Hymn to the Viśvedevas
Rigveda X.114 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. It is a brahmodya, a riddle-hymn: it questions how the many forms of the ritual — its meters, its soma-cups, its "eagle" — are secretly one.
1. The two heated ones have flown apart through the threefold world; Mātariśvan came to their delight. Desiring the milk of heaven, the gods set to their labor; they know the song that overpowers.
2. Three dissolutions wait upon their allotted task; the far-hearing bearers of the rite truly know them. The seers have discerned their binding-point — those that dwell in farther, hidden ordinances.
3. The young woman with four braids, well adorned, her face gleaming with ghee, wears the ritual marks. Upon her two mighty, bull-like eagles have settled, where the gods established their share.
4. The one eagle has entered the ocean; it looks out over this whole world. I saw it close at hand, with a simple mind — the mother licks it, and it in turn licks the mother.
5. The inspired seers, with their words, shape the eagle — though it is one — into many forms. Setting the meters into the rites, they measure out the twelve soma-draughts.
6. Fashioning the thirty-six and the four, and setting the meters up to the twelfth, the seers, having measured out the sacrifice with their insight, set the chariot rolling forward by verse and chant.
7. Fourteen other powers belong to this one chariot; seven wise ones lead it onward by speech. Who here can tell of the ford being reached — the path by which they first drink of the pressed soma?
8. A thousandfold are the fifteen praise-hymns; as far as heaven and earth reach, so far that extends. A thousandfold their greatness, a thousand their measure — as far as the sacred formula is spread, so far speech reaches.
9. What wise one knows the yoking of the meters? Who has grasped speech in answer to the sacred seat? Whom do they call the eighth hero among the officiating priests? Who indeed has perceived Indra's two bay steeds?
10. Some travel around the ends of the earth; they stand yoked to the poles of the chariot. The share of their toil is dealt out to them when Yama is set fast in his stronghold.
Translator's note: several terms in this hymn resist certainty. "gharmā" (v.1, dual) is rendered "the two heated ones," a term elsewhere denoting the hot milk-vessels of the ritual; "tisro nirṛtīḥ" (v.2) as "three dissolutions" follows the word's ordinary sense (undoing, dissolution) rather than a fixed technical referent; "dhiṣṇyām" (v.9) as "sacred seat" follows its use for a ritual hearth or altar-place. The numerical riddles of verses 5–8 (twelve, thirty-six and four, fourteen, fifteen, a thousand) refer to features of the meters and soma-liturgy whose exact counting scheme is debated among Vedic ritualists and is left here as the hymn states it, without resolving it.
Colophon
Rigveda X.114 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.114
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.
gharmā samantā trivṛtaṁ vy āpatus tayor juṣṭim mātariśvā jagāma |
divas payo didhiṣāṇā aveṣan vidur devāḥ sahasāmānam arkam || 1 ||
tisro deṣṭrāya nirṛtīr upāsate dīrghaśruto vi hi jānanti vahnayaḥ |
tāsāṁ ni cikyuḥ kavayo nidānam pareṣu yā guhyeṣu vrateṣu || 2 ||
catuṣkapardā yuvatiḥ supeśā ghṛtapratīkā vayunāni vaste |
tasyāṁ suparṇā vṛṣaṇā ni ṣedatur yatra devā dadhire bhāgadheyam || 3 ||
ekaḥ suparṇaḥ sa samudram ā viveśa sa idaṁ viśvam bhuvanaṁ vi caṣṭe |
tam pākena manasāpaśyam antitas tam mātā reḻhi sa u reḻhi mātaram || 4 ||
suparṇaṁ viprāḥ kavayo vacobhir ekaṁ santam bahudhā kalpayanti |
chandāṁsi ca dadhato adhvareṣu grahān somasya mimate dvādaśa || 5 ||
ṣaṭtriṁśām̐ś ca caturaḥ kalpayantaś chandāṁsi ca dadhata ādvādaśam |
yajñaṁ vimāya kavayo manīṣa ṛksāmābhyām pra rathaṁ vartayanti || 6 ||
caturdaśānye mahimāno asya taṁ dhīrā vācā pra ṇayanti sapta |
āpnānaṁ tīrthaṁ ka iha pra vocad yena pathā prapibante sutasya || 7 ||
sahasradhā pañcadaśāny ukthā yāvad dyāvāpṛthivī tāvad it tat |
sahasradhā mahimānaḥ sahasraṁ yāvad brahma viṣṭhitaṁ tāvatī vāk || 8 ||
kaś chandasāṁ yogam ā veda dhīraḥ ko dhiṣṇyām prati vācam papāda |
kam ṛtvijām aṣṭamaṁ śūram āhur harī indrasya ni cikāya kaḥ svit || 9 ||
bhūmyā antam pary eke caranti rathasya dhūrṣu yuktāso asthuḥ |
śramasya dāyaṁ vi bhajanty ebhyo yadā yamo bhavati harmye hitaḥ || 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).