|| "Ashwins, swift-footed lords of bliss—dravatpāṇī śubhaspatī purubhujā.
"Ashwins, divine souls, many-actioned, thought-holding" who accept and rejoice in the words of the Mantra "with an energetic thought",—purudaṁsasā narā śavīrayā dhiyā dhiṣṇyā.
...the Ashwins are described as "effectual in action, powers of the movement, fierce-moving in their paths", dasrā nāsatyā rudravartanī ... they are described often by epithets of motion, "swift-footed", "fierce-moving in their paths";.. in the Rig-veda also they are represented as powers that carry over the Rishis as in a ship or save them from drowning in the ocean. Nāsatyā may therefore very well mean lords of the voyage, journey, or powers of the movement.
The Ashwins are both hiraṇyavartanī and rudravartanī, because they are both powers of Light and of nervous force; in the former aspect they have a bright gold movement, in the latter they are violent in their movement... we have the combination rudrā hiraṇyavartanī, violent and moving in the paths of light...
आ नो रत्नानि बिभ्रताव् अश्विना गच्छतं युवम् |
रुद्रा हिरण्यवर्तनी जुषाणा वाजिनीवसू माध्वी मम श्रुतं हवम् ||
ā no ratnāni bibhratāv aśvinā gacchataṃ yuvam |
rudrā hiraṇyavartanī juṣāṇā vājinīvasū mādhvī mama śrutaṃ havam ||
... riders on the horse, the Ashwa, symbolic of force and especially of life-energy and nervous force, the Prana...they are gods of enjoyment, seekers of honey...physicians, they bring back youth to the old, health to the sick, wholeness to the maimed. Another characteristic is movement, swift, violent, irresistible; their rapid and indomitable chariot is a constant object of celebration and they are described here as swift-footed and violent in their paths. They are like birds in their swiftness, like the mind, like the wind.
हिरण्यत्वङ् मधुवर्णो घृतस्नुः पृक्षो वहन्न् आ रथो वर्तते वाम् |
मनोजवा अश्विना वातरंहा येनातियाथो दुरितानि विश्वा ||
hiraṇyatvaṅ madhuvarṇo ghṛtasnuḥ pṛkṣo vahann ā ratho vartate vām |
manojavā aśvinā vātaraṃhā yenātiyātho duritāni viśvā ||
They bring in their chariot ripe or perfected satisfactions to man, they are creators of bliss, mayas. These indications are perfectly clear... the Ashwins are twin divine powers whose special function is to perfect the nervous or vital being in man in the sense of action and enjoyment. But they are also powers of Truth, of intelligent action, of right enjoyment, they are powers that appear with the Dawn, effective powers of action born out of the ocean of being who, because they are divine, are able to mentalise securely the felicities of the higher existence by a thought-faculty which finds or comes to know that true substance and true wealth:—
Yā dasrā sindhumātarā, manotarā rayīṇām;
dhiyā devā vasuvidā. (I.46.2)
They give that impelling energy for the great work which, having for its nature and substance the light of the Truth, carries man beyond the darkness:—
Yā naḥ pīparad aśvinā, jyotiṣmatī tamas tiraḥ;
tām asme rāsāthām iṣam. (I.46.6)
They carry man in their ship to the other shore beyond the thoughts and states of the human mind, that is to say, to the supramental consciousness,—nāvā matīnāṁ pārāya (I.46.7).
... the Ashwins are invoked, as swift-moving lords of bliss who carry with them many enjoyments, to take delight in the impelling energies of the sacrifice,—yajvarīr iṣo...canasyatam. These impelling forces are born evidently of the drinking of the Soma-wine, that is to say, of the inflow of the divine Ananda. For the expressive words, giraḥ, that are to make new formations in the consciousness are already rising, the seat of the sacrifice has been piled, the vigorous juices of the Soma-wine are pressed out.
The Ashwins are to come as effective powers of action, purudaṁsasā narā, to take delight in the Words and to accept them into the intellect where they shall be retained for the action by a thought full of luminous energy. They are to come to the offering of the Soma-wine, in order to effect the action of the sacrifice, dasrā, as fulfillers of action, by giving to the delight of the action that violent movement of theirs, rudravartanī, which carries them irresistibly on their path and overcomes all opposition...
We see throughout that it is energy which these Riders on the Horse are to give; they are to take delight in the sacrificial energies, to take up the word into an energetic thought, to bring to the sacrifice their own violent movement on the path. And it is effectiveness of action and swiftness in the great journey that is the object of this demand for energy.
I would call the attention of the reader continually to the consistency of conception and coherence of structure, the easy clearness and precision of outline which the thought of the Rishis assumes by a psychological interpretation, so different from the tangled confusion and incoherent abruptness of the interpretations which ignore the supreme tradition of the Veda as a book of wisdom and deepest knowledge. ||
Condensed extract from Sri Aurobindo's 'The Secret of the Veda'
