Hymn to the All-Gods
Rigveda X.101 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 10 of the Rigveda, one of the 1,028 hymns organized within the ten books of the oldest Veda. The Rigveda was composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE in Vedic Sanskrit and preserved through oral transmission across millennia.
This is a Good Works Translation produced for the Good Works Library from the Sanskrit of the Śākala recension.
1. Awake, friends of one mind! Kindle the fire together, you many who share one hearth. I call down Dadhikrā, Agni, and the goddess Dawn — with Indra's aid — for your protection.
2. Make your thoughts gladdening; stretch them out well. Make a boat that carries across with oars. Make ready your gear; prepare your equipment. Lead the sacrifice forward, friends.
3. Yoke the ploughs; stretch the yokes out wide. Sow the seed here in the furrow made ready. May listening to our song, richly given, be ours; may the ripe grain come close to the sickle.
4. The wise ones yoke the ploughs; they stretch the yokes apart, each to its place — the sages, seeking favor among the gods.
5. Make ready the troughs; fasten the cords together. Let us draw from the well, full of water — easy to draw, never failing.
6. From the well with its trough made ready, with good cords, easy to pour, full of water — I draw, and it does not run dry.
7. Gladden the horses; you shall win the prize. Make indeed a chariot that carries safely. Draw from the well with its wooden trough, its stone wheel, its hide-bound bucket — the drink for men.
8. Make an enclosure — for this is indeed your drink for men. Sew armor, ample and broad. Build fortresses of metal, unyielding. Let your bowl not leak; make it strong.
9. Turn your worshipful thought here for our help, O gods — the divine one, worthy of worship. May she yield us milk, going out as if to pasture — the great cow, streaming milk in a thousand rivulets.
10. Pour the tawny draught into the lap of the wooden vessel; shape it with axes of stone. Bind it round with ten girths. Yoke the carrier to both poles.
11. The carrier, drinking, moves between the two poles as if within a resting-place, like one with two mates. Set the lord of the wood among the trees; set it down well, without digging up the spring.
12. Men, lift up the kapṛtha. Urge on, press, for winning the prize. Bring forth the son of Niṣṭigrī; press Indra here, eagerly, to drink the soma.
Translator's note: "kapṛtham" (v.12) and "niṣṭigryaḥ putram" ("the son of Niṣṭigrī," v.12) are obscure ritual and proper-name terms without a settled modern sense; they are rendered conservatively, close to the Sanskrit, rather than resolved by guesswork. "Dvijāniḥ" (v.11), literally "having two mates/wives," is kept as a comparison rather than expanded.
Colophon
Rigveda X.101 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 X.101
Sanskrit source text from the Aufrecht edition (1877) via GRETIL (Van Nooten & Holland input). Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
ud budhyadhvaṁ samanasaḥ sakhāyaḥ sam agnim indhvam bahavaḥ sanīḻāḥ |
dadhikrām agnim uṣasaṁ ca devīm indrāvato 'vase ni hvaye vaḥ || 1 ||
mandrā kṛṇudhvaṁ dhiya ā tanudhvaṁ nāvam aritraparaṇīṁ kṛṇudhvam |
iṣkṛṇudhvam āyudhāraṁ kṛṇudhvam prāñcaṁ yajñam pra ṇayatā sakhāyaḥ || 2 ||
yunakta sīrā vi yugā tanudhvaṁ kṛte yonau vapateha bījam |
girā ca śruṣṭiḥ sabharā asan no nedīya it sṛṇyaḥ pakvam eyāt || 3 ||
sīrā yuñjanti kavayo yugā vi tanvate pṛthak |
dhīrā deveṣu sumnayā || 4 ||
nir āhāvān kṛṇotana saṁ varatrā dadhātana |
siñcāmahā avatam udriṇaṁ vayaṁ suṣekam anupakṣitam || 5 ||
iṣkṛtāhāvam avataṁ suvaratraṁ suṣecanam |
udriṇaṁ siñce akṣitam || 6 ||
prīṇītāśvān hitaṁ jayātha svastivāhaṁ ratham it kṛṇudhvam |
droṇāhāvam avatam aśmacakram aṁsatrakośaṁ siñcatā nṛpāṇam || 7 ||
vrajaṁ kṛṇudhvaṁ sa hi vo nṛpāṇo varma sīvyadhvam bahulā pṛthūni |
puraḥ kṛṇudhvam āyasīr adhṛṣṭā mā vaḥ susroc camaso dṛṁhatā tam || 8 ||
ā vo dhiyaṁ yajñiyāṁ varta ūtaye devā devīṁ yajatāṁ yajñiyām iha |
sā no duhīyad yavaseva gatvī sahasradhārā payasā mahī gauḥ || 9 ||
ā tū ṣiñca harim īṁ dror upasthe vāśībhis takṣatāśmanmayībhiḥ |
pari ṣvajadhvaṁ daśa kakṣyābhir ubhe dhurau prati vahniṁ yunakta || 10 ||
ubhe dhurau vahnir āpibdamāno 'ntar yoneva carati dvijāniḥ |
vanaspatiṁ vana āsthāpayadhvaṁ ni ṣū dadhidhvam akhananta utsam || 11 ||
kapṛn naraḥ kapṛtham ud dadhātana codayata khudata vājasātaye |
niṣṭigryaḥ putram ā cyāvayotaya indraṁ sabādha iha somapītaye || 12 ||
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).