Hymn to Vājin
Rigveda X.56 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 addresses "Vājin," the radiant prize-winner or courser, and speaks of light, ascent to heaven, and the passing-down of strength from fathers to sons.
1. This is one light of yours, and there is another beyond it; merge with the third light. In the joining of your body, be radiant — dear to the gods — at this highest place of your begetting.
2. Your body, O prize-winner, guiding your own form, grant good things to us and shelter to yourself. Unbending, for the support of the great gods, measure out your own light, as light does in the sky.
3. You are the prize-winner, full of vigor and well-desiring. Well have you gone to the hymn of praise, well have you gone to heaven, well according to the first true ordinances, well to the gods, well along your flight.
4. Not even the fathers of old held mastery over their own greatness; the gods set their power among the gods. They encompassed whatever they had made bright, and entered again into their own bodies.
5. By their strength they strode around the whole realm, measuring out the ancient, unmeasured abodes. All beings are held fast within their bodies; they spread forth their offspring in many directions.
6. In two ways the sons established the mighty lord who finds the sun, and by a third deed as well. The fathers set their own offspring, their paternal strength, as a thread stretched out among those who came after.
7. As by a boat across a flood, they crossed the quarters of the earth, past all difficult ways, with blessings. Bṛhaduktha, by his greatness, has set his own offspring among the later-born and unto those before.
Translator's note: the hymn's addressee, "Vājin," is an epithet meaning "prize-winner" or "the vigorous one," traditionally applied to the sacrificial horse but also invoked here in language of light and rebirth; the exact referent (horse, soul, or both) is not certain from the text itself and has been left as "prize-winner" throughout rather than resolved by conjecture. "Bṛhaduktha" in verse 7 is the name of the hymn's seer (ṛṣi), who names himself, as is common in the closing verse of a Rigvedic hymn.
Colophon
Rigveda X.56 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.56
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.
idaṁ ta ekam para ū ta ekaṁ tṛtīyena jyotiṣā saṁ viśasva |
saṁveśane tanva1ś cārur edhi priyo devānām parame janitre || 1 ||
tanūṣ ṭe vājin tanva1ṁ nayantī vāmam asmabhyaṁ dhātu śarma tubhyam |
ahruto maho dharuṇāya devān divīva jyotiḥ svam ā mimīyāḥ || 2 ||
vājy asi vājinenā suvenīḥ suvitaḥ stomaṁ suvito divaṁ gāḥ |
suvito dharma prathamānu satyā suvito devān suvito 'nu patma || 3 ||
mahimna eṣām pitaraś caneśire devā deveṣv adadhur api kratum |
sam avivyacur uta yāny atviṣur aiṣāṁ tanūṣu ni viviśuḥ punaḥ || 4 ||
sahobhir viśvam pari cakramū rajaḥ pūrvā dhāmāny amitā mimānāḥ |
tanūṣu viśvā bhuvanā ni yemire prāsārayanta purudha prajā anu || 5 ||
dvidhā sūnavo 'suraṁ svarvidam āsthāpayanta tṛtīyena karmaṇā |
svām prajām pitaraḥ pitryaṁ saha āvareṣv adadhus tantum ātatam || 6 ||
nāvā na kṣodaḥ pradiśaḥ pṛthivyāḥ svastibhir ati durgāṇi viśvā |
svām prajām bṛhaduktho mahitvāvareṣv adadhād ā pareṣu || 7 ||
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).