Hymn to Indra
Rigveda X.144 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 immortal drop indeed moves for you, O immortal one, like a racehorse — skillful, life-long, for the wise disposer.
2. This one among us is wise, skillful, the thunderbolt, belonging to the pious giver. This one bears the exhilarating draught crowned with its raised grains, like a craftsman bearing a well-wrought intoxicating draught.
3. The eager bull, for the active falcon, looked down among these his own kind.
4. Whom the fair-winged one, the falcon's son, brought from afar — he who is the hundred-wheeled track of the serpent.
5. The falcon brought for you, with his foot, the lovely, unharmed, reddish measure of the soma-plant. By this, vigor and life are extended, for living; by this, kinship stays awake.
6. Thus, O Indra, by this drop, that great vigor is held fast even among the gods. By your will, O wise-willed one, vigor and life are extended; by your will this soma has been pressed out from us.
Translator's note: Verse 3 contains a final word (ahīśuvaḥ) whose form and sense are genuinely unclear to the translator; it has been left untranslated rather than guessed at. The phrase "ahyo vartaniḥ" in verse 4, rendered here literally as "the track of the serpent," is an obscure image — possibly referring to the winding path of the eagle's flight or of the soma-stream — and is kept literal rather than resolved.
Colophon
Rigveda X.144 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.144
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.
ayaṁ hi te amartya indur atyo na patyate |
dakṣo viśvāyur vedhase || 1 ||
ayam asmāsu kāvya ṛbhur vajro dāsvate |
ayam bibharty ūrdhvakṛśanam madam ṛbhur na kṛtvyam madam || 2 ||
ghṛṣuḥ śyenāya kṛtvana āsu svāsu vaṁsagaḥ |
ava dīdhed ahīśuvaḥ || 3 ||
yaṁ suparṇaḥ parāvataḥ śyenasya putra ābharat |
śatacakraṁ yo3 'hyo vartaniḥ || 4 ||
yaṁ te śyenaś cārum avṛkam padābharad aruṇam mānam andhasaḥ |
enā vayo vi tāry āyur jīvasa enā jāgāra bandhutā || 5 ||
evā tad indra indunā deveṣu cid dhārayāte mahi tyajaḥ |
kratvā vayo vi tāry āyuḥ sukrato kratvāyam asmad ā sutaḥ || 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).