Hymn to Dyāvāpṛthivī
Rigveda I.159 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Dyāvāpṛthivī, Heaven and Earth, the great parental pair who sustain all living things. 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 praise forth Heaven and Earth with sacrifices — the great strengtheners of cosmic order, wise ones, at the sacred gatherings. Together with the gods, O you two whose children are gods, wondrous in your works, you furnish all that is desirable through your insight.
2. And I consider this too: the mind of the guileless father, the greatness of the mother — mighty ones — reached by our invocations. The two parents of true seed made the earth wide for their offspring, and immortality, through their vast expanses.
3. Those sons, skilled in their work, wondrous in power, brought the two great mothers into being for the sake of ancient understanding. In the truth of what stands still and the law of what moves is the place, the path of the son — the two who hold nothing back.
4. Those two full of wondrous power, deeply wise, kindred, sprung from one womb, paired, dwelling together, fashioned all this. Bright-shining seers stretch out an ever-new thread in heaven and within the ocean.
5. Today we contemplate that choicest bounty of Savitṛ, sent forth at the god's impulse. O Heaven and Earth, with kindly insight grant us wealth rich in goods, wealth a hundredfold.
Translator's note: verses 2–4 are syntactically dense and among the more compressed passages in the early Rigveda. Terms such as advayāvinaḥ ("without duplicity," rendered here "who hold nothing back"), pūrvacittaye ("for ancient understanding/perception"), and the clause sthātuś ca satyaṁ jagataś ca dharmaṇi ("in the truth of what stands still and the law of what moves") admit more than one defensible reading; they are rendered conservatively and literally rather than smoothed into easier English.
Colophon
Rigveda I.159 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.159
pra dyāvā yajñaiḥ pṛthivī ṛtāvṛdhā mahī stuṣe vidatheṣu pracetasā |
devebhir ye devaputre sudaṁsasetthā dhiyā vāryāṇi prabhūṣataḥ || 1 ||
uta manye pitur adruho mano mātur mahi svatavas tad dhavīmabhiḥ |
suretasā pitarā bhūma cakratur uru prajāyā amṛtaṁ varīmabhiḥ || 2 ||
te sūnavaḥ svapasaḥ sudaṁsaso mahī jajñur mātarā pūrvacittaye |
sthātuś ca satyaṁ jagataś ca dharmaṇi putrasya pāthaḥ padam advayāvinaḥ || 3 ||
te māyino mamire supracetaso jāmī sayonī mithunā samokasā |
navyaṁ-navyaṁ tantum ā tanvate divi samudre antaḥ kavayaḥ sudītayaḥ || 4 ||
tad rādho adya savitur vareṇyaṁ vayaṁ devasya prasave manāmahe |
asmabhyaṁ dyāvāpṛthivī sucetunā rayiṁ dhattaṁ vasumantaṁ śatagvinam || 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).