A Riddle Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.145 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Agni, the divine fire, messenger between mortals and gods, the eternal priest of the sacred rite. Unlike most hymns to Agni, it does not name him until its final line — the preceding verses circle him through riddling pronouns and images, in the enigmatic style (brahmodya) associated with the ṛṣi Dīrghatamas Aucathya, to whom the Anukramaṇī attributes this hymn. It is one of the 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda organized within Maṇḍala 1, the first of ten books.
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. Ask about him — he has come, he knows; the discerning one is sought out, and she too is sought. In him rest the ordinances, in him the offerings; he is the lord of strength and power, the impetuous one.
2. They do ask him, yet none question him through and through — as the wise one grasped, with his own mind, what he seized. He forgets neither the first word nor the last of it; unshaken, he keeps to his purpose.
3. To him alone go the flame-tongues, to him the racing mares; let him alone hear all my words — much-commissioned, all-conquering, accomplisher of the rite, unfailing in his aid, the child who has seized his strength.
4. He moves into the lap when they have come together; new-born, he ran at once with his yoke-mates. He touches the one grown quiet, for joy, for delight, when the eager women go to him in his hiding place.
5. He, the wild creature of the waters, roaming the forest, was set down upon the outermost skin. He declared his signs to mortals — for Agni, the knowing one, who discerns the true order, is real.
Translator's note: this hymn is deliberately cryptic and its imagery resists certain rendering. "juhvaḥ" (3) can mean either sacrificial ladles or tongues of flame; "arvatīḥ" (3) is left as "racing mares," its referent (rivers, offerings, or literal horses) unclear from the verse alone. "śvāntam" (4) may mean "one grown quiet/extinguished" or "one panting," and "apiṣṭhitam" (4) as "hiding place" is likewise uncertain. "upamasyāṁ tvaci" (5), rendered "outermost skin," most likely points to the bark or surface of the fire-wood. The hymn withholds Agni's name until verse 5; earlier third-person pronouns ("he," "she") are kept ungendered-referent as the Sanskrit leaves them, without supplying an antecedent the text itself does not give.
Colophon
Rigveda I.145 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.145
tam pṛcchatā sa jagāmā sa veda sa cikitvām̐ īyate sā nv īyate |
tasmin santi praśiṣas tasminn iṣṭayaḥ sa vājasya śavasaḥ śuṣmiṇas patiḥ || 1 ||
tam it pṛcchanti na simo vi pṛcchati sveneva dhīro manasā yad agrabhīt |
na mṛṣyate prathamaṁ nāparaṁ vaco 'sya kratvā sacate apradṛpitaḥ || 2 ||
tam id gacchanti juhva1s tam arvatīr viśvāny ekaḥ śṛṇavad vacāṁsi me |
purupraiṣas taturir yajñasādhano 'cchidrotiḥ śiśur ādatta saṁ rabhaḥ || 3 ||
upasthāyaṁ carati yat samārata sadyo jātas tatsāra yujyebhiḥ |
abhi śvāntam mṛśate nāndye mude yad īṁ gacchanty uśatīr apiṣṭhitam || 4 ||
sa īm mṛgo apyo vanargur upa tvacy upamasyāṁ ni dhāyi |
vy abravīd vayunā martyebhyo 'gnir vidvām̐ ṛtacid dhi satyaḥ || 5 ||
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).