Hymn to Indra
Rigveda I.104 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Indra, the storm-king and champion of the gods, slayer of Vṛtra, lord of thunder and rain. 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. A resting place has been made for you, Indra, to sit in — sit down there, sounding like a swift racehorse. Having loosed your team, having unyoked your horses, come at evening and at dawn, at the more urgent stage of the journey.
2. Those men have gone to Indra for help; may he come at once, this very day, from his roads. The gods have checked the fury of the dāsa; may they bring to us, for our well-being, their own kind.
3. The Ketavedā carries itself downward; the water carries its foam downward on its own. May the two wives of Kuyava, bathed in milk, be struck down in the current of the Śiphā.
4. The kinship of the lesser life has been kept away; the hero surpasses by his former deeds and rules. Añjasī and Kuliśī, whose lords are heroes, driving forth their milk, are carried along with the waters.
5. When that course of the Dasyu was seen face to face, our song went, as if it knew the way, straight to its dwelling, to its seat. So now, bounteous one, take notice of us; do not, like one who withholds his bounty, cast us away.
6. You, Indra — give us our share in the sun, our share in the waters; grant us a share in freedom from sin, in the praise of the living. Do not harm the inward enjoyment that is ours; trust has been placed in you for your great indra-power.
7. So I think: trust has been placed in you for this; bull that you are, drive yourself on toward great wealth. Do not, much-invoked Indra, give away our sustenance to the hungry in a resting-place not rightly made.
8. Do not slay us, Indra; do not abandon us; do not rob us of the food we love. Do not, bounteous and mighty one, break open our eggs; do not shatter the vessels that have been ours since birth.
9. Come this way — they say you love the soma; here it is pressed, drink of it for your exhilaration. Wide-bellied one, fill yourself full; like a father, listen to us as we call you.
Translator's note: several details in this hymn are genuinely obscure and are rendered conservatively rather than confidently resolved. Verse 2's "varṇam" (rendered "kind") is a disputed term that later acquires the technical sense "caste/class"; here it more plausibly means "color" or "kind" in a general sense. Verses 3–4 name figures and rivers (Ketavedā, Kuyava and his two wives, the Śiphā, Añjasī, Kuliśī) belonging to a mythic episode not fully recoverable from the hymn alone; the proper names are kept as transliterated rather than interpreted. Verse 8's "āṇḍā" (literally "eggs") is kept literal rather than resolved into a euphemism.
Colophon
Rigveda I.104 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.104
yoniṣ ṭa indra niṣade akāri tam ā ni ṣīda svāno nārvā |
vimucyā vayo 'vasāyāśvān doṣā vastor vahīyasaḥ prapitve || 1 ||
o tye nara indram ūtaye gur nū cit tān sadyo adhvano jagamyāt |
devāso manyuṁ dāsasya ścamnan te na ā vakṣan suvitāya varṇam || 2 ||
ava tmanā bharate ketavedā ava tmanā bharate phenam udan |
kṣīreṇa snātaḥ kuyavasya yoṣe hate te syātām pravaṇe śiphāyāḥ || 3 ||
yuyopa nābhir uparasyāyoḥ pra pūrvābhis tirate rāṣṭi śūraḥ |
añjasī kuliśī vīrapatnī payo hinvānā udabhir bharante || 4 ||
prati yat syā nīthādarśi dasyor oko nācchā sadanaṁ jānatī gāt |
adha smā no maghavañ carkṛtād in mā no magheva niṣṣapī parā dāḥ || 5 ||
sa tvaṁ na indra sūrye so apsv anāgāstva ā bhaja jīvaśaṁse |
māntarām bhujam ā rīriṣo naḥ śraddhitaṁ te mahata indriyāya || 6 ||
adhā manye śrat te asmā adhāyi vṛṣā codasva mahate dhanāya |
mā no akṛte puruhūta yonāv indra kṣudhyadbhyo vaya āsutiṁ dāḥ || 7 ||
mā no vadhīr indra mā parā dā mā naḥ priyā bhojanāni pra moṣīḥ |
āṇḍā mā no maghavañ chakra nir bhen mā naḥ pātrā bhet sahajānuṣāṇi || 8 ||
arvāṅ ehi somakāmaṁ tvāhur ayaṁ sutas tasya pibā madāya |
uruvyacā jaṭhara ā vṛṣasva piteva naḥ śṛṇuhi hūyamānaḥ || 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).