Hymn to Vāyu and Indra

Rigveda I.135 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed first to Vāyu, the wind-god who by ancient right receives the first draught of soma, and then jointly to Vāyu and Indra together as Indravāyū, invoked to drink the pressed soma and come to the sacrifice. 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. To you indeed, for the first drink, the gods have yielded, O god. Your pressed, honeyed juices have stood forth — have stood forth for exhilaration, for the rite's power.

2. This is your share among living beings; the soma is offered among the gods. Drive forth your team, O Vāyu; come, favoring us, delighting in us; come, desiring us.

3. This is your timely share, together with the sun's rays. Borne by the adhvaryu priests, they have been offered; O Vāyu, the bright drops have been offered.

4. Drink, you two, of the honeyed draught — the first drink indeed is set for you. O Vāyu, come here with your bright bounty; and Indra, come with your bounty.

5. Drink of these juices, desiring us; come to us here. O Indra and Vāyu, of the soma pressed by the stones — you two, for exhilaration, you two who grant strength.

6. These swift juices have streamed out toward you two through the filter, seeking you, through the strands of wool — the soma-juices, through the wool.

7. O Vāyu, pass beyond all who lie sleeping; go where the pressing-stone speaks — go there, to the house, and Indra, go there too. Bounteous speech has shown itself, the ghee flows; come to the rite with your full team, and Indra, come to the rite.

8. Here indeed you two bring that offering of sweetness, which the victors approach near the sacred fig tree — may those victors be ours. Together the cows calve, the barley ripens; your milch-cows, O Vāyu, do not fail; the milch-cows do not fail.

9. They who, even on the waterless plain, are untiring, swift, dwelling nowhere at rest — like the rays of the sun, hard to hold, hard to hold in the hands.

Translator's note: verse 8's "jāyavaḥ" (rendered "victors") and its reference to the aśvattha tree, and verse 9's "anāśavaḥ" and "agiraukasaḥ" (rendered "untiring" and "dwelling nowhere at rest"), are obscure terms describing Vāyu's team of horses in ritual/mythic shorthand; the renderings above are conservative and literal rather than confident.

Colophon

Rigveda I.135 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.135

tubhyaṁ hi pūrvapītaye devā devāya yemire |
pra te sutāso madhumanto asthiran madāya kratve asthiran || 1 ||

tavāyam bhāga āyuṣu somo deveṣu hūyate |
vaha vāyo niyuto yāhy asmayur juṣāṇo yāhy asmayuḥ || 2 ||

tavāyam bhāga ṛtviyaḥ saraśmiḥ sūrye sacā |
adhvaryubhir bharamāṇā ayaṁsata vāyo śukrā ayaṁsata || 3 ||

pibatam madhvo andhasaḥ pūrvapeyaṁ hi vāṁ hitam |
vāyav ā candreṇa rādhasā gatam indraś ca rādhasā gatam || 4 ||

teṣām pibatam asmayū ā no gantam ihotyā |
indravāyū sutānām adribhir yuvam madāya vājadā yuvam || 5 ||

ete vām abhy asṛkṣata tiraḥ pavitram āśavaḥ |
yuvāyavo 'ti romāṇy avyayā somāso aty avyayā || 6 ||

ati vāyo sasato yāhi śaśvato yatra grāvā vadati tatra gacchataṁ gṛham indraś ca gacchatam |
vi sūnṛtā dadṛśe rīyate ghṛtam ā pūrṇayā niyutā yātho adhvaram indraś ca yātho adhvaram || 7 ||

atrāha tad vahethe madhva āhutiṁ yam aśvattham upatiṣṭhanta jāyavo 'sme te santu jāyavaḥ |
sākaṁ gāvaḥ suvate pacyate yavo na te vāya upa dasyanti dhenavo nāpa dasyanti dhenavaḥ || 8 ||

dhanvañ cid ye anāśavo jīrāś cid agiraukasaḥ |
sūryasyeva raśmayo durniyantavo hastayor durniyantavaḥ || 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).