Hymn to Agni

Rigveda I.67 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Agni, the divine fire, in his riddling and hidden aspect. The hymn speaks of Agni as one who conceals himself — sitting hidden among the gods, moving from hiding place to hiding place — while also holding up earth and sky, dwelling within plants and living creatures, and receiving the hymns that wise men fashion for him. 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. Victorious in the forests, a friend among mortals, he chooses ready service — ageless, like a king.

2. Like settled peace, like a blessed purpose, he became the wise priest, the carrier of the offering.

3. Holding in his hand every kind of manly power, he set the gods within his strength, sitting hidden.

4. There the wise, insight-bearing men found it, when with their hearts they proclaimed the hymns they had fashioned.

5. Like the Unborn One, he held up the earth; he propped up the sky with true sacred words.

6. Guard the dear footsteps of the herd, O Agni, you whose life spans all — hidden, you went from hiding place to hiding place.

7. He who perceived him there, being hidden — he who has settled upon the stream of the sacred order —

8. those who go forth, following the sacred laws — then indeed he declared treasures to him.

9. He who, through his greatness, grows within the plants, and within creatures, and within those who give birth.

10. The awareness of the waters, whole in life, in the dwelling — the wise, having measured it out, fashioned it like a house.

Translator's note: this hymn is a notoriously compressed riddle-text, and several terms admit more than one reading. "guhā" (hidden, in a hiding place) is rendered literally throughout rather than expanded. "ajo na" in verse 5 is rendered "like the Unborn One," a common epithet-figure in Vedic riddle hymns, rather than the literal "goat," which does not fit the sense of holding up the earth. Verses 7 and 8 form a single sentence in the Sanskrit (a relative clause completed by the main verb in verse 8) and are kept as two numbered verses to match the source line-breaks, so verse 7 reads as an incomplete clause in English as it does in the Sanskrit.

Colophon

Rigveda I.67 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.67

vaneṣu jāyur marteṣu mitro vṛṇīte śruṣṭiṁ rājevājuryam || 1 ||

kṣemo na sādhuḥ kratur na bhadro bhuvat svādhīr hotā havyavāṭ || 2 ||

haste dadhāno nṛmṇā viśvāny ame devān dhād guhā niṣīdan || 3 ||

vidantīm atra naro dhiyaṁdhā hṛdā yat taṣṭān mantrām̐ aśaṁsan || 4 ||

ajo na kṣāṁ dādhāra pṛthivīṁ tastambha dyām mantrebhiḥ satyaiḥ || 5 ||

priyā padāni paśvo ni pāhi viśvāyur agne guhā guhaṁ gāḥ || 6 ||

ya īṁ ciketa guhā bhavantam ā yaḥ sasāda dhārām ṛtasya || 7 ||

vi ye cṛtanty ṛtā sapanta ād id vasūni pra vavācāsmai || 8 ||

vi yo vīrutsu rodhan mahitvota prajā uta prasūṣv antaḥ || 9 ||

cittir apāṁ dame viśvāyuḥ sadmeva dhīrāḥ sammāya cakruḥ || 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).