Hymn to Indra
Rigveda III.45 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. Come here, Indra, with your delightful tawny horses, their manes like a peacock's. Let no one hold you back, as a bird is held by a snare — pass beyond them as if crossing open ground, and come here.
2. Devourer of Vṛtra, breaker of Vala, splitter of strongholds, driver forth of the waters — standing in your chariot behind the tawny pair, resounding: Indra, you break even what stands firm.
3. You nourish your power like the deep seas nourish, like cattle nourish. Well-tended, they have gone forth to pasture as milk-cows go, as streams flow down to a lake.
4. Bring us swift wealth, a portion for one who does not ask for it. Shake loose for us, Indra, the goods that carry us through — as a hook shakes ripe fruit down from a tree.
5. Self-willed, Indra, you are sovereign by your own right, granting fitting favor, ever more glorious in yourself. Grown strong in might, much-invoked one — be for us the most renowned in fame.
Translator's note: verse 3 is compressed and elliptical in the Sanskrit (subject of "puṣyasi," and the referent of the cows/streams simile, are left implicit); the rendering above follows the grammatical subject as closely as the syntax allows without supplying content the text does not state. In verse 1, "mayūraromabhiḥ" (peacock-haired/peacock-maned) and "dhanveva" (like a desert / like a bow's reach) are both terse figures kept close to their literal sense rather than smoothed into a single image.
Colophon
Rigveda III.45 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.45
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.
ā mandrair indra haribhir yāhi mayūraromabhiḥ |
mā tvā ke cin ni yaman viṁ na pāśino 'ti dhanveva tām̐ ihi || 1 ||
vṛtrakhādo valaṁrujaḥ purāṁ darmo apām ajaḥ |
sthātā rathasya haryor abhisvara indro dṛḻhā cid ārujaḥ || 2 ||
gambhīrām̐ udadhīm̐r iva kratum puṣyasi gā iva |
pra sugopā yavasaṁ dhenavo yathā hradaṁ kulyā ivāśata || 3 ||
ā nas tujaṁ rayim bharāṁśaṁ na pratijānate |
vṛkṣam pakvam phalam aṅkīva dhūnuhīndra sampāraṇaṁ vasu || 4 ||
svayur indra svarāḻ asi smaddiṣṭiḥ svayaśastaraḥ |
sa vāvṛdhāna ojasā puruṣṭuta bhavā naḥ suśravastamaḥ || 5 ||
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).