Hymn to Indra
Rigveda I.56 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. This restless one has pressed down, like a stallion a mare, and raised himself up. He gives the great one strength to drink, having wheeled around his golden chariot, yoked with bay horses, mighty and skillful.
2. Songs of praise, abundant, converging on him like rivers into the ocean, eager to win — mount up to him, the lord of strength, of the sacrificial assembly. Now with might, like one climbing a mountain, longingly, with your fiery brilliance.
3. He, all-conquering, great, undimmed in manly strength, shines like a mountain crag — an impelling power. By this, in the exhilaration of his iron might, the fierce one, with his helpers, subdued Śuṣṇa the trickster, binding him down in fetters.
4. When divine Might, strengthening you, and her aids follow Indra, as the sun follows the dawn — he who with bold strength drives away the darkness, raises the dust, loud and thunder-voiced.
5. When you set apart the firm, unshaken realm of dust, across the stretched frames of heaven, with your might — when, rejoicing in your exhilaration, in the battle for the sunlight, O Indra, you slew Vṛtra and forced forth the flood of waters.
6. You, mighty one, held up the foundation of heaven with your power, and of earth, in its abodes, O Indra. You, in the exhilaration of the pressed soma, set the waters flowing, and utterly broke apart the bonds of Vṛtra.
Translator's note: this hymn contains several words that are genuinely obscure in Vedic Sanskrit and are rendered conservatively here — among them camriṣaḥ and bhurvaṇiḥ (verse 1, of uncertain sense, rendered by context), nemanniṣaḥ and venā (verse 2, "longingly" is an approximation), ābhūṣu (verse 3, "with his helpers"), and arhariṣvaṇiḥ (verse 4, "thunder-voiced," a compound of disputed derivation). In verse 6, pāṣya is read as "bonds" (from pāśa*); it may instead mean "ribs/sides" (from* pārśva*).*
Colophon
Rigveda I.56 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.56
eṣa pra pūrvīr ava tasya camriṣo 'tyo na yoṣām ud ayaṁsta bhurvaṇiḥ |
dakṣam mahe pāyayate hiraṇyayaṁ ratham āvṛtyā hariyogam ṛbhvasam || 1 ||
taṁ gūrtayo nemanniṣaḥ parīṇasaḥ samudraṁ na saṁcaraṇe saniṣyavaḥ |
patiṁ dakṣasya vidathasya nū saho giriṁ na venā adhi roha tejasā || 2 ||
sa turvaṇir mahām̐ areṇu pauṁsye girer bhṛṣṭir na bhrājate tujā śavaḥ |
yena śuṣṇam māyinam āyaso made dudhra ābhūṣu rāmayan ni dāmani || 3 ||
devī yadi taviṣī tvāvṛdhotaya indraṁ siṣakty uṣasaṁ na sūryaḥ |
yo dhṛṣṇunā śavasā bādhate tama iyarti reṇum bṛhad arhariṣvaṇiḥ || 4 ||
vi yat tiro dharuṇam acyutaṁ rajo 'tiṣṭhipo diva ātāsu barhaṇā |
svarmīḻhe yan mada indra harṣyāhan vṛtraṁ nir apām aubjo arṇavam || 5 ||
tvaṁ divo dharuṇaṁ dhiṣa ojasā pṛthivyā indra sadaneṣu māhinaḥ |
tvaṁ sutasya made ariṇā apo vi vṛtrasya samayā pāṣyārujaḥ || 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).