Hymn to Indra
Rigveda X.54 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 indeed is your fame, O bounteous one, won by your greatness, when the two frightened world-halves, heaven and earth, called out to you. You helped the gods, you overcame the strength of the Dāsa, and you strove for the sake of your own offspring, O Indra.
2. When you moved about, grown strong in body, proclaiming your powers among the people, that was your skillful feat which they call battles. Neither today nor in ancient times has anyone found you an equal opponent.
3. What seer before us has ever reached the limit of your whole greatness — in that you brought forth mother and father together, from your own body?
4. Four are your lordly names, unassailable, belonging to the mighty buffalo. You yourself know all of them, the names by which you have performed your deeds, O bounteous one.
5. You alone hold all treasures — those that stand in the open and those hidden away. Do not thwart my desire, O bounteous one; you are the one who knows, you, Indra, are the giver.
6. He who placed light within light, who joined sweetness together with sweet things — now this dear, strengthening thought has been spoken for Indra by the hymn-maker Bṛhaduktha.
Translator's note: Verse 3's "mother and father" (mātaram ca pitaram ca) most naturally reads as Heaven and Earth (Dyaus and Pṛthivī), here described as begotten by Indra from his own body — an unusual reversal of the more common myth in which Indra is their offspring. Verse 4's "four lordly names ... of the buffalo" (catvāri asuryāṇi nāma mahiṣasya) is an obscure epithet cluster whose specific referents are not recoverable with confidence; it is rendered literally rather than resolved into a guessed list.
Colophon
Rigveda X.54 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.54
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.
tāṁ su te kīrtim maghavan mahitvā yat tvā bhīte rodasī ahvayetām |
prāvo devām̐ ātiro dāsam ojaḥ prajāyai tvasyai yad aśikṣa indra || 1 ||
yad acaras tanvā vāvṛdhāno balānīndra prabruvāṇo janeṣu |
māyet sā te yāni yuddhāny āhur nādya śatruṁ nanu purā vivitse || 2 ||
ka u nu te mahimanaḥ samasyāsmat pūrva ṛṣayo 'ntam āpuḥ |
yan mātaraṁ ca pitaraṁ ca sākam ajanayathās tanva1ḥ svāyāḥ || 3 ||
catvāri te asuryāṇi nāmādābhyāni mahiṣasya santi |
tvam aṅga tāni viśvāni vitse yebhiḥ karmāṇi maghavañ cakartha || 4 ||
tvaṁ viśvā dadhiṣe kevalāni yāny āvir yā ca guhā vasūni |
kāmam in me maghavan mā vi tārīs tvam ājñātā tvam indrāsi dātā || 5 ||
yo adadhāj jyotiṣi jyotir antar yo asṛjan madhunā sam madhūni |
adha priyaṁ śūṣam indrāya manma brahmakṛto bṛhadukthād avāci || 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).