Āprī Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.188 is an Āprī sūkta, one of the small class of hymns recited over the fire at the start of an animal sacrifice. Rather than address a single deity throughout, an Āprī hymn moves verse by verse through a fixed sequence: Agni under his ritual epithets, the sacred grass (barhis), the doors of the sacrificial ground, Night and Dawn, the two divine priests, the triad Bhāratī-Iḷā-Sarasvatī, Tvaṣṭṛ the shaper of forms, the lord of the forest (the sacrificial post), and finally Agni again as the one who carries the offering with the cry "svāhā." The traditional Anukramaṇī attributes this hymn to the ṛṣi Agastya, in the Gāyatrī meter.
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. Kindled today, you shine, a god among gods, winner of a thousand. As messenger, carry the offerings, O seer.
2. Tanūnapāt: for the one who follows the sacred order, the sacrifice is anointed with honey, bestowing thousandfold nourishment.
3. Invoked, worthy of praise, bring here the gods deserving worship. O Agni, you are the winner of a thousand.
4. With strength they have strewn the sacred grass toward the east, rich in a thousand heroes, where you, O Ādityas, shine in splendor.
5. Widely ruling, sovereign, far-reaching, mighty — the doors, many and ever more, have streamed with ghee.
6. O you two bright with gold, well-adorned, shining in splendor — let the two, Dawn and Night, sit down here.
7. The two foremost, eloquent, the two divine priests, the two seers — let them perform this sacrifice of ours.
8. O Bhāratī, Iḷā, Sarasvatī — all of you whom I invoke — urge us on toward glory.
9. Tvaṣṭṛ, the mighty one, has shaped the forms of all creatures. Win for us, through sacrifice, their abundance.
10. Of your own accord, O lord of the forest, send the offering's portion to the gods; let Agni make the oblations sweet.
11. Agni, forerunner of the gods, is adorned with the Gāyatrī verse; he shines amid the offerings made with "svāhā."
Translator's note: several terms name fixed ritual figures rather than describe qualities — Tanūnapāt (verse 2) and "lord of the forest" / Vanaspati (verse 10) are both epithets of Agni in his different ritual roles, and "the two" in verses 6–7 refers to Night-and-Dawn and to the pair of officiating priests (dual forms in the Sanskrit, without named referents beyond their function). Verse 5's subject, "the doors" (duraḥ), is supplied from the feminine plural adjectives, which have no expressed noun in the Sanskrit itself.
Colophon
Rigveda I.188 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.188
samiddho adya rājasi devo devaiḥ sahasrajit |
dūto havyā kavir vaha || 1 ||
tanūnapād ṛtaṁ yate madhvā yajñaḥ sam ajyate |
dadhat sahasriṇīr iṣaḥ || 2 ||
ājuhvāno na īḍyo devām̐ ā vakṣi yajñiyān |
agne sahasrasā asi || 3 ||
prācīnam barhir ojasā sahasravīram astṛṇan |
yatrādityā virājatha || 4 ||
virāṭ samrāḍ vibhvīḥ prabhvīr bahvīś ca bhūyasīś ca yāḥ |
duro ghṛtāny akṣaran || 5 ||
surukme hi supeśasādhi śriyā virājataḥ |
uṣāsāv eha sīdatām || 6 ||
prathamā hi suvācasā hotārā daivyā kavī |
yajñaṁ no yakṣatām imam || 7 ||
bhāratīḻe sarasvati yā vaḥ sarvā upabruve |
tā naś codayata śriye || 8 ||
tvaṣṭā rūpāṇi hi prabhuḥ paśūn viśvān samānaje |
teṣāṁ naḥ sphātim ā yaja || 9 ||
upa tmanyā vanaspate pātho devebhyaḥ sṛja |
agnir havyāni siṣvadat || 10 ||
purogā agnir devānāṁ gāyatreṇa sam ajyate |
svāhākṛtīṣu rocate || 11 ||
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).