Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.77 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Agni, the divine fire, messenger between mortals and gods, the eternal priest of the sacred rite. 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. How should we bring homage to Agni? To which one, and with what song, is the god-loved word spoken to the blazing one — he who, immortal among mortals, possessing truth, the priest, most zealous at sacrifice, brings the gods?
2. He who at the rites is most beneficent, possessing truth, the priest — him honor with acts of reverence. When Agni seeks out the gods for the mortal, he himself, mindful, worships with his own thought.
3. He indeed is will, he is the youth, he is the accomplisher; like Mitra he has become the charioteer of the wondrous one. Him, first at the sacrificial feasts, the god-seeking clans call upon — the wonder-worker, the devoted ones.
4. May he, most manly among men, destroyer of foes, Agni, come with his help to our songs and our thought. And may those bounteous ones, mightiest, driven onward by the prize, continually further our hymn.
5. Thus has Agni, possessing truth, been praised by the Gotamas, the inspired poets — Jātavedas, knower of all beings. May he make splendor swell among them; may he make strength swell; may he go, pleased and mindful, toward [our] increase.
Translator's note: "ver" in verse 2 (from the root vī/vṛ, "to seek out, pursue, choose") is rendered "seeks out" — a genuinely compressed line whose exact sense (seeking vs. bringing the gods) is debated. "Jātavedas" (verse 5), an epithet of Agni meaning roughly "knower of all born beings" or "possessor of all births," is left partly untranslated as a proper epithet rather than forced into a single English phrase.
Colophon
Rigveda I.77 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.77
kathā dāśemāgnaye kāsmai devajuṣṭocyate bhāmine gīḥ |
yo martyeṣv amṛta ṛtāvā hotā yajiṣṭha it kṛṇoti devān || 1 ||
yo adhvareṣu śaṁtama ṛtāvā hotā tam ū namobhir ā kṛṇudhvam |
agnir yad ver martāya devān sa cā bodhāti manasā yajāti || 2 ||
sa hi kratuḥ sa maryaḥ sa sādhur mitro na bhūd adbhutasya rathīḥ |
tam medheṣu prathamaṁ devayantīr viśa upa bruvate dasmam ārīḥ || 3 ||
sa no nṛṇāṁ nṛtamo riśādā agnir giro 'vasā vetu dhītim |
tanā ca ye maghavānaḥ śaviṣṭhā vājaprasūtā iṣayanta manma || 4 ||
evāgnir gotamebhir ṛtāvā viprebhir astoṣṭa jātavedāḥ |
sa eṣu dyumnam pīpayat sa vājaṁ sa puṣṭiṁ yāti joṣam ā cikitvān || 5 ||
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).