Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.78 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. Toward you, O Jātavedas, watchful one, we the Gotamas sound forth with a hymn — with splendors we loudly praise you.
2. That very you Gotama honors with a hymn, desiring wealth — with splendors we loudly praise you.
3. That very you, most winner of strength, we call upon as the Aṅgirases once did — with splendors we loudly praise you.
4. That very you, best slayer of obstacles, who shake the Dasyus loose — with splendors we loudly praise you.
5. We, the Rāhūgaṇas, have spoken to Agni a honeyed speech — with splendors we loudly praise you.
Translator's note: "vicarṣaṇe" (v. 1) is a common Agni epithet of uncertain precise sense, rendered here conservatively as "watchful one" (from car-, "to move/observe"). "dyumnair abhi pra ṇonumaḥ," the refrain closing every verse, is rendered "with splendors we loudly praise you" (ṇu-, "to sound/roar," intensive-reduplicated). "Gotamā" and "Rahūgaṇāḥ" (vv. 1, 5) both name the same composing family, Gotama Rāhūgaṇa's clan; kept as given in each verse.
Colophon
Rigveda I.78 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.78
abhi tvā gotamā girā jātavedo vicarṣaṇe |
dyumnair abhi pra ṇonumaḥ || 1 ||
tam u tvā gotamo girā rāyaskāmo duvasyati |
dyumnair abhi pra ṇonumaḥ || 2 ||
tam u tvā vājasātamam aṅgirasvad dhavāmahe |
dyumnair abhi pra ṇonumaḥ || 3 ||
tam u tvā vṛtrahantamaṁ yo dasyūm̐r avadhūnuṣe |
dyumnair abhi pra ṇonumaḥ || 4 ||
avocāma rahūgaṇā agnaye madhumad vacaḥ |
dyumnair abhi pra ṇonumaḥ || 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).