The Gambler's Lament
Rigveda X.34 is a hymn of fourteen verses from Maṇḍala 10, and one of the most startlingly human poems of the ancient world: a gambler's own confession. The "brown ones" are the nuts of the vibhīdaka tree, used as dice; the poem watches them ruin his marriage, his family, and his name, hears him vow to quit and fail — "I go straight to them, like a woman to her lover" — and ends not with a sacrifice but with the god Savitṛ's plain advice: stop playing; plow your field. Tradition names the poet Kavaṣa Ailūṣa.
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 quivering ones of the great tree intoxicate me — born where the wind blows, rolling on the dice-ground. Like a draught of Soma from Mount Mūjavant, the wakeful vibhīdaka nut has delighted me.
2. She never quarreled with me, was never angry; she was kind to my friends and to me. For the sake of a die that fell one point too high, I drove away my own devoted wife.
3. My mother-in-law hates me; my wife pushes me away; the man in need finds no one to show him mercy. "I find no more use in a gambler than in an old horse put up for sale."
4. Others now fondle the wife of the man whose goods the mighty die has craved. His father, his mother, his brothers say of him: "We do not know him. Lead him away bound."
5. When I resolve, "I will not play with them," I am left behind by my friends as they walk away. But the moment the brown ones, thrown down, raise their voice, I go straight to their meeting-place, like a woman to her lover.
6. The gambler goes to the hall, asking himself "shall I win?", his body swelling with hope. But the dice run crosswise to his desire, handing the winning throws to his opponent.
7. The dice are hooked, they goad, they deceive; they burn, and are eager to burn; they give like children, then strike the winner back again — steeped in honey, a power that crushes the gambler.
8. Their troop of three-times-fifty plays like the god Savitṛ, whose ordinances are true: they bow not before the wrath even of the mighty; the king himself makes obeisance to them.
9. Downward they roll, then flash up on high; handless, they overpower the man who has hands. Divine coals thrown down on the gaming-ground — though cold themselves, they burn the heart to ash.
10. The gambler's abandoned wife grieves, and the mother of the son who wanders no one knows where. In debt, afraid, hungry for money, he creeps by night to the houses of other men.
11. It torments the gambler to see a woman — another man's wife — and another man's well-ordered hearth. Yet in the morning he yoked the brown horses again, and at the fire's dying he fell down, a beggar.
12. To him who is the general of your great army, the first king of your troop — to him I hold out my ten fingers. "I withhold no wealth" — this truth I declare.
13. "Do not play with dice — plow your plowing instead. Delight in what you own, and count it much. There are your cattle, gambler; there is your wife." — this the noble Savitṛ himself shows me.
14. Make friendship with us now; have mercy on us. Do not come at us so fiercely, with terrible power. Let your anger and enmity come to rest — let some other man now be in the snare of the brown ones.
Translator's note: In verse 2, akṣasya ekaparasya — "a die that fell one point too high" — is the standing crux of the poem; the sense of a single ruinous throw is certain, its exact mechanism is not. In verse 12, daśāham prācīs is read as the gambler stretching out his ten fingers eastward in surrender and honesty, a gesture-phrase with no perfect English equivalent. The "brown ones" (babhravaḥ) throughout are the vibhīdaka dice-nuts themselves.
Colophon
Rigveda X.34 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.
🌲
Source Text: ṛgveda X.34
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.
prāvepā mā bṛhato mādayanti pravātejā iriṇe varvṛtānāḥ |
somasyeva maujavatasya bhakṣo vibhīdako jāgṛvir mahyam acchān || 1 ||
na mā mimetha na jihīḻa eṣā śivā sakhibhya uta mahyam āsīt |
akṣasyāham ekaparasya hetor anuvratām apa jāyām arodham || 2 ||
dveṣṭi śvaśrūr apa jāyā ruṇaddhi na nāthito vindate marḍitāram |
aśvasyeva jarato vasnyasya nāhaṁ vindāmi kitavasya bhogam || 3 ||
anye jāyām pari mṛśanty asya yasyāgṛdhad vedane vājy a1kṣaḥ |
pitā mātā bhrātara enam āhur na jānīmo nayatā baddham etam || 4 ||
yad ādīdhye na daviṣāṇy ebhiḥ parāyadbhyo 'va hīye sakhibhyaḥ |
nyuptāś ca babhravo vācam akratam̐ emīd eṣāṁ niṣkṛtaṁ jāriṇīva || 5 ||
sabhām eti kitavaḥ pṛcchamāno jeṣyāmīti tanvā3 śūśujānaḥ |
akṣāso asya vi tiranti kāmam pratidīvne dadhata ā kṛtāni || 6 ||
akṣāsa id aṅkuśino nitodino nikṛtvānas tapanās tāpayiṣṇavaḥ |
kumāradeṣṇā jayataḥ punarhaṇo madhvā sampṛktāḥ kitavasya barhaṇā || 7 ||
tripañcāśaḥ krīḻati vrāta eṣāṁ deva iva savitā satyadharmā |
ugrasya cin manyave nā namante rājā cid ebhyo nama it kṛṇoti || 8 ||
nīcā vartanta upari sphuranty ahastāso hastavantaṁ sahante |
divyā aṅgārā iriṇe nyuptāḥ śītāḥ santo hṛdayaṁ nir dahanti || 9 ||
jāyā tapyate kitavasya hīnā mātā putrasya carataḥ kva svit |
ṛṇāvā bibhyad dhanam icchamāno 'nyeṣām astam upa naktam eti || 10 ||
striyaṁ dṛṣṭvāya kitavaṁ tatāpānyeṣāṁ jāyāṁ sukṛtaṁ ca yonim |
pūrvāhṇe aśvān yuyuje hi babhrūn so agner ante vṛṣalaḥ papāda || 11 ||
yo vaḥ senānīr mahato gaṇasya rājā vrātasya prathamo babhūva |
tasmai kṛṇomi na dhanā ruṇadhmi daśāham prācīs tad ṛtaṁ vadāmi || 12 ||
akṣair mā dīvyaḥ kṛṣim it kṛṣasva vitte ramasva bahu manyamānaḥ |
tatra gāvaḥ kitava tatra jāyā tan me vi caṣṭe savitāyam aryaḥ || 13 ||
mitraṁ kṛṇudhvaṁ khalu mṛḻatā no mā no ghoreṇa caratābhi dhṛṣṇu |
ni vo nu manyur viśatām arātir anyo babhrūṇām prasitau nv astu || 14 ||
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).