The Secret of the Veda

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Thus there emerged in my mind, revealing itself as it were out of the ancient verses, a Veda which was throughout the Scripture of a great and antique religion already equipped with a profound psychological disciple, - a Scripture not confused in thought or primitive in its substance, not a medley of heterogeneous or barbarous elements, but one, complete and self-conscious in its purpose and in its purport, veiled indeed by the cover, sometimes thick, sometimes transparent, of another and material sense, but never losing sight even for a single moment of its high spiritual aim and tendency.

Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. At the age of seven he was taken to England for his education. He studied at St. Paul's School, London, and at King's College, Cambridge. Returning to India in 1893, he worked for the next thirteen years in the Princely State of Baroda in the service of the Maharaja and as a professor in the state's college.

In 1906 Sri Aurobindo quit his post in Baroda and went to Calcutta, where he became one of the leaders of the Indian nationalist movement. As editor of the newspaper Bande Mataram, he put forward the idea of complete independence from Britain. Arrested three times for sedition or treason, he was released each time for lack of evidence.

Sri Aurobindo began the practice of Yoga in 1905. Within a few years he achieved several fundamental spiritual realisations. In 1910 he withdrew from politics and went to Pondicherry in French India in order to concentrate on his inner life and work. Over the next forty years, he developed a new spiritual path, the Integral Yoga, whose ultimate aim is the transformation of life by the power of a supramental conscious- ness. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator the Mother, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. His vision of life is presented in numerous works of prose and poetry, among the best known of which are The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and Savitri. Sri Aurobindo passed away on 5 December 1950.

This volume comprises Sri Aurobindo’s writings on and translations of the Rig Veda that were published in the monthly review Arya between 1914 and 1920. Most of this material appeared under three headings:

The Secret of the Veda, August 1914—July 1916.
Selected Hymns, August 1914—July 1915.
Hymns of the Atris, August 1915—December 1917.

These series form the first three parts of the present volume. Other translations of Vedic hymns that came out in the Arya, but not under any of the above headings, make up Part Four. Sri Aurobindo’s Vedic writings and translations that did not appear in the Arya are published in Vedic Studies with Writings on Philology and Hymns to the Mystic Fire, volumes 14 and 16 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.