Agni, Invoked with the Maruts
Rigveda I.19 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Agni, the divine fire, and calls him to the sacrifice in company with the Maruts, the storm gods. Each verse closes with the same refrain — "come, Agni, with the Maruts" — building toward the final offering of soma. 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. You are called forth to that lovely rite, for its protection. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
2. No god, no mortal, surpasses the greatness of your will. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
3. Those who know the vastness of the middle realm, all the gods, free of deceit. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
4. Those mighty ones who have sung the hymn of praise, unassailable in their strength. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
5. Those who are bright, terrible in form, good rulers, destroyers of foes. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
6. Those gods who sit in the luminous vault, above the dome of heaven. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
7. Those who set the mountains swaying, across the surging sea. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
8. Those who stretch forth with their reins, by their strength, across the sea. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
9. For you, for the first drink, I pour out the sweet soma. Come, Agni, with the Maruts.
Translator's note: "rajas" in verse 3 (rendered "middle realm") denotes the atmospheric or middle space of the Vedic threefold cosmos, not literal dust. "riśādas" in verse 5 ("destroyers of foes") is a standing epithet whose exact derivation is debated; it is rendered by its conventional sense. "raśmibhiḥ" in verse 8 ("reins") can mean either reins or rays of light; the sea/mountain imagery of the surrounding verses favors reins, taken here as the harness by which the Maruts drive their course.
Colophon
Rigveda I.19 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.19
prati tyaṁ cārum adhvaraṁ gopīthāya pra hūyase |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 1 ||
nahi devo na martyo mahas tava kratum paraḥ |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 2 ||
ye maho rajaso vidur viśve devāso adruhaḥ |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 3 ||
ya ugrā arkam ānṛcur anādhṛṣṭāsa ojasā |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 4 ||
ye śubhrā ghoravarpasaḥ sukṣatrāso riśādasaḥ |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 5 ||
ye nākasyādhi rocane divi devāsa āsate |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 6 ||
ya īṅkhayanti parvatān tiraḥ samudram arṇavam |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 7 ||
ā ye tanvanti raśmibhis tiraḥ samudram ojasā |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 8 ||
abhi tvā pūrvapītaye sṛjāmi somyam madhu |
marudbhir agna ā gahi || 9 ||
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).