Hymn Against Rivals
Rigveda X.166 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. Unlike most Rigvedic hymns, X.166 is not addressed to a deity; it is spoken in the first person by someone claiming supremacy over rivals, comparing himself to Indra and calling on the power of Viśvakarman, the All-Maker.
1. Make me a bull among my equals, victorious over rivals, a slayer of enemies, a wide-ruling lord, master of cattle.
2. I am a slayer of rivals, unharmed and unbroken like Indra. Beneath my feet lie all these rivals — trampled down.
3. Right here I bind you both together, as the two ends of a bow are bound by its string. O Lord of Speech, put these down, so that they speak lower than I do.
4. I have come as an overpowerer, by the power of Viśvakarman. I take your thought, your resolve, your assembly, for myself.
5. Having taken your security and gain, may I become the highest of all; I have stepped upon your head. Cry out from under my feet, like frogs from the water — like frogs from the water.
Translator's note: "yogakṣema" in verse 5 (rendered here as "security and gain") is a compound term for acquiring and holding property/well-being, without a single exact English equivalent. "Viśvakarman" in verse 4 is left untranslated as a proper name (literally "the all-maker" or "all-doing"), since it functions here as an epithet of empowering cosmic craft rather than a common noun.
Colophon
Rigveda X.166 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.166
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.
ṛṣabham mā samānānāṁ sapatnānāṁ viṣāsahim |
hantāraṁ śatrūṇāṁ kṛdhi virājaṁ gopatiṁ gavām || 1 ||
aham asmi sapatnahendra ivāriṣṭo akṣataḥ |
adhaḥ sapatnā me pador ime sarve abhiṣṭhitāḥ || 2 ||
atraiva vo 'pi nahyāmy ubhe ārtnī iva jyayā |
vācas pate ni ṣedhemān yathā mad adharaṁ vadān || 3 ||
abhibhūr aham āgamaṁ viśvakarmeṇa dhāmnā |
ā vaś cittam ā vo vratam ā vo 'haṁ samitiṁ dade || 4 ||
yogakṣemaṁ va ādāyāham bhūyāsam uttama ā vo mūrdhānam akramīm |
adhaspadān ma ud vadata maṇḍūkā ivodakān maṇḍūkā udakād iva || 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).