Hymn to Brahmaṇaspati
Rigveda II.26 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 2 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. The honest praiser will prevail over the malicious one; the one who loves the gods will overcome the one who does not. The well-aided one will prevail over the hard-to-conquer foe in battle; the one who sacrifices, not the one who withholds sacrifice, will divide up the sustenance.
2. Sacrifice, O hero — proceed with a devoted mind. Make your mind auspicious for the crossing of obstacles. Make the oblation, so that you may be fortunate. We choose the favor of Brahmaṇaspati.
3. He indeed — with his kin, with his clan, by his birth, with his sons — carries off the prize, wealth, together with his men, who with a faithful mind and with oblation seeks to win over Brahmaṇaspati, father of the gods.
4. Whoever has honored him with oblations rich in ghee, that one Brahmaṇaspati leads forward, guarding him broadly from distress, protecting him from harm — the wondrous, wide-acting one shields him even from anguish.
Translator's note: "urucakriḥ" (verse 4), rendered here as "wide-acting," is an epithet of uncertain precise force — literally something like "wide-wheeled" or "of broad course" — describing Brahmaṇaspati's far-reaching protective power.
Colophon
Rigveda II.26 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 II.26
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.
ṛjur ic chaṁso vanavad vanuṣyato devayann id adevayantam abhy asat |
suprāvīr id vanavat pṛtsu duṣṭaraṁ yajved ayajyor vi bhajāti bhojanam || 1 ||
yajasva vīra pra vihi manāyato bhadram manaḥ kṛṇuṣva vṛtratūrye |
haviṣ kṛṇuṣva subhago yathāsasi brahmaṇas pater ava ā vṛṇīmahe || 2 ||
sa ij janena sa viśā sa janmanā sa putrair vājam bharate dhanā nṛbhiḥ |
devānāṁ yaḥ pitaram āvivāsati śraddhāmanā haviṣā brahmaṇas patim || 3 ||
yo asmai havyair ghṛtavadbhir avidhat pra tam prācā nayati brahmaṇas patiḥ |
uruṣyatīm aṁhaso rakṣatī riṣo3 'ṁhoś cid asmā urucakrir adbhutaḥ || 4 ||
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).