rite moves on its way, set in your front the divine ecstatic Fire, place him in front by your words, the Flame of the good riddance: [[The word suvrkti corresponds to the katharsis of the Greek mystics -- the clearance, riddance or rejection of all perilous and impure stuff from the consciousness. It is Agni Pavaka, the purifying Fire who brings to us this riddance or purification, "suvrikti".]] he is the Knower of all things born; his light shines wide and he shall make easy for us the progressions of the sacrifice.

2. O Fire, kindled by man's fires, Priest of the call who comest with thy light, Priest of the many flame-armies, hearken to the anthem our thoughts strain out pure to the godhead like pure clarified butter, [[Here we have the clue to the symbol of the "clarified butter" in the sacrifice; like the others it is used in its double meaning, "clarified butter" or, as we may say, "the light-offering".]] even as Mamata chanted to him her paeon.

3. He among mortals is fed on inspiration, the illumined who gives with his word to the Fire, the seer whom the Fire of the brilliant illuminations settles by his luminous safeguardings in the conquest of the Pen where are the herds of the Light.

4. Fire of the blackened trail in his very birth has filled wide earth and heaven with his far-seeing light. Now has Fire that makes pure been seen by his bright flame even through much darkness of the billowing Night.

5. Found, O Fire, for us and the masters of plenty by thy safeguardings packed with the plenitudes a treasure of richly brilliant kinds; for these are they who surpass all others in their opulence and inspiration and hero-mights.

6. O Fire, yearn to the sacrifice that the bringer of the offering casts to thee; found the rapture. Hold firm in the Bharadwajas the perfect purification; guard them in their seizing of the riches of the quest.

7. Scatter all hostile things, increase the revealing Word. May we revel in the rapture, strong with strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 11

1. Missioned and strong to sacrifice, offer the sacrifice, Priest of the call; O Fire, put away from us as if by the applied force of the Life-gods all that opposes. Turn in their paths towards our offering Mitra and Varuna and the twin Lords of the journey and Earth and Heaven.

2. To us thou art our priest of the invocation, harmless and perfect in ecstasy; thou art the god within in mortals that makes the discoveries of knowledge; thou art the carrier with the burning mouth, with the purifying flame of oblation. O Fire, worship with sacrifice thy own body.

3. In thee the understanding is full of riches and it desires the gods, the divine births, that the word may be spoken and the sacrifice done, when the singer, the sage, wisest of the Angirasas chants his honey-rhythm in the rite.

4. He has leaped into radiance and is wise of heart and wide of light; O Fire, sacrifice to the largeness of Earth and Heaven. All the five peoples lavish the oblation with obeisance of surrender and anoint as the living being Fire the bringer of their satisfactions.

5. When the sacred grass has been plucked with prostration of surrender to the Fire, when the ladle of the purification full of the light-offering has been set to its labour, when the home has been reached in the house of Earth and the sacrifice lodged like an eye in the sun, --

6. O Son of Force, O Fire, kindling with the gods thy fires, Priest of the call, Priest with thy many flame-armies, dispense to us the Treasures; shining with light let us charge beyond the sin and the struggle.

SUKTA 12

1. In the midmost of the gated house Fire, the Priest of the call, the King of the sacred seat and the whip of swiftness, to sacrifice to Earth and Heaven! This is the Son of Force in whom is the Truth; he stretches out from afar with his light like the sun.

2. When a man sacrifices in thee, O King, O Lord of sacrifice, when he does well his works in the wise and understanding Fire like Heaven in its all- forming labour, triple thy session; thy speed is as if of a deliverer, when thou comest to give the sacrifice whose offerings are man's human fullnesses.

3. A splendour in the forest, most brilliant-forceful is the speed of his journeying; he is like a whip on the path and ever he grows and blazes. He is like a smelter who does hurt to none; he is the Immortal who wakes of himself to knowledge: he cannot be turned from his way mid the growths of the earth.

4. Fire, the knower of all things born, is hymned by our paeans in the house as if in one that walks on the way. He feeds on the Tree and conquers by our will like a war-horse; this shining Bull is adored by us with sacrifice like a father.

5. And now his splendours chant aloud and he hews with ease and walks along the wideness of the earth. He is rapid in his race and in a moment is loosed speeding to the gallop: he is like a thief that runs; his light is seen beyond the desert places.

6. O War-Horse, us from the bondage deliver, kindling, O Fire, with all thy fires; for thou travellest to the Riches and scatterest the forces of affliction and sorrow. May we revel in the rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 13

1. O felicitous Fire, of thee are all felicities and they grow wide from thee like branches from a tree. For quickly come, in the piercing of the Python adversary, the Riches and the desirable plenty and the Rain of Heaven and the flowing of the Waters.

2. Thou art Bhaga of the felicities and thou pourest on us the ecstasy and takest up thy house in us, a pervading presence and a potent splendour. O divine Fire, like Mitra thou art a feeder on the vast Truth and the much joy and beauty.

3. O Fire born of the Truth, O thinker and knower, when consenting with the Child of the Waters thou takest pleasure in a man and speedest him with the Treasure, he becomes a master over beings and in his might slays the Python adversary and becomes a seer and carries out with him the riches of the Dweller in the Cave.

4. O Son of Force, the mortal who has reached to the intensity of thee by the word and the utterance and the altar and the sacrifice, draws to him sufficiency of every kind of wealth, O divine Fire, and walks on the way with his riches.

5. O Fire, O Son of Force, found for men that they may grow, happy riches of inspiration with strength of its hero-keepers, -- many herds, thy creation in thy might, but now a food for the wolf and the foe and the destroyer.

6. O Son of Force, become the vast speaker within us; give us the Son of our begetting, give us all that is packed with the plenitudes; let me enjoy by my every word satisfaction of fullness. May we revel in the rapture, strong with the strength of the Heroes, living a hundred winters.

SUKTA 14

1. When mortal man by his musings comes to take pleasure of work and thought in the Fire, he shines with light and is one supreme; he receives the impulsion that leads him to safety.

2. The Fire is the thinker and knower, the Fire is a mightiest disposer of works and a seer. To Fire the Priest of the invocation the peoples of men aspire in their sacrifices.

3. Of many kinds are they who seek thy safeguard and strive with the Fire for his riches; men breaking through the Destroyer seek to overcome his lawless strength by the order of their works.

4. The Fire gives to man a Master of beings, a Warrior who overbears the charge of the foe and wins the Waters; the enemies are afraid at his very sight and scatter in panic from his puissance.

5. The Fire is the godhead who rescues mortal man by knowledge from the Binder. A forceful thing is the treasure of his riches, unencircled by the adversary, unbesieged in its plenitudes.

6. O Fire, O friendly Light, O Godhead turn to the Godheads, mayest thou speak for us the true thought of Earth and Heaven; march in peace to the happy abode and the Men of Heaven. Let us pass safe beyond the foe and the sin and the stumbling. Let us pass beyond these things, pass in thy keeping through them safe.

BHARADWAJA BARHASPATYA OR VITAHAVYA ANGIRASA

SUKTA 15

1. Thou must crown with the word the guest who wakes from sleep with the dawn, Master of all these peoples. He is pure from his very birth and surely he comes to us from heaven in his time; long too, a child from the womb, he feeds on all that is unfallen.

2. The Bhrigus set in the Tree the godhead of our aspiration with his high flame of light like a friend well-confirmed in his place. And now, O Wonderful, well-pleased in him who has cast to thee the offering, thou art magnified by wordings of thy power from day to day.

3. Be in us the one whom the wolf cannot rend, the god who makes grow the discernment, makes grow the supreme inner Warrior who delivers. [[Or, be our deliverer from the enemy beyond and within us.]] O Son of Force, extend in mortals the Riches, the wide-spreading House, for the caster of the offering, for Bharadwaja the wide-spreading House.

4. Crown must thou the guest shining with light, the Male of the Sun-world, the Priest of man's invocation who makes perfect the Rite of the Path. Crown with your acts of purification the Seer whose speech has its home in the Light, [[Or, has its home in the Heaven, or, houses the Light,]] the Carrier of offerings, the Traveller, the Godhead of Fire.

5. He shines with the light that makes pure, the light that awakens to knowledge, shines in beauty on the earth as if with a splendour of Dawn. He is as if one hewing his way in the march and battle of the shining Horse; he is like one athirst and luminously blazing, the ageless Fire.

6. Fire and again Fire set to work with your fuel, chant with your speech the dear, the beloved Guest. Approach and set the Immortal alight with your words; a god he enjoys in the gods our desirable things, -- a god, he enjoys our works in the gods.

7. I chant the Fire that is kindled with the word for fuel, the Fire that is pure and makes pure; Fire that is steadfast for ever and marches in front in the Rite of the Path. We desire with his felicities the Illumined, the Priest of the call, the harmless, rich with many blessings, the Seer who knows all births that are.

8. O Fire, they have set thee here the Messenger, the Immortal in generation after generation, the Carrier of offerings, protector of man and the Godhead of his prayer. Gods alike and mortals sit with obeisance before the all-pervading Master of the peoples, the ever-wakeful Fire.

9. O Fire, according to the laws of thy works thou pervadest either race; thou art the messenger of the Gods and rangest both the worlds. Since we have accepted thy thinking and the right understanding that is thine, be to us our triple armour of defence and benignant helper.

10. May we who know not come into touch with this great knower with his true front and just walk and perfect vision. May he who knows all manifested things [[Or, all kinds of knowledge]] do sacrifice for us, may Fire voice our offering in the world of the Immortals.

11. O heroic Fire, thou guardest and bringest safe to the other side the man who has reached to the Thought for thee the Seer and achieved the intensity of the sacrifice or its ascending movement; thou fillest him with might and riches.

12. O Fire that hast the Force, guard us from fault, guard from one who would subject us. May there come to thee along the path full of destructions the thousandfold delectable treasure.

13. Fire, the Priest of the invocation, is a king and the Master in our house; all the births he knows, he is of all things born the Knower. He is strong to sacrifice and the Truth is in him; let him do sacrifice for gods and mortals.

14. O Fire, O Light that makest pure, O summoning Priest of man's sacrifice, today when thou comest as a doer of worship, today when thou growest all-pervading in thy greatness and offerest the things of the Truth for sacrifice, today carry with thee our offerings, O ever-youthful Fire, even the truths that are thine.

15. Open thy manifesting eye on our firm-based pleasant things; let a man set thee within him to sacrifice to Earth and Heaven. Protect us, O King of Riches, in our conquest of the plenitudes; O Fire, may we pass safe through all the stumbling-places. Let us pass beyond these things, pass in thy keeping through them safe.

16. O Fire with thy strong armies of flame, sit with the gods, first of them all, in the wool-flecked lair where the Nest is ready and the light-offering; lead for the doer of the rite, for the presser of the wine rightly on its paths the sacrifice.

17. This is that Fire whom the ordainers of works churn out like Atharvan of old; a Power unbewildered, they led him in his zigzag walk from the dusky Nights.

18. Be born to us in our all-forming labour for the coming of the Gods, for our peace. Bring the gods to us, the Immortals, the builders of the growing Truth; give to our sacrifice touch on the gods.

19. O Fire, O man's master of the house, we have fed thee with our fuel and made thee a vastness; let the works of the house master be unhalting, make us utterly keen with thy intense force of light.

BHARADWAJA BARHASPATYA

SUKTA 16

1. O Fire, thou art set here in all as the Priest of the call in the sacrifice, set by the gods in the human being.

2. Offer worship with thy rapturous tongues in the Rite of the Path to the Great Ones. Bring the gods to us, do them sacrifice.

3. O ordainer of works, mighty of will, by thy revealing light [[Or, with thy straight going]] in the sacrifice thou knowest the tracks of the gods and their highways.

4. Now has the Bringer of the Treasure with his horses of swiftness aspired to thee for a twofold bliss; he has sacrificed in the sacrifices to the king of sacrifice.

5. O Fire, for the Servant of Heaven [[Divodasa]] who presses the wine, for Bharadwaja the giver of the offering, the multitude of these desirable things!

6. Thou art the Immortal messenger; lend ear to the laud of the seer and bring the Divine People.

7. Men deeply meditating aspire to thee that the godheads may come to them; mortals they aspire to the God in the sacrifice.

8. Bring into sacrifice thy perfect sight and thy will; rich are thy gifts and in thee is the joy of all who desire.

9. Thou art the Priest of the call set here in thinking man, his carrier with mouth of flame wiser in knowledge than he. O Fire, sacrifice to the people of heaven.

10. Come, O Fire, for the advent; voiced by the word, come for the gift of the oblation: sit, the Priest of our invocation, on the grass of the altar.

11. O Angiras, we make thee to grow by our fuel and our offering of the clarity; flame into a vast light, O ever-youthful Fire.

12. O God, O Fire, thou illuminest towards us a wide light of inspired knowledge and the vastness of a perfect force.

13. O Fire, Atharvan churned thee out from the Lotus, from the head of every chanting sage. [[Or, on Pushkara; or, the Lotus of the head of every chanting sage.]]

14. And Dadhyang too, the Seer, Atharvan's son, kindled thee a slayer of the Python adversary and shatterer of his cities.

15. Thee the Bull of the paths set full alight, most mighty to slay the Destroyers, a conqueror of riches in battle upon battle.

16. Come to me and let me voice to thee, O Fire, true other words; for thou growest by these moon-powers of the Wine.

17. Wheresoever is thy mind and thou plantest that higher discernment, there thou makest thy house.

18. O Prince of Riches, the fullness of thy treasures meets not the eye and it is for the few; [[Or, let not the fullness of thy treasures meet the eye only of the few;]] take then joy in our work.

19. Fire of the Bringers is approached by us, the slayer of the Python adversary conscious with a multiple knowledge, the Servant of Heaven's Fire, master of beings.

20. This is he that unconquered, unoverthrown shall by his greatness win and give to us a treasure beyond all earthly things.

21. O Fire, by a new illumination like the old and joining it, thou hast stretched out the Vast with thy light. [[Or, built the Vast with thy light.]]

22. O friends, offer to the impetuous violence of Fire the hymn and the sacrifice; sing the illumining verse, chant to the Ordainer of works.

23. This is he that must sit through the human generations, man's Priest of the call with the seer-will, the Messenger, the Carrier of the oblation.

24. O Prince of the Treasure, do worship here with sacrifice to the Two Kings who are ever pure in their works, to the sons of the Indivisible Mother, to the company of the Life-Gods, to Earth and Heaven.

25. O Fire, O Child of Energy, full of riches is thy vision for the mortal, the vision of the immortal, and it imparts to him its impulse.

26. Let the giver be the best by work of the will; today winning thee let him become one overflowing with affluence: a mortal, he shall taste the perfect purification.

27. These are thy men whom thou guardest, O Fire, and they find the speed of thy impulse and move to universal Life, fighters piercing through the armies of the enemy, fighters conquering the armies of the enemy. [[Or, piercing through the enemies who war against them, (bis).]]

28. Let the Fire with his keen energy of light overwhelm every devourer; Fire conquers for us the riches.

29. O wide seeing Fire, God who knowest all births that are, bring to us the treasure with its strength of the Heroes; O mighty of will, slay the demon keepers.

30. O God who knowest all births that are, guard us from sin and from him that worketh calamity; O Seer of the Word, protect us.

31. The mortal of evil movements who gives us over to the stroke, guard us, O Fire, from him and his evil.

32. O God, repulse on every side with thy tongue of flame that doer of wickedness; oppose the mortal who would slay us.

33. O forceful Fire, extend to Bharadwaja the peace [[Or, the wide spreading house of refuge]] with its wideness; extend to him the desirable riches.

34. Let Fire the seeker of the treasure kindled and brilliant and fed with our offerings slay with his flame of illumination the encircling Adversaries.

35. Let him become the father of the Father in the womb of the Mother; let him break out into lightnings in the Imperishable, let him take his seat in the native home of the Truth.

36. O wide seeing Fire, God who knowest all births that are, bring us the Word with its issue, the Word whose light shines in Heaven.

37. O thou who art made by our force, we come to thee of the rapturous vision bringing our offerings for thy pleasure and let forth towards thee, O Fire, our words.

38. Like men that take refuge in the shade, we have arrived to the refuge of thy peace, there where thou blazest with light and art a vision of gold, O Fire.

39. Thou art like a fierce fighter shooting arrows and like a sharp horned Bull; O Fire, thou breakest the cities.

40. They bring him like a beast of prey, like a new born child they bear him in their hands, Fire that effects the Rite of the Path for the peoples.

41. Bring to us this great discoverer of riches, bring the god for the coming of the gods; let him take his seat in his own native home.

42. In the felicitous Fire that knows all things born the Master of your House is born to you; sharpen to his intensity the beloved guest.

43. O God, O Fire, yoke those horses of thine that do well the work and can bear thee sufficient for our passion.

44. Come to us, bear towards us the Gods that they may eat of [[Or, come to]] our pleasant offerings and drink our Soma wine.

45. O Fire of the Bringers luminously lightening with thy incessant flame upward burn; spread wide thy light, O ageless [[Or, imperishable]] power.

46. Let the mortal who would serve with his works the God in the advent, aspire bringing his offering to the Fire in the Rite of the Path; let him with uplifted [[Or, outstretched]] hands and with obeisance of surrender make shine the summoning Priest of Earth and Heaven, the fire of true sacrifice. [[Or, who worships the Truth with sacrifice.]]

47. We bring to thee, O Fire, by the illumining word an offering that is shaped by the heart. Let there be born from it thy impregnating bulls and thy heifers.

48. The Gods kindle, most strong to slay the Python adversary, the supreme Fire, the Horse of swiftness by whom the Riches are brought and pierced the demon keepers.