Hymn to Agni, the Forest Fire
Rigveda X.142 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. This singer has become yours, Agni, O son of strength — for there is no other friendship like it. Your shelter is a blessed one, threefold-protecting; keep the weapon of the violent far from him.
2. Your birth, Agni, is headlong, as you go hungry after your food; together, all at once, you bend down every creature. Let our team go forth, let our hymns win their prize — they walk out in front by themselves, like herdsmen.
3. And you tear around, devouring, through the abundant grass, Agni, master of your own strength; and the fields become bare, fallow patches. Let us not stir your mighty weapon to anger against us.
4. When you go devouring up the rises and down into the hollows, you spread out and range apart, like an eager army. When the wind blows on after your flame, you shave the ground bare, as a barber shaves a beard.
5. Facing it, its ranks are seen — one track, many chariots. When you, Agni, stroking your two arms again and again, go low along the outstretched land.
6. Let your fierce blasts rise up, let your flame rise up, let the rewards of the one who labors for you rise up, Agni. Arch upward, bow down low, growing great; let all the Vasus sit down with you today.
7. This is the outflow of the waters, the resting place of the sea. Make yourself another road from here; go by that road, wherever you wish.
8. On your going out and your going back, let the flowering dūrvā grass grow up, and pools with white lotuses — these are the houses of the sea.
Translator's note: verse 5 is one of the most compressed and disputed passages in this hymn. "Its ranks are seen — one track, many chariots" renders lines of advancing flame compared to chariot-tracks; "stroking your two arms" (bāhū anumarmṛjānaḥ) likely pictures the fire's forward-reaching tongues, but the image resists a fully certain rendering and is kept close to the Sanskrit rather than smoothed over.
Colophon
Rigveda X.142 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.142
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.
ayam agne jaritā tve abhūd api sahasaḥ sūno nahy a1nyad asty āpyam |
bhadraṁ hi śarma trivarūtham asti ta āre hiṁsānām apa didyum ā kṛdhi || 1 ||
pravat te agne janimā pitūyataḥ sācīva viśvā bhuvanā ny ṛñjase |
pra saptayaḥ pra saniṣanta no dhiyaḥ puraś caranti paśupā iva tmanā || 2 ||
uta vā u pari vṛṇakṣi bapsad bahor agna ulapasya svadhāvaḥ |
uta khilyā urvarāṇām bhavanti mā te hetiṁ taviṣīṁ cukrudhāma || 3 ||
yad udvato nivato yāsi bapsat pṛthag eṣi pragardhinīva senā |
yadā te vāto anuvāti śocir vapteva śmaśru vapasi pra bhūma || 4 ||
praty asya śreṇayo dadṛśra ekaṁ niyānam bahavo rathāsaḥ |
bāhū yad agne anumarmṛjāno nyaṅṅ uttānām anveṣi bhūmim || 5 ||
ut te śuṣmā jihatām ut te arcir ut te agne śaśamānasya vājāḥ |
uc chvañcasva ni nama vardhamāna ā tvādya viśve vasavaḥ sadantu || 6 ||
apām idaṁ nyayanaṁ samudrasya niveśanam |
anyaṁ kṛṇuṣvetaḥ panthāṁ tena yāhi vaśām̐ anu || 7 ||
āyane te parāyaṇe dūrvā rohantu puṣpiṇīḥ |
hradāś ca puṇḍarīkāṇi samudrasya gṛhā ime || 8 ||
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).