Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.147 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. How have the bright ones of Ayu given to you, Agni, hastening eagerly with their offerings of strength — setting their hope on both child and further offspring — so that the gods delight in the chant of truth?
2. Heed this word of mine, youngest one, most bountiful, offered one, master of your own power. One person reviles, another sings praise; as your worshipper, I praise your very body, Agni.
3. Your guardians, Agni, seeing the blind son of Mamatā, protected him from distress. The well-acting, all-knowing one protected them; the enemies who sought to harm him did not in fact succeed.
4. Whoever, Agni, ungenerous and evil-minded, malicious, injures us through duplicity — let that curse fall back heavy upon him; may it strike his own body with his own evil words.
5. Or whoever, O mighty one, knowingly harms one mortal against another through duplicity — from this protect us, O praised one; protect the one who praises you. Agni, do not deliver us over to misfortune.
Translator's note: "the son of Mamatā" (māmateyam) in verse 3 refers to the sage Dīrghatamas, traditionally the composer of this hymn, who is remembered in the Rigveda as blind from birth; verse 3 recalls Agni's guardians protecting him. "Toka" and "tanaya" in verse 1 (rendered "child and further offspring") is a fixed Vedic pair meaning one's immediate children and descendants beyond them.
Colophon
Rigveda I.147 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.147
kathā te agne śucayanta āyor dadāśur vājebhir āśuṣāṇāḥ |
ubhe yat toke tanaye dadhānā ṛtasya sāman raṇayanta devāḥ || 1 ||
bodhā me asya vacaso yaviṣṭha maṁhiṣṭhasya prabhṛtasya svadhāvaḥ |
pīyati tvo anu tvo gṛṇāti vandārus te tanvaṁ vande agne || 2 ||
ye pāyavo māmateyaṁ te agne paśyanto andhaṁ duritād arakṣan |
rarakṣa tān sukṛto viśvavedā dipsanta id ripavo nāha debhuḥ || 3 ||
yo no agne ararivām̐ aghāyur arātīvā marcayati dvayena |
mantro guruḥ punar astu so asmā anu mṛkṣīṣṭa tanvaṁ duruktaiḥ || 4 ||
uta vā yaḥ sahasya pravidvān marto martam marcayati dvayena |
ataḥ pāhi stavamāna stuvantam agne mākir no duritāya dhāyīḥ || 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).