Āprī Hymn: Agni and the Deities of the Rite
Rigveda III.4 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 3 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. At each kindling, be well-disposed toward us; with each bright flame, grant us the goodwill of wealth. O god, bring the gods here to be worshipped; as a friend to friends, well-minded, worship them, Agni.
2. You whom the gods worship three times, day by day — Varuṇa, Mitra, Agni — make this sacrifice of ours rich with sweetness, O Tanūnapāt, born in ghee, serving well.
3. The all-embracing vision goes forth, to worship first the priest of Iḷā, to praise the bull with reverent bowings. May he, thus impelled, worship the gods, the most worship-worthy.
4. Upward the path has been made for you two at this rite; upward the flames have gone forth into the regions. At the navel of heaven the priest has taken his seat; we strew wide the sacred grass, roomy enough for the gods.
5. Choosing the seven priestly offices with the mind, driving all things onward by the order of truth, formed with manly splendor, born forth at the sacred gatherings — around this sacrifice the many range.
6. The two auspicious ones draw near, Night and Dawn, and the two, of different form, smile in their bodies — so that Mitra and Varuṇa may delight in us, and Indra, accompanied by the Maruts, with his mighty powers.
7. I turn toward the two divine priests, the foremost ones; the seven [powers] rejoice by their own nature. Proclaiming the sacred order, they speak only truth, following the ordinance, shining as guardians of the ordinance.
8. May Bhāratī come here, of one accord with her companion Bhāratīs; may Iḷā come with the gods, and Agni with mortals; may Sarasvatī come hither with her Sarasvat companions. May the three goddesses sit down on this sacred grass.
9. Pour forth for us, then, that nourishing vigor, O god Tvaṣṭṛ, freely bestowing it, so that a hero may be born from it — skilled in action, capable, with the pressing-stones ready, loving the gods.
10. O lord of the forest, release the offering toward the gods; Agni, the preparer, shall make the oblation ready. He indeed, the truer priest, shall sacrifice, since he knows the births of the gods.
11. Come, Agni, kindled, toward us, on the same chariot with Indra and the swift gods. May Aditi, with her good sons, sit down as upon our sacred grass; with the cry of Svāhā, may the immortal gods be gladdened.
Translator's note: This is an Āprī hymn, a fixed-sequence ritual type addressed in turn to a set of sacrificial deities and elements rather than to Agni alone — hence the shifts of addressee verse to verse (Tanūnapāt, the priest of Iḷā, the divine hotṛs, Night-and-Dawn, Bhāratī-Iḷā-Sarasvatī, Tvaṣṭṛ, the lord of the forest, Aditi). A few phrases resist certainty: verse 5's "pūrvīḥ" (the "many" that range about the sacrifice) has no explicit noun in the line and is rendered conservatively; verse 6's dual "uṣasā... virūpe" is read as the paired goddesses Night and Dawn, standard in this hymn type; verse 11's "barhir na āstām aditiḥ suputrā" uses a dual verb with a singular subject (Aditi) and is rendered as a simile rather than resolved to a specific dual pair.
Colophon
Rigveda III.4 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 III.4
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.
samit-samit sumanā bodhy asme śucā-śucā sumatiṁ rāsi vasvaḥ |
ā deva devān yajathāya vakṣi sakhā sakhīn sumanā yakṣy agne || 1 ||
yaṁ devāsas trir ahann āyajante dive-dive varuṇo mitro agniḥ |
semaṁ yajñam madhumantaṁ kṛdhī nas tanūnapād ghṛtayoniṁ vidhantam || 2 ||
pra dīdhitir viśvavārā jigāti hotāram iḻaḥ prathamaṁ yajadhyai |
acchā namobhir vṛṣabhaṁ vandadhyai sa devān yakṣad iṣito yajīyān || 3 ||
ūrdhvo vāṁ gātur adhvare akāry ūrdhvā śocīṁṣi prasthitā rajāṁsi |
divo vā nābhā ny asādi hotā stṛṇīmahi devavyacā vi barhiḥ || 4 ||
sapta hotrāṇi manasā vṛṇānā invanto viśvam prati yann ṛtena |
nṛpeśaso vidatheṣu pra jātā abhī3maṁ yajñaṁ vi caranta pūrvīḥ || 5 ||
ā bhandamāne uṣasā upāke uta smayete tanvā3 virūpe |
yathā no mitro varuṇo jujoṣad indro marutvām̐ uta vā mahobhiḥ || 6 ||
daivyā hotārā prathamā ny ṛñje sapta pṛkṣāsaḥ svadhayā madanti |
ṛtaṁ śaṁsanta ṛtam it ta āhur anu vrataṁ vratapā dīdhyānāḥ || 7 ||
ā bhāratī bhāratībhiḥ sajoṣā iḻā devair manuṣyebhir agniḥ |
sarasvatī sārasvatebhir arvāk tisro devīr barhir edaṁ sadantu || 8 ||
tan nas turīpam adha poṣayitnu deva tvaṣṭar vi rarāṇaḥ syasva |
yato vīraḥ karmaṇyaḥ sudakṣo yuktagrāvā jāyate devakāmaḥ || 9 ||
vanaspate 'va sṛjopa devān agnir haviḥ śamitā sūdayāti |
sed u hotā satyataro yajāti yathā devānāṁ janimāni veda || 10 ||
ā yāhy agne samidhāno arvāṅ indreṇa devaiḥ sarathaṁ turebhiḥ |
barhir na āstām aditiḥ suputrā svāhā devā amṛtā mādayantām || 11 ||
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).