Hymn to Araṇyānī, Goddess of the Forest
Rigveda X.146 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 hymn addresses Araṇyānī, the goddess of the forest and wilderness, personifying the strange sounds and half-glimpsed presences of the wild — a bird's cry mistaken for a voice, a creak mistaken for a cart. This is a Good Works Translation produced for the Good Works Library from the Sanskrit of the Śākala recension.
1. Araṇyānī, Araṇyānī, you who seem to vanish away before me — why do you not ask about the village? Does no fear find you at all?
2. When the ciccika-bird answers the roaring cry, Araṇyānī is glorified, rushing on as if with clashing cymbals.
3. It is as though cattle are grazing; it seems as though a dwelling appears; and Araṇyānī creaks at evening like carts.
4. "Surely someone is calling his cow," "surely someone else has felled wood" — whoever dwells in Araṇyānī at evening thinks, "Someone has cried out!"
5. Araṇyānī does not kill, unless another attacks first; having eaten sweet fruit, one lies down as one pleases.
6. Fragrant with perfume, sweet-smelling, rich in food, untilled by any plowman — I have now praised Araṇyānī, mother of wild beasts.
Translator's note: "ciccika" (verse 2) is an onomatopoeic bird name of uncertain species, rendered here untranslated as in the Sanskrit. "vṛṣāravāya" (verse 2, "bull-roaring cry") is rendered loosely as "the roaring cry" since its precise referent — animal, thunder, or distant sound — is unclear from the text alone.
Colophon
Rigveda X.146 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.146
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.
araṇyāny araṇyāny asau yā preva naśyasi |
kathā grāmaṁ na pṛcchasi na tvā bhīr iva vindatī3m̐ || 1 ||
vṛṣāravāya vadate yad upāvati ciccikaḥ |
āghāṭibhir iva dhāvayann araṇyānir mahīyate || 2 ||
uta gāva ivādanty uta veśmeva dṛśyate |
uto araṇyāniḥ sāyaṁ śakaṭīr iva sarjati || 3 ||
gām aṅgaiṣa ā hvayati dārv aṅgaiṣo apāvadhīt |
vasann araṇyānyāṁ sāyam akrukṣad iti manyate || 4 ||
na vā araṇyānir hanty anyaś cen nābhigacchati |
svādoḥ phalasya jagdhvāya yathākāmaṁ ni padyate || 5 ||
āñjanagandhiṁ surabhim bahvannām akṛṣīvalām |
prāham mṛgāṇām mātaram araṇyānim aśaṁsiṣam || 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).