Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.1 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Agni, the divine fire, messenger between mortals and gods, the eternal priest of the sacred rite. It is one of the 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda organized within Maṇḍala 1, the first of ten books. The ṛṣi (seer) to whom this hymn is attributed and its precise liturgical context are recorded in the traditional Śākalya Anukramaṇī.
The Rigveda is the oldest of the four Vedas and one of the oldest surviving religious texts in the world, composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Indus-Sarasvatī region. Its hymns were preserved through oral transmission across millennia before being committed to writing. This is a Good Works Translation produced for the Good Works Library from the Sanskrit of the Śākala recension.
1. I praise Agni, the household priest, the divine officiant of the sacrifice, the invoking priest who grants the richest treasure.
2. Agni, worthy of praise by the seers of old and by those of today alike — he will bring the gods here.
3. Through Agni one may reach wealth, and growth day after day, glorious and richest in strong sons.
4. Agni — the sacrifice, the rite, which you surround on every side — that alone reaches the gods.
5. Agni, the invoking priest, of poet's insight, true, most brilliant in fame — may the god come here together with the gods.
6. Whatever good you will do for the one who gives offering, Agni — that is truly your own doing, O Aṅgiras.
7. To you, Agni, day after day, dispeller of darkness, we come bearing homage with our thought.
8. [To you,] ruler over the rites, guardian of truth and order, shining bright, growing strong in your own house.
9. Be easy for us to approach, Agni, as a father is to his son. Stay with us for our well-being.
Translator's note: "aṅgiraḥ" in verse 6 is a vocative epithet linking Agni to the Aṅgiras lineage of ancient priest-seers; it is kept untranslated as a proper name rather than rendered descriptively. "ṛtasya" in verse 8 (rendered "truth and order") names ṛta, the Vedic principle of cosmic and ritual order — no single English word covers it fully.
Colophon
Rigveda I.1 is drawn from the Śākala recension of the Rigveda, composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE. This is a Good Works Translation rendered verse by verse from the Sanskrit text printed below. Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation.
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Source Text: ṛgveda I.1
agnim īḻe purohitaṁ yajñasya devam ṛtvijam |
hotāraṁ ratnadhātamam || 1 ||
agniḥ pūrvebhir ṛṣibhir īḍyo nūtanair uta |
sa devām̐ eha vakṣati || 2 ||
agninā rayim aśnavat poṣam eva dive-dive |
yaśasaṁ vīravattamam || 3 ||
agne yaṁ yajñam adhvaraṁ viśvataḥ paribhūr asi |
sa id deveṣu gacchati || 4 ||
agnir hotā kavikratuḥ satyaś citraśravastamaḥ |
devo devebhir ā gamat || 5 ||
yad aṅga dāśuṣe tvam agne bhadraṁ kariṣyasi |
tavet tat satyam aṅgiraḥ || 6 ||
upa tvāgne dive-dive doṣāvastar dhiyā vayam |
namo bharanta emasi || 7 ||
rājantam adhvarāṇāṁ gopām ṛtasya dīdivim |
vardhamānaṁ sve dame || 8 ||
sa naḥ piteva sūnave 'gne sūpāyano bhava |
sacasvā naḥ svastaye || 9 ||
Source Colophon
Sanskrit text of the Rigveda, Śākala recension. The standard scholarly edition is the Bombay Oriental (Vishva Bandhu, 5 vols., 1963–66). IAST transliteration available from GRETIL (Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages) and Vedaweb (University of Cologne). Both sources are open access. IAST transliteration from the Aufrecht edition (1877) via GRETIL (Van Nooten & Holland input, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).