Hymn to Agni
Rigveda X.52 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. The hymn is built as a dialogue: a speaker addresses the gods and questions Agni's status as Hotar (the officiating priest), and Agni answers in turn, describing his own installation into that office.
1. All-Gods, instruct me here as I am — chosen as Hotar for humankind, having taken my seat. Declare to me my portion, as is due to you, and by what path I should carry the oblation to you.
2. I, the Hotar, have sat down, most zealous in the rite; the All-Gods, the Maruts, drive me on. Day after day, O Aśvins, I do the adhvaryu's work for you; the prayer becomes the kindling-wood, together with the offering, for you two.
3. This one who is Hotar — is he then Yama's own? Whom indeed am I to reckon him, since the gods anoint him together? Day by day he is born, month by month; so have the gods established him as bearer of the oblation.
4. The gods have made me bearer of the oblation, though I had slipped away and wandered through much hardship. May Agni, who knows, arrange our sacrifice — fivefold in its stages, threefold, bound with seven threads.
5. I will worship you for immortality rich in strong sons, so that, O gods, I may win freedom for you. May I place the mace in the arms of Indra, and then may he win all these battles.
6. Three hundred, three thousand, and thirty-nine gods honored Agni; they sprinkled him with ghee, strewed the sacred grass for him — and then indeed they set him down as Hotar.
Translator's note: The hymn shifts speaker without marking it in the Sanskrit. Verses 1 and 3 read as questions put to the gods and about Agni's status; verses 2, 4, and 5 read as Agni's own answer; verse 6 closes in the voice of the poet describing the gods' act. This division follows the sense of the verbs and pronouns, not an explicit stage direction in the text. The number in verse 6 (339 gods) is a recurring formula elsewhere in the Rigveda and is kept literally rather than resolved into a round figure.
Colophon
Rigveda X.52 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.52
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.
viśve devāḥ śāstana mā yatheha hotā vṛto manavai yan niṣadya |
pra me brūta bhāgadheyaṁ yathā vo yena pathā havyam ā vo vahāni || 1 ||
ahaṁ hotā ny asīdaṁ yajīyān viśve devā maruto mā junanti |
ahar-ahar aśvinādhvaryavaṁ vām brahmā samid bhavati sāhutir vām || 2 ||
ayaṁ yo hotā kir u sa yamasya kam apy ūhe yat samañjanti devāḥ |
ahar-ahar jāyate māsi-māsy athā devā dadhire havyavāham || 3 ||
māṁ devā dadhire havyavāham apamluktam bahu kṛcchrā carantam |
agnir vidvān yajñaṁ naḥ kalpayāti pañcayāmaṁ trivṛtaṁ saptatantum || 4 ||
ā vo yakṣy amṛtatvaṁ suvīraṁ yathā vo devā varivaḥ karāṇi |
ā bāhvor vajram indrasya dheyām athemā viśvāḥ pṛtanā jayāti || 5 ||
trīṇi śatā trī sahasrāṇy agniṁ triṁśac ca devā nava cāsaparyan |
aukṣan ghṛtair astṛṇan barhir asmā ād id dhotāraṁ ny asādayanta || 6 ||
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).