Hymn to Savitṛ
Rigveda X.149 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. Savitṛ, with his bonds, made the earth steady; in the place with no support, Savitṛ made the sky firm. Like a horse, he milked the roaring mid-air; Savitṛ bound the ocean in the unfordable deep.
2. Where the propped-up ocean swelled and broke forth — Child of the Waters, Savitṛ knows that. From there came the earth; from there the risen atmosphere; from there heaven and earth spread wide.
3. After this, another world came into being, sacred, through the fullness of the immortal world. The fair-winged eagle, indeed, belongs to Savitṛ — born first, and he follows after Savitṛ's ordinance.
4. As cows to the herd, as a fighter to his horses, as a lowing cow, well-minded, goes to her calf while being milked, as a husband to his wife — so let him come down to us: Savitṛ, sustainer of heaven, holder of every good thing.
5. As Hiraṇyastūpa the Aṅgirasa called upon you, O Savitṛ, in this contest for the prize — so I, praising and worshipping, call to you for help, keeping watch toward you, as toward a shoot of soma.
Translator's note: a few terms are rendered conservatively. "Askambhane" (1) means literally "in the pillarless place," i.e. a space with no support to rest on. "Atūrte" (1) means "unfordable/uncrossable," describing the deep in which the ocean is bound. "Suparṇo... garutmān" (3), "the fair-winged eagle/Garutmān," is a mythic bird-epithet whose precise referent — a cosmic bird distinct from Savitṛ, or an image for the sun — is debated among interpreters; it is translated here literally rather than resolved.
Colophon
Rigveda X.149 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.149
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.
savitā yantraiḥ pṛthivīm aramṇād askambhane savitā dyām adṛṁhat |
aśvam ivādhukṣad dhunim antarikṣam atūrte baddhaṁ savitā samudram || 1 ||
yatrā samudraḥ skabhito vy aunad apāṁ napāt savitā tasya veda |
ato bhūr ata ā utthitaṁ rajo 'to dyāvāpṛthivī aprathetām || 2 ||
paścedam anyad abhavad yajatram amartyasya bhuvanasya bhūnā |
suparṇo aṅga savitur garutmān pūrvo jātaḥ sa u asyānu dharma || 3 ||
gāva iva grāmaṁ yūyudhir ivāśvān vāśreva vatsaṁ sumanā duhānā |
patir iva jāyām abhi no ny etu dhartā divaḥ savitā viśvavāraḥ || 4 ||
hiraṇyastūpaḥ savitar yathā tvāṅgiraso juhve vāje asmin |
evā tvārcann avase vandamānaḥ somasyevāṁśum prati jāgarāham || 5 ||
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).