Hymn to Dhātṛ, Savitṛ, and Viṣṇu
Rigveda X.181 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 whose name is Spread, and Widespread — the oblation of the oblation belonging to the anuṣṭubh verse — from radiant Dhātṛ, and from Savitṛ, and from Viṣṇu, Vasiṣṭha has brought hither the Rathaṃtara.
2. They found what had been set beyond reach, the highest seat of the sacrifice that lay hidden in secret; from radiant Dhātṛ, and from Savitṛ, and from Viṣṇu, and from Agni, Bharadvāja fashioned the Bṛhat.
3. Meditating with the mind, they found the first-spilled yajus formula that travels the gods' path; from radiant Dhātṛ, and from Savitṛ, and from Viṣṇu, these brought the gharma from the sun.
Translator's note: this hymn is terse and ritual-technical. Rathaṃtara and Bṛhat are names of Sāmavedic chant-melodies; gharma is the heated milk oblation of the Pravargya rite; yajus denotes a sacrificial formula. "Spread" and "Widespread" (prathas, saprathas) render two epithet-names in verse 1 whose exact referent (the chant, the meter, or the oblation) is left ambiguous in the Sanskrit itself; the translation preserves that ambiguity rather than resolving it.
Colophon
Rigveda X.181 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.181
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.
prathaś ca yasya saprathaś ca nāmānuṣṭubhasya haviṣo havir yat |
dhātur dyutānāt savituś ca viṣṇo rathaṁtaram ā jabhārā vasiṣṭhaḥ || 1 ||
avindan te atihitaṁ yad āsīd yajñasya dhāma paramaṁ guhā yat |
dhātur dyutānāt savituś ca viṣṇor bharadvājo bṛhad ā cakre agneḥ || 2 ||
te 'vindan manasā dīdhyānā yajuḥ ṣkannam prathamaṁ devayānam |
dhātur dyutānāt savituś ca viṣṇor ā sūryād abharan gharmam ete || 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).