Hymn in Praise of the Gift
Rigveda I.125 is a sūkta (hymn) praising dāna and dakṣiṇā — generosity and the sacrificial gift given to the officiating priest. It opens with an early-morning arrival at a generous patron's dwelling and moves into direct praise of dakṣiṇā itself: the rivers, cows, and streams of ghee said to flow toward the giver, and the immortality and long life promised to those who give freely. 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. In the morning the early-traveler bestows a treasure; the wise man receives it and keeps it close. Increasing his offspring and his lifespan by it, blessed with good sons, he follows the growth of wealth.
2. May he have good cattle, rich in gold, good horses — Indra grants him great vigor. Whoever comes to you with wealth, O early-traveler, [Indra] frees his path, as one releases a bound thing.
3. Today, at dawn, seeking the pious man, I have come with a chariot laden with wealth — the son of the offering. Give him to drink the pressed juice of the exhilarating soma-stalk; strengthen the lord of men with gracious words.
4. The delightful rivers flow toward him; the milk-cows flow toward the one who has sacrificed and the one about to sacrifice. Toward the generous giver and the bountiful one, glory-seeking streams of ghee come from every side.
5. He who gives generously stands firm, established on the back of the vault of heaven; he indeed goes among the gods. For him the waters and the rivers flow with ghee; for him this sacrificial gift always swells.
6. These wonders belong indeed to those who give the sacrificial gift; for the givers of the gift there are suns in heaven. Those who give the gift share in immortality; those who give the gift extend their lifespan.
7. May those who give not fall into misfortune or wrongdoing; may the faithful patrons, true to their vows, not perish. Let some other barrier surround them; may sorrows converge instead upon the one who does not give.
Translator's note: verse 2's closing image — "mukṣījayeva padim utsināti," rendered here as "frees his path, as one releases a bound thing" — is textually obscure; the exact referent of the simile is uncertain and this rendering is conservative. Verse 1's "prātaritvan" ("early-traveler") is an epithet applied to the guest/patron who arrives at dawn; it is kept literal rather than resolved to a specific identity.
Colophon
Rigveda I.125 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.
🌲
Source Text: ṛgveda I.125
prātā ratnam prātaritvā dadhāti taṁ cikitvān pratigṛhyā ni dhatte |
tena prajāṁ vardhayamāna āyū rāyas poṣeṇa sacate suvīraḥ || 1 ||
sugur asat suhiraṇyaḥ svaśvo bṛhad asmai vaya indro dadhāti |
yas tvāyantaṁ vasunā prātaritvo mukṣījayeva padim utsināti || 2 ||
āyam adya sukṛtam prātar icchann iṣṭeḥ putraṁ vasumatā rathena |
aṁśoḥ sutam pāyaya matsarasya kṣayadvīraṁ vardhaya sūnṛtābhiḥ || 3 ||
upa kṣaranti sindhavo mayobhuva ījānaṁ ca yakṣyamāṇaṁ ca dhenavaḥ |
pṛṇantaṁ ca papuriṁ ca śravasyavo ghṛtasya dhārā upa yanti viśvataḥ || 4 ||
nākasya pṛṣṭhe adhi tiṣṭhati śrito yaḥ pṛṇāti sa ha deveṣu gacchati |
tasmā āpo ghṛtam arṣanti sindhavas tasmā iyaṁ dakṣiṇā pinvate sadā || 5 ||
dakṣiṇāvatām id imāni citrā dakṣiṇāvatāṁ divi sūryāsaḥ |
dakṣiṇāvanto amṛtam bhajante dakṣiṇāvantaḥ pra tiranta āyuḥ || 6 ||
mā pṛṇanto duritam ena āran mā jāriṣuḥ sūrayaḥ suvratāsaḥ |
anyas teṣām paridhir astu kaś cid apṛṇantam abhi saṁ yantu śokāḥ || 7 ||
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).