Hymn to Indra
Rigveda I.5 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. Come now, sit down here; sing out toward Indra, O friends who carry forth the hymn of praise.
2. To Indra, most abundant among the many, ruler over the things worth having, together with him at the pressed soma.
3. May he be present for us in our undertaking, for wealth, for abundance; may he come to us bringing rewards.
4. He whose pair of bay horses no enemies withstand in the gatherings of battle — sing to that Indra.
5. For him who drinks the pressed soma, these bright pressed somas, mixed with curds, go forth for his feasting.
6. You, for the drinking of the pressed soma, were born full-grown all at once, O Indra, for supremacy, O skillful one.
7. May the swift soma-drinks enter into you, O Indra who delights in song; may they be well-being for you, O perceiving one.
8. The hymns of praise have made you grow strong; the recitations have made you grow strong, O hundred-powered one; may our songs make you grow strong.
9. May Indra, whose help never fails, win this thousandfold prize, in which are all manly powers.
10. Let no mortals do harm to our bodies, O Indra who delights in praise; as the one who has the power, ward off the deadly weapon.
Translator's note: "puraṁdhyām" (verse 3) denotes a kind of abundance or bounty whose exact conceptual range is debated; it is rendered here conservatively as "abundance." "Yoga" (verse 3) carries the sense of an undertaking, effort, or acquisition and is rendered accordingly rather than in its later technical sense.
Colophon
Rigveda I.5 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.5
ā tv etā ni ṣīdatendram abhi pra gāyata |
sakhāyaḥ stomavāhasaḥ || 1 ||
purūtamam purūṇām īśānaṁ vāryāṇām |
indraṁ some sacā sute || 2 ||
sa ghā no yoga ā bhuvat sa rāye sa puraṁdhyām |
gamad vājebhir ā sa naḥ || 3 ||
yasya saṁsthe na vṛṇvate harī samatsu śatravaḥ |
tasmā indrāya gāyata || 4 ||
sutapāvne sutā ime śucayo yanti vītaye |
somāso dadhyāśiraḥ || 5 ||
tvaṁ sutasya pītaye sadyo vṛddho ajāyathāḥ |
indra jyaiṣṭhyāya sukrato || 6 ||
ā tvā viśantv āśavaḥ somāsa indra girvaṇaḥ |
śaṁ te santu pracetase || 7 ||
tvāṁ stomā avīvṛdhan tvām ukthā śatakrato |
tvāṁ vardhantu no giraḥ || 8 ||
akṣitotiḥ saned imaṁ vājam indraḥ sahasriṇam |
yasmin viśvāni pauṁsyā || 9 ||
mā no martā abhi druhan tanūnām indra girvaṇaḥ |
īśāno yavayā vadham || 10 ||
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).