Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.146 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 proclaim the three-headed, seven-rayed, unfailing Agni, seated in the lap of his two parents. Moving, yet steadfast, he has filled all the luminous realms of heaven.
2. The great bull has grown over these two, heaven and earth; ageless, lofty, his help ever at hand, he has taken his stand. He sets his feet on the ridge of the wide earth, and his ruddy flames lick at his udder.
3. The two fair ones move apart in every direction, each going out toward the same calf. Measuring out unbroken paths, they carry every great sign.
4. The wise seers, each with his own heart, guarding the ageless one, lead the way to his place. Seeking to win him, they looked out upon the river, and the sun became visible to those men.
5. Worthy to be seen in every region, of noble birth, worthy of praise, for the sake of life both great and small — when the bounteous, all-visible one was born in many places, day by day, from these wombs.
Translator's note: verse 3's paired "dhenū" (two milch-cows) is a riddling image, likely Heaven and Earth or Day and Night, converging on Agni as their shared "calf"; rendered conservatively rather than resolved. Verse 5's "ahaibhyo garbhebhyaḥ" (from these wombs, day by day) is grammatically compressed in the source and translated cautiously rather than smoothed over.
Colophon
Rigveda I.146 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.146
trimūrdhānaṁ saptaraśmiṁ gṛṇīṣe 'nūnam agnim pitror upasthe |
niṣattam asya carato dhruvasya viśvā divo rocanāpaprivāṁsam || 1 ||
ukṣā mahām̐ abhi vavakṣa ene ajaras tasthāv itaūtir ṛṣvaḥ |
urvyāḥ pado ni dadhāti sānau rihanty ūdho aruṣāso asya || 2 ||
samānaṁ vatsam abhi saṁcarantī viṣvag dhenū vi carataḥ sumeke |
anapavṛjyām̐ adhvano mimāne viśvān ketām̐ adhi maho dadhāne || 3 ||
dhīrāsaḥ padaṁ kavayo nayanti nānā hṛdā rakṣamāṇā ajuryam |
siṣāsantaḥ pary apaśyanta sindhum āvir ebhyo abhavat sūryo nṝn || 4 ||
didṛkṣeṇyaḥ pari kāṣṭhāsu jenya īḻenyo maho arbhāya jīvase |
purutrā yad abhavat sūr ahaibhyo garbhebhyo maghavā viśvadarśataḥ || 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).