Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.148 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. When eager Mātariśvan churned him forth — the priest of all forms, belonging to all the gods — whom they set down among the tribes of men, radiant like the wondrous sun, shining in his form.
2. They did no harm to the one who gives; Agni has taken delight in my shelter. They welcomed all his works, the praise offered by the poet who brings it.
3. Even in his own fixed seat they grasped him; the worship-worthy ones set him in place with their praises. They lead him forth well, seizing him at the offering, like chariot-horses racing on.
4. The wondrous one consumes many things with his jaws; then, far-shining, he blazes in the wood. Then the wind blows on after his flame, like an archer shooting his arrow, day after day.
5. Whom, while still in the womb, neither deceivers nor those bent on harm could injure with their hurts; the blind, unseeing ones could not deceive him by his splendor — his constant guardians kept watch over him.
Translator's note: verse 2 (dadānam, dadabhanta, cākan) and verse 4 (dasmo ni riṇāti, "consumes/lets loose with his jaws") are among the more compressed and disputed passages in this hymn; the renderings above follow the most literal sense of the roots involved and are offered conservatively.
Colophon
Rigveda I.148 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.148
mathīd yad īṁ viṣṭo mātariśvā hotāraṁ viśvāpsuṁ viśvadevyam |
ni yaṁ dadhur manuṣyāsu vikṣu sva1r ṇa citraṁ vapuṣe vibhāvam || 1 ||
dadānam in na dadabhanta manmāgnir varūtham mama tasya cākan |
juṣanta viśvāny asya karmopastutim bharamāṇasya kāroḥ || 2 ||
nitye cin nu yaṁ sadane jagṛbhre praśastibhir dadhire yajñiyāsaḥ |
pra sū nayanta gṛbhayanta iṣṭāv aśvāso na rathyo rārahāṇāḥ || 3 ||
purūṇi dasmo ni riṇāti jambhair ād rocate vana ā vibhāvā |
ād asya vāto anu vāti śocir astur na śaryām asanām anu dyūn || 4 ||
na yaṁ ripavo na riṣaṇyavo garbhe santaṁ reṣaṇā reṣayanti |
andhā apaśyā na dabhann abhikhyā nityāsa īm pretāro arakṣan || 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).