Hymn to Sūrya

Rigveda X.158 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. May Sūrya guard us from the sky, Vāta guard us from the mid-air, Agni guard us from the things of earth.

2. Take pleasure, O Savitṛ, whose brilliance is worth a hundred offerings; protect us from the flying thunderbolt.

3. May the god Savitṛ set eyesight in us; may the Mountain too set eyesight in us; may Dhātṛ, the Ordainer, set eyesight in us.

4. Give us eyesight for seeing, eyesight for our bodies to look out with, that we may see this world both as a whole and in its parts.

5. May we look upon you, O Sūrya, fair to behold; may we see clearly, with the sight proper to human eyes.

Translator's note: "nṛcakṣasaḥ" (verse 5) literally means "having the eyes/vision of men"; rendered here as "with the sight proper to human eyes" rather than a more speculative gloss.

Colophon

Rigveda X.158 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.158

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.

sūryo no divas pātu vāto antarikṣāt |
agnir naḥ pārthivebhyaḥ || 1 ||

joṣā savitar yasya te haraḥ śataṁ savām̐ arhati |
pāhi no didyutaḥ patantyāḥ || 2 ||

cakṣur no devaḥ savitā cakṣur na uta parvataḥ |
cakṣur dhātā dadhātu naḥ || 3 ||

cakṣur no dhehi cakṣuṣe cakṣur vikhyai tanūbhyaḥ |
saṁ cedaṁ vi ca paśyema || 4 ||

susaṁdṛśaṁ tvā vayam prati paśyema sūrya |
vi paśyema nṛcakṣasaḥ || 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).