Hymn to Indra and the All-Gods
Rigveda X.157 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. Now indeed let us make these worlds thrive — Indra, and all the gods with him.
2. May Indra, together with the sons of Aditi, rightly order our sacrifice, our bodies, and our offspring.
3. May Indra, with the sons of Aditi, and with his troop of Maruts, be the protector of our bodies.
4. When the gods, having struck down the Asuras, came forward — the gods, guarding their own godhead.
5. They turned the facing hymn back with their powers; then they looked all around at their own vigorous nature.
Translator's note: verse 5 is compressed and admits more than one reading. "pratyañcam arkam" (the facing/returning arka) can mean a hymn, a chant, or the sun/light; it is rendered here as "the facing hymn." "svadhām iṣirām" (one's own vigorous svadhā) names the gods' inherent nature or innate power — rendered conservatively as "their own vigorous nature" rather than resolved into a single fixed English term.
Colophon
Rigveda X.157 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.157
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.
imā nu kam bhuvanā sīṣadhāmendraś ca viśve ca devāḥ || 1 ||
yajñaṁ ca nas tanvaṁ ca prajāṁ cādityair indraḥ saha cīkḷpāti || 2 ||
ādityair indraḥ sagaṇo marudbhir asmākam bhūtv avitā tanūnām || 3 ||
hatvāya devā asurān yad āyan devā devatvam abhirakṣamāṇāḥ || 4 ||
pratyañcam arkam anayañ chacībhir ād it svadhām iṣirām pary apaśyan || 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).