other · hymn

Rigveda — Selected Hymns

c. 1500–1200 BCE (oral composition) · Late Bronze Age · Northwest Indian subcontinent (Sapta Sindhu region)

Book I, Hymn 1 — To Agni

1I laud Agni, the chosen priest, God, minister of sacrifice,
2The hotar, lavishest of wealth.
3Worthy is Agni to be praised by living as by ancient seers.
4He shall bring hitherward the Gods.
5Through Agni man obtaineth wealth, yea, plenty waxing day by day,
6Most rich in heroes, glorious.
7Agni, the perfect sacrifice which thou encompassest about
8Verily goeth to the Gods.
9May Agni, sapient-minded priest, truthful, most gloriously great,
10The God, come hither with the Gods.
11Whatever blessing, Agni, thou wilt grant unto thy worshipper,
12That, Angiras, is indeed thy truth.
13To thee, dispeller of the night, O Agni, day by day with prayer
14Bringing thee reverence, we come.
15Ruler of sacrifices, guard of Law eternal, radiant One,
16Increasing in thine own abode.
17Be to us easy of approach, even as a father to his son:
18Agni, be with us for our weal.

Book I, Hymn 32 — Indra's Victory over Vritra

19I will declare the manly deeds of Indra, the first that he achieved, the Thunder-wielder.
20He slew the Dragon, then disclosed the waters,
21And cleft the channels of the mountain torrents.
22He slew the Dragon lying on the mountain:
23His heavenly bolt of thunder Tvashtri fashioned.
24Like lowing kine in rapid flow descending
25The waters glided downward to the ocean.
26Impetuous as a bull, he chose the Soma
27And in three sacred beakers drank the juices.
28Maghavan grasped the thunder for his weapon,
29And smote to death this firstborn of the dragons.
30When, Indra, thou hadst slain the dragon's firstborn,
31And overcome the charms of the enchanters,
32Then, giving life to Sun and Dawn and Heaven,
33Thou foundest not one foe to stand against thee.
34There as he lies like a bank-bursting river,
35The waters taking courage flow above him.
36The Dragon lies beneath the feet of torrents
37Which Vritra with his greatness had encompassed.

Book I, Hymn 164 — To the Mystic All

38Who saw the new-born, he who has bones, bearing
39Him who has no bones? Where was the life, the blood, the Self of the world?
40Who can declare it? Who here knows it?
41How from the unborn the born came? What has he gone and what has he done?
42The year, they say, is the form of the Brahman.
43The sun shines above; the months are twelve in number.
44They who know the Brahman, they know the ancient one,
45The eternal, undecaying, first-born spirit.
46They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and he is heavenly nobly-winged Garutman.
47To what is One, sages give many a title:
48They call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan.

Book VII, Hymn 89 — To Varuna

49Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay:
50Have mercy, spare me, Mighty Lord.
51When, Thunderer! I move along tremulous like a wind-blown skin,
52Have mercy, spare me, Mighty Lord.
53O Bright and Powerful God, through want of strength I erred and went astray:
54Have mercy, spare me, Mighty Lord.
55Thirst found thy worshipper though he stood in the midst of water-floods:
56Have mercy, spare me, Mighty Lord.
57O Varuna, whatever the offence may be which we as men commit against the heavenly host,
58When through our want of thought we violate thy laws,
59Punish us not, O God, for that iniquity.

Book X, Hymn 90 — Purusha Sukta: The Cosmic Person

60A thousand heads hath Purusha, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet.
61On every side pervading earth he fills a space ten fingers wide.
62This Purusha is all that yet hath been and all that is to be;
63The Lord of Immortality which waxes greater still by food.
64So mighty is his greatness; yea, greater than this is Purusha.
65All creatures are one-fourth of him, three-fourths eternal life in heaven.
66When Gods prepared the sacrifice with Purusha as their offering,
67Its oil was spring, the holy gift was autumn; summer was the wood.
68They balmed as victim on the grass Purusha born in earliest time.
69With him the Deities and all Sadhyas and Rishis sacrificed.
70From that great general sacrifice the dripping fat was gathered up.
71He formed the creatures of the air, and animals both wild and tame.
72From that great general sacrifice Richas and Sama-hymns were born:
73Therefrom were spells and charms produced; the Yajus had its birth from it.
74From it were horses born, from it all cattle with two rows of teeth:
75From it were generated kine, from it the goats and sheep were born.

Book X, Hymn 121 — Hiranyagarbha: The Golden Embryo

76In the beginning rose Hiranyagarbha, born the only lord of all created beings.
77He fixed and holdeth up this earth and heaven.
78What God shall we adore with our oblation?
79He who gives life, he who gives strength, whose bidding gods and all the world obey,
80Whose shadow is immortal life and death.
81What God shall we adore with our oblation?
82He who through his might became the sole king of the breathing and the seeing world,
83Who is the God of gods, and none beside him.
84What God shall we adore with our oblation?
85He whose great glory these snowy mountains, whose greatness ocean tells with far-off voices,
86Whose these two arms are: he it is, O Agni.
87What God shall we adore with our oblation?
88He by whom the sky is bright and the earth is firm, he by whom heaven was stablished, nay, the highest heaven,
89Who measured out the light in air: to him let us offer sacrifice and oblation.
90What God shall we adore with our oblation?

notes

The Rigveda (Sanskrit: ṛgveda, "knowledge of verses") is the oldest of the four Vedas and one of the oldest religious texts in the world still in continuous use. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit between approximately 1500 and 1200 BCE — though some scholars place the earliest hymns before 1700 BCE — it consists of 1,028 hymns (sūktas) organized into ten books (maṇḍalas) addressed to various deities. The Rigveda is the foundational text of the Vedic religion that developed into Hinduism. Its cosmological hymns, particularly the Nasadiya Sukta (10.129), the Purusha Sukta (10.90), and the Hiranyagarbha hymn (10.121), represent some of the earliest recorded philosophical speculation on the origins of the universe and the nature of ultimate reality. Agni (fire, divine messenger between humans and gods), Indra (storm and war deity, dragon-slayer), and Varuna (cosmic order, moral law) are among the most prominent deities. The Soma hymns celebrate a sacred ritual drink whose botanical identity remains debated. The Rigveda was composed orally and preserved by memorization with extraordinary precision across three millennia before being written down. Its preservation represents one of the greatest achievements in the history of human memory. Translation after Ralph T.H. Griffith (1896). Public domain.

currently held: Manuscript tradition (oral transmission until c. 300 BCE)

CreationVedicHymn of PraiseCosmology

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