Hymn to Indra
Rigveda I.175 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Indra, the storm-king and champion of the gods, slayer of Vṛtra, lord of thunder and rain. 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. The exhilarating draught, your great intoxicant, has been drunk as if from the cup, O lord of bay steeds. Your soma-drop is bull-strong, vigorous, winning a thousandfold.
2. Let that excellent, bull-strong, intoxicating exhilaration come to us, Indra — powerful, bounteous, conqueror of armies, immortal one.
3. For you, hero and winner, drove forward the chariot of man. Powerful one, you burned the lawless Dasyu with your blaze, as a pot is scorched by fire.
4. You stole the sun's wheel, wise one, ruling by your might. Bring the death-blow for Śuṣṇa — and for Kutsa, with the horses of Vāta.
5. Your exhilaration is indeed mightiest in force, most glorious, and so is your resolve — Vṛtra-slayer, finder of open room. Think of us, best winner of horses.
6. As you have become, Indra, like joy to the singers of old, like water to the thirsty — following that, I call to you with this hymn of invocation. May we find nourishment, strength, and your swift-given bounty.
Translator's note: verse 1's opening "matsy apāyi" is a difficult, rare form (an intoxicating draught "has been drunk"); it is rendered conservatively. Śuṣṇa (v. 4) is a demon/adversary of Indra, Kutsa (v. 4) a human ally of Indra in other hymns, and Vāta (v. 4) is the wind-god whose horses Indra is asked to use — all kept as proper names rather than translated.
Colophon
Rigveda I.175 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.175
matsy apāyi te mahaḥ pātrasyeva harivo matsaro madaḥ |
vṛṣā te vṛṣṇa indur vājī sahasrasātamaḥ || 1 ||
ā nas te gantu matsaro vṛṣā mado vareṇyaḥ |
sahāvām̐ indra sānasiḥ pṛtanāṣāḻ amartyaḥ || 2 ||
tvaṁ hi śūraḥ sanitā codayo manuṣo ratham |
sahāvān dasyum avratam oṣaḥ pātraṁ na śociṣā || 3 ||
muṣāya sūryaṁ kave cakram īśāna ojasā |
vaha śuṣṇāya vadhaṁ kutsaṁ vātasyāśvaiḥ || 4 ||
śuṣmintamo hi te mado dyumnintama uta kratuḥ |
vṛtraghnā varivovidā maṁsīṣṭhā aśvasātamaḥ || 5 ||
yathā pūrvebhyo jaritṛbhya indra maya ivāpo na tṛṣyate babhūtha |
tām anu tvā nividaṁ johavīmi vidyāmeṣaṁ vṛjanaṁ jīradānum || 6 ||
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).