Hymn to Indra
Rigveda III.48 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. As soon as he was born, the young bull was eager to seize the pressed soma-juice. Drink your fill of the good draught, just as you wish — the first milk-mixed portion of the soma.
2. On the day you were born, wanting it, you drank the fresh soma-milk of the stalk that grows on the mountain. That milk your mother, the young woman who bore you, poured out for you at the very start, in the house of the great father.
3. Coming to his mother, he asked for food; he looked toward the sharp soma, its udder-source. Driving the others off, the skillful one moved about and did great deeds, showing himself in many forms.
4. Fierce, overpowering, of overwhelming strength, this one shaped his own body as he wished. Indra, having overcome Tvaṣṭṛ by his very birth, stole the soma and drank it from the bowls.
5. Let us call on bounteous Indra for our good, the most manly one, in this fight, in the winning of the prize — the fierce one who listens for our help in battles, who slays the obstructing foes, the conqueror of riches.
Translator's note: "vṛtrāṇi" in verse 5 (lowercase, plural) is rendered as "obstructing foes" rather than as the proper name of the serpent Vṛtra, since the plural form here names a class of enemies/obstacles rather than the single mythic dragon. "Pīyūṣa" (v.2) and "ūdhaḥ" (v.3) both carry an image of milk/udder applied to the soma plant; this is kept literal rather than smoothed into a single metaphor.
Colophon
Rigveda III.48 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.48
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.
sadyo ha jāto vṛṣabhaḥ kanīnaḥ prabhartum āvad andhasaḥ sutasya |
sādhoḥ piba pratikāmaṁ yathā te rasāśiraḥ prathamaṁ somyasya || 1 ||
yaj jāyathās tad ahar asya kāme 'ṁśoḥ pīyūṣam apibo giriṣṭhām |
taṁ te mātā pari yoṣā janitrī mahaḥ pitur dama āsiñcad agre || 2 ||
upasthāya mātaram annam aiṭṭa tigmam apaśyad abhi somam ūdhaḥ |
prayāvayann acarad gṛtso anyān mahāni cakre purudhapratīkaḥ || 3 ||
ugras turāṣāḻ abhibhūtyojā yathāvaśaṁ tanvaṁ cakra eṣaḥ |
tvaṣṭāram indro januṣābhibhūyāmuṣyā somam apibac camūṣu || 4 ||
śunaṁ huvema maghavānam indram asmin bhare nṛtamaṁ vājasātau |
śṛṇvantam ugram ūtaye samatsu ghnantaṁ vṛtrāṇi saṁjitaṁ dhanānām || 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).