does not mean, gold. So all the
Professor's brilliant demonstrations are labor in vain. The word hiranya
in this mantram must be translated "divine light"--mystically a symbol
of knowledge; analogically the alchemists used the term "sublimated
gold" for "light," and hoped to compose the objective metal out of its
rays. The two words, hiranya-garbha, taken together, mean, literally,
the "radiant bosom," and, when used in the Vedas, designate the first
principle, in whose bosom, like gold in the bosom of the earth, rests
the light of divine knowledge and truth, the essence of the soul
liberated from the sins of the world. In the mantrams, as in the
chandas, one must always look for a double meaning: (1) a metaphysical
one, purely abstract, and (2) one as purely physical; for everything
existing upon the earth is closely bound to the spiritual world, from
which it proceeds and by which it is reabsorbed. For instance Indra, the
god of thunder, Surya, the sun-god, Vayu, god of the wind, and Agni,
god of fire, all four depending on this first divine principle, expand,
according to the mantram from hiranya-garbha, the radiant bosom. In this
case the gods are the personifications of the forces of Nature. But the
initiated Adepts of India understand very clearly that the god Indra,
for instance, is nothing more than a mere sound, born of the shock of
electrical forces, or simply electricity itself. Surya is not the god of
the sun, but simply the centre of fire in our system, the essence whence
come fire, warmth, light, and so on; the very thing, namely, which
no European scientist, steering an even course between Tyndall and
Schropfer, has, as yet, defined. This concealed meaning has totally
escaped Professor Max Muller's attention, and this is why, clinging to
the dead letter, he never hesitates before cutting a Gordian knot. How
then can he be permitted to pronounce upon the antiquity of the Vedas,
when he is so far from the right understanding of the language of these
ancient writings.

The above is a resume of Dayanand's argument, and to him the
Sanskritists must apply for further particulars, which they will
certainly find in his Rigvedadi Bhashya Bhoomika.

In the cave, every one slept soundly round the fire except myself.
None of my companions seemed to mind in the least either the hum of
the thousand voices of the fair, or the prolonged, far-away roar of the
tigers rising from the valley, or even the loud prayers of