Hymn to Agni
Rigveda X.176 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. The sons of the Rbhus have roared forth loudly with all their strength — they who, all-nourishing, feed on the earth as on a mother cow.
2. Bring forth, with a mind fit for the gods, the god Jātavedas; let him carry our offerings, each in its due order.
3. This one here, god-seeking, the Hotar, is led forth to the sacrifice — like a chariot yoked for the road, glowing, he makes himself known by his own power.
4. This Agni protects, as if from a birth beyond death; stronger than strength itself, the god was made for life.
Translator's note: verse 1's "kṣāmā" (rendered "the earth") can also carry the sense of "the scorched ground," and "dhenuṁ na mātaram" ("as on a mother cow") is a compressed simile whose full sense — feeding as a calf feeds on its mother's milk — is left implicit in the Sanskrit, as it is here. Verse 3's "cetati tmanā" is rendered "makes himself known by his own power," following the verb's sense of self-evident appearing.
Colophon
Rigveda X.176 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.176
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.
pra sūnava ṛbhūṇām bṛhan navanta vṛjanā |
kṣāmā ye viśvadhāyaso 'śnan dhenuṁ na mātaram || 1 ||
pra devaṁ devyā dhiyā bharatā jātavedasam |
havyā no vakṣad ānuṣak || 2 ||
ayam u ṣya pra devayur hotā yajñāya nīyate |
ratho na yor abhīvṛto ghṛṇīvāñ cetati tmanā || 3 ||
ayam agnir uruṣyaty amṛtād iva janmanaḥ |
sahasaś cit sahīyān devo jīvātave kṛtaḥ || 4 ||
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).