Hymn to Savitṛ and the Gandharva Viśvāvasu
Rigveda X.139 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. Sun-rayed, golden-haired, Savitar has raised up the unfailing light from the east. At his impulse Pūṣan goes forth, the knowing one, watching over all beings as a herdsman.
2. This one, who watches over men, sits in the middle of heaven, having filled the two world-halves and the space between. He looks upon all the paths turned toward the ghee-offering, between the eastern beacon and the western.
3. He is the root of wealth, the gatherer of treasures; he beholds all forms by his powers. Like the god Savitar, true to his laws, like Indra he has taken his stand where the prizes are contested.
4. O Soma, the waters, having seen the Gandharva Viśvāvasu, dispersed each to their own place by that same truth. Indra, hastening, found this out; he saw the sun's encircling bounds around them.
5. May Viśvāvasu proclaim that to us — the heavenly Gandharva, measurer of the airy realm. Whatever is true, or what we do not know, let him urge on our thoughts and favor our thoughts alone.
6. He found the victor in the flowing of the rivers; he threw open the doors of the stone-built pens. The Gandharva declared the immortal things aloud; Indra came to know the power of the serpents.
Translator's note: Verse 2's "ghṛtācīḥ" and "viśvācīḥ" (rendered here as "paths turned toward the ghee-offering") are opaque — they may instead describe ritual ladles or cows facing every direction; the sense is conservative rather than certain. Verse 6's "ahīnām," rendered "of the serpents," could instead carry a sense closer to "of the unceasing ones"; both readings are attested in the scholarship, and the literal serpent-sense is kept here as the more direct rendering of the word.
Colophon
Rigveda X.139 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.139
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.
sūryaraśmir harikeśaḥ purastāt savitā jyotir ud ayām̐ ajasram |
tasya pūṣā prasave yāti vidvān sampaśyan viśvā bhuvanāni gopāḥ || 1 ||
nṛcakṣā eṣa divo madhya āsta āpaprivān rodasī antarikṣam |
sa viśvācīr abhi caṣṭe ghṛtācīr antarā pūrvam aparaṁ ca ketum || 2 ||
rāyo budhnaḥ saṁgamano vasūnāṁ viśvā rūpābhi caṣṭe śacībhiḥ |
deva iva savitā satyadharmendro na tasthau samare dhanānām || 3 ||
viśvāvasuṁ soma gandharvam āpo dadṛśuṣīs tad ṛtenā vy āyan |
tad anvavaid indro rārahāṇa āsām pari sūryasya paridhīm̐r apaśyat || 4 ||
viśvāvasur abhi tan no gṛṇātu divyo gandharvo rajaso vimānaḥ |
yad vā ghā satyam uta yan na vidma dhiyo hinvāno dhiya in no avyāḥ || 5 ||
sasnim avindac caraṇe nadīnām apāvṛṇod duro aśmavrajānām |
prāsāṁ gandharvo amṛtāni vocad indro dakṣam pari jānād ahīnām || 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).