THE BANNER (LIGHT) OF FREEDOM
By
V. Raghavan, M.A., Ph.D.
1. ARISE! the Light
comes all around; away has darkness fled; our breath, our life has come now.
Lo! illumining the East, the self-luminous Effulgence (the Light of
Independence) rises; come, salute it.
2. The day has dawned;
the darkness of slavery has disappeared; arise, look up before you; high on the
mount of rising (prosperity), like the light of dawn (Sun), is the banner of
Independent Mother India.
3. Salute this triple
Flag with the Shining Wheel (this resplendent disc, the embodiment of the three
Vedas) verily it is the Soul of our Souls. May this, the Excellent One, prompt
our intellects for a united deliberation, for a united thought and united
effort.
4. Sattva by the
White, Life Energy by the Green, and sacrifice by the Yellow, proclaiming
everywhere these three qualities of ours, the Indians, this Banner shines forth
with its three colours.
5. The Wheel of
Command which the early emperors of the Solar and Lunar races sent of yore and
which went unimpeded in all the seven continents, it is the same Wheel that
here too, blazes forth at the centre.
6. Renouncing
violence, and betaking to the path of compassion to beings, that very Wheel
which Emperor Asoka propagated as the Wheel of Dharma, again doth that same
Wheel go over the universe now.
7. “Foster each other
with help, the Sacred Wheel of mutuality is the basis of welfare and peace of
the world”–so doth this Wheel on the standard exhort.
8. Bearing aloft in
her hand this Banner, eloquent with this sublime message, and shattering the
fetters and the walls of prison, lo! Our Mother of Bharata comes forth!
9. Mother, grant us
again in plenty powers, prosperities, arts, crafts and lores, that once again
our excellent land may become the hub and leader of the world.
10. Mother, that
supreme power which was yours of yore, which, like that of the ocean, made
everything merge and become one with it, with that power, unifying into one
this country gone manifold, swell forth again, O, Goddess!
11. Even as the
youngest of the world s mountains this our Himalayas, is the greatest, even so,
may this latest-born republic of India be yet the biggest in all world.