Hymn to the Omen-Bird
Rigveda II.42 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. Crying out, proclaiming your own origin, you send forth your voice, as an oarsman drives a boat. Be a bird of good omen — let no all-pervading harm find you.
2. May no hawk strike you down, no eagle; may no archer, no hero armed with arrows, find you. Crying out along the path of the ancestors, be of good omen, speaking fair things: speak here.
3. Cry out on the right-hand side of our houses, bird of good omen, fair-speaking one. Let no thief have power over us, no one of evil speech; may we, rich in strong sons, speak boldly in the assembly.
Translator's note: the hymn addresses a bird called by name in the wider Anukramaṇī tradition as Kapiñjala (a francolin or partridge whose cry was read as an omen); the text itself calls it simply śakune / śakunte, "bird." "iṣumān vīro astā" (v. 2) literally means "the arrow-bearing hero, the shooter," rendered here as "archer... hero armed with arrows." "Dakṣiṇataḥ" (v. 3) means "on the right / southern side," kept literal.
Colophon
Rigveda II.42 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.42
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.
kanikradaj januṣam prabruvāṇa iyarti vācam ariteva nāvam |
sumaṅgalaś ca śakune bhavāsi mā tvā kā cid abhibhā viśvyā vidat || 1 ||
mā tvā śyena ud vadhīn mā suparṇo mā tvā vidad iṣumān vīro astā |
pitryām anu pradiśaṁ kanikradat sumaṅgalo bhadravādī vadeha || 2 ||
ava kranda dakṣiṇato gṛhāṇāṁ sumaṅgalo bhadravādī śakunte |
mā naḥ stena īśata māghaśaṁso bṛhad vadema vidathe suvīrāḥ || 3 ||
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).