Hymn to the Maruts
Rigveda I.88 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to the Maruts, the storm-troop of heaven, sons of Rudra, who ride the winds and shake the earth. It is one of the 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda organized within Maṇḍala 1, the first of ten books. The hymn is attributed to the Gotama family of seers, who are named within the verses themselves.
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, O Maruts, with your lightning-bearing, sun-resounding chariots, with your spear-carrying, wing-horsed teams. Fly toward us like birds, bringing your most abundant refreshment, you of true power.
2. They drive forth for splendor with reddish, tawny, chariot-swift horses. Gleaming bright like gold, axe-bearing, they strike the earth with the rim of the chariot wheel.
3. For glory upon your bodies you carry your blades, set upright like trees. For you, well-born Maruts, mighty in splendor, they make the pressing-stone resound.
4. Eager, for days they have gathered around you, to this hymn and to the divine song of praise. The Gotamas, shaping sacred speech with their songs, have driven the spring upward, to drink.
5. This yoking of yours has been made known, as when Gotama once sang out to you, O Maruts — seeing you as running boars, golden-wheeled, iron-tusked.
6. This song of yours that follows and upholds you, O Maruts, resounds in answer like the voice of the chanting priest. It rang out, after its own free force, in his two hands.
Translator's note: several words in this hymn are uncertain even in the traditional readings — among them "vāśīḥ" (rendered here as "blades"), "gṛdhrāḥ" ("eager," literally closer to "greedy" or "vulture-like"), "medhā" (omitted where its sense could not be pinned down), and "gabhastyoḥ" ("in his two hands," possibly the arms of the priest at the pressing-stone). These are translated conservatively rather than confidently.
Colophon
Rigveda I.88 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.88
ā vidyunmadbhir marutaḥ svarkai rathebhir yāta ṛṣṭimadbhir aśvaparṇaiḥ |
ā varṣiṣṭhayā na iṣā vayo na paptatā sumāyāḥ || 1 ||
te 'ruṇebhir varam ā piśaṅgaiḥ śubhe kaṁ yānti rathatūrbhir aśvaiḥ |
rukmo na citraḥ svadhitīvān pavyā rathasya jaṅghananta bhūma || 2 ||
śriye kaṁ vo adhi tanūṣu vāśīr medhā vanā na kṛṇavanta ūrdhvā |
yuṣmabhyaṁ kam marutaḥ sujātās tuvidyumnāso dhanayante adrim || 3 ||
ahāni gṛdhrāḥ pary ā va āgur imāṁ dhiyaṁ vārkāryāṁ ca devīm |
brahma kṛṇvanto gotamāso arkair ūrdhvaṁ nunudra utsadhim pibadhyai || 4 ||
etat tyan na yojanam aceti sasvar ha yan maruto gotamo vaḥ |
paśyan hiraṇyacakrān ayodaṁṣṭrān vidhāvato varāhūn || 5 ||
eṣā syā vo maruto 'nubhartrī prati ṣṭobhati vāghato na vāṇī |
astobhayad vṛthāsām anu svadhāṁ gabhastyoḥ || 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).