: Here I am beginning 2026 by replying to a 16-year old conversation that's now
: archived (so I can't reply to it directly). I discovered Halsey's Journal
: on a recent return to Halo and saw the Sanskrit text on Page 77 (lol)
: and took the trouble to translate it and find the reference, only to
: discover that the great Stephen Loftus himself had found the text and
: translated it with the help of an Indian friend named Seeraj .

: No idea if he ever visits this forum these days, but I do have some context
: about that passage that Seeraj doesn't. First, that's the first verse of
: the first sukta(hymn) of the seventh mandala(book or volume) of the
: currrent surviving recension of the Rigveda, which you could refer to as
: Rigveda 7.1.1 . More sevens, and a reverse 117 reference! Well-chosen
: indeed!

: Seeraj's own translation isn't quite literal. Here's the verse below, I'm
: transliterating it a little differently -

: "Agnim naro didhitibhir aranyor
: hastacyuthi janayantha prashastam I
: duredrusham gruhapathim atharyum II"

: Agnim - fire/the god of fire;
: naro - men (plural);
: didhitibhir - (through the) brightness, splendor;
: aranyor (in using) two fire sticks;
: hastacyuthi - by the hands;
: janayantha - to generate, produce forth;
: prashastham - consecrated, auspicious, excellent; duredrusham - far-seen;
: gruhapatim - lord of the household; atharyum - fire, flame"

: "(A/the) Men use two fire sticks in their hands to bring forth excellent
: Agni, god of fire, the far-seen lord of the household, the flame." is
: the literal translation of this, and the full set of verses continues to
: lavish praise on Agni, calling him the most youthful of gods among other
: epithets.

: The version Seeraj has used is from a later interpretation and interpolates
: the stuff about "wise men manifesting the glory of the effulgent
: lord" that isn't in a straightforward literal reading of the original
: text, although trying to get a totally straight interpretation of a text
: in a language that's not been in common use for over 3,000 years isn't
: easy.

: "Duredrusham gruhapatim atharyum" - "Far-seen lord of the
: household, the flame" is the part in Halsey's Journal.

: So, why does this matter here? First, Agni as the fire god is a god to whom
: sacrifices are made, as well as the god who carries sacrifices to the
: other gods. This makes him the messenger to the gods and he is also called
: the "youngest of gods" two verses down, aspects that he shares
: with the Greek god Hermes.

: Incidentally, remember the ancient Iris alternate reality game? Iris was a
: messenger deity herself, and Agni holds Iris's portfolio, so as to speak,
: within Ancient Hinduism.

: There's also the significance of invoking Agni by rubbing together the two
: Arani, or fire sticks. The Arani are also called the
: "Pramantha", or "forethought" - this is a direct
: cognate of the Greek Prometheus who, after all, was the titan who stole
: fire from the gods and brought it to man. The Greeks never seem to have
: worshipped fire as a deity in its own right as much as the Rigvedic Hindus
: but they used fire to make sacrifices to both the celestial and chthonic
: gods.

: I'd say that in invoking this Rigvedic verse, Halsey positions Cortana as
: this divine being that she's invoked, a messenger of sorts to another
: world, and also an instrument of sacrifice. She has also performed a
: Promethean act, bringing this artificial mind based on her own brain into
: existence, one that has taken an appearance similar to both Miranda and
: her own younger self (Mary Shelley called Dr. Frankenstein "The
: modern Prometheus" for creating artificial life in the form of his
: monster). Halsey seems to want to distance herself from Frankenstein by
: invoking the god of fire in the Hindu manner instead of stealing fire the
: Promethean way.

: Well...eh...that's my best take on what I can read into the verse and I have
: no idea if this is accurate to what Eric Nylund and co. meant by its
: inclusion. I wanted to get this out here. This is now a conversation with
: ghosts, and as much as I'd like what Loftus and I found to be part of a
: conversation about Bungie-era Halo lore, I don't know what will happen to
: it.

These are the sort of intellectual discussions/speculation that used to have me checking these forums daily. Glad I popped back in for this one. Halo's mythology still has so much depth!