Hymn to Tārkṣya
Rigveda X.178 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. That mighty one, truly, god-impelled, all-powerful, the surpasser of chariots — whose wheel-rim is unbroken, swift, who fights in battle: let us call Tārkṣya here, for our well-being.
2. Calling again and again on his bounty as on Indra's, let us mount him for our well-being, as one mounts a boat. Wide, broad, ample, deep as the two worlds — may we suffer no harm from you two, neither in coming nor in going.
3. He who, in a single day, by his strength stretches over the five tribes, as the sun with its light stretches over the waters — his rush, winning thousands, winning hundreds, cannot be held back, no more than a young arrow in flight.
Translator's note: verse 2's "you two" (dual) is addressed to a pair — most likely Tārkṣya's two wheels or the two courses of a journey, paralleled in the same verse to the vastness of the two worlds; the Sanskrit does not name the pair explicitly.
Colophon
Rigveda X.178 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.178
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.
tyam ū ṣu vājinaṁ devajūtaṁ sahāvānaṁ tarutāraṁ rathānām |
ariṣṭanemim pṛtanājam āśuṁ svastaye tārkṣyam ihā huvema || 1 ||
indrasyeva rātim ājohuvānāḥ svastaye nāvam ivā ruhema |
urvī na pṛthvī bahule gabhīre mā vām etau mā paretau riṣāma || 2 ||
sadyaś cid yaḥ śavasā pañca kṛṣṭīḥ sūrya iva jyotiṣāpas tatāna |
sahasrasāḥ śatasā asya raṁhir na smā varante yuvatiṁ na śaryām || 3 ||
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).