Indra and the Maruts — A Dialogue with Agastya
Rigveda I.170 is a short dialogue hymn built from exchanges among the sage Agastya, the storm-god Indra, and Indra's troop the Maruts. The Maruts protest that Indra means to kill them though they are his brothers; Indra rebukes Agastya for withholding devotion; the hymn closes with the altar prepared and the two sides reconciled in shared sacrifice. It is one of the 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda organized within Maṇḍala 1, the first of ten books. Tradition credits the hymn to the ṛṣi Agastya, with Indra and the Maruts as its addressees, per the 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. There is no grasping it now, nor tomorrow — who knows what is wonderful and strange? Another's thought is hard to follow, and even what has been learned slips away and is lost.
2. Why, Indra, do you want to kill us? The Maruts are your own brothers. Deal rightly with them — do not strike us down in the encounter.
3. Why, brother Agastya, do you hold us in low regard, though you are our friend? We know well how your mind stands — you are unwilling to give anything to us.
4. Let them make the altar ready, let them kindle the fire before it. There is the sign of the immortal — let the two of us extend the sacrifice for you.
5. You rule, lord of good things, over the good things; you, lord of allies, are the most bountiful among allies. Indra, come to terms with the Maruts, and then partake of the oblations in their due order.
Translator's note: the hymn shifts speakers verse to verse without naming them in the text; verse 2 is traditionally read as the Maruts addressing Indra, verse 3 as Indra addressing Agastya, and verses 4–5 as words spoken to Indra urging reconciliation and sacrifice. "adbhutam" (v.1) is rendered "wonderful and strange" to keep both its senses of marvel and unfamiliarity. "vasupate... vasūnām" and "mitrapate... mitrāṇām" (v.5) are figura-etymologica constructions ("lord of X, over X's") kept literal rather than smoothed into a single epithet.
Colophon
Rigveda I.170 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.170
na nūnam asti no śvaḥ kas tad veda yad adbhutam |
anyasya cittam abhi saṁcareṇyam utādhītaṁ vi naśyati || 1 ||
kiṁ na indra jighāṁsasi bhrātaro marutas tava |
tebhiḥ kalpasva sādhuyā mā naḥ samaraṇe vadhīḥ || 2 ||
kiṁ no bhrātar agastya sakhā sann ati manyase |
vidmā hi te yathā mano 'smabhyam in na ditsasi || 3 ||
araṁ kṛṇvantu vediṁ sam agnim indhatām puraḥ |
tatrāmṛtasya cetanaṁ yajñaṁ te tanavāvahai || 4 ||
tvam īśiṣe vasupate vasūnāṁ tvam mitrāṇām mitrapate dheṣṭhaḥ |
indra tvam marudbhiḥ saṁ vadasvādha prāśāna ṛtuthā havīṁṣi || 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).