Hymn to Indra
Rigveda IV.22 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 4 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. What Indra delights in, and what he desires — that the great and fiery one grants us in full: the sacred formula, the hymn of praise, the soma, the recited verses — he, the bounteous one, who goes about bearing the stone weapon with his strength.
2. The bull, hurling the four-edged bull-strengthening weapon with his arms, mighty, most manly, powerful — adorning himself for splendor, whose knots he has bound on for fellowship.
3. The god who, born as the most godlike among gods, with great strength and mighty vigors, holding the eager thunderbolt in his arms, made heaven tremble with his force, and the earth as well.
4. All the banks and the many slopes trembled; heaven trembled at his lofty birth, and earth too. The fiery one draws his two mothers to himself; the winds bellowed around him like a bull, in manly fashion.
5. These, O Indra, are your great deeds of greatness, to be proclaimed at every soma-pressing: that you, O bold and daring hero, daring with daring, overpowered the serpent with your mace, by your strength.
6. All this is true of you, O mighty one: the milk-streams flow forth from the udder of the bull. Then indeed, in fear of you, the bull-spirited one, the rivers rushed forth with speed.
7. Then indeed, O lord of bay horses, those goddess sisters praised you with their favors, O Indra, when, set loose and long held back, they flowed out along their long course.
8. The soma-stalk has swelled toward you like a rushing river; the power of the one who toils at the rite reaches you. May the strength of the shining one, drawn toward us, be reined in like a swift steed by the rein — the strength of the mighty cow.
9. Make for us the highest and foremost manly powers, all together, O overpowering one, and your might besides. Deliver to us our enemies, easy to slay; strike down the weapon of the hostile mortal.
10. Listen well to us alone, O Indra; grant to us your wondrous rewards of strength. Send toward us every abundance; be mindful of us, O bounteous one, giver of cattle.
11. Now praised, O Indra, now extolled, swell up nourishment for your singer, as rivers swell. A new sacred formula has been made for you, O lord of bay horses; may we, through devotion, be ever-victorious charioteers.
Translator's note: several verses (especially 2, 4, 7, and 8) turn on compact, disputed images — the "four-edged" weapon bound with knots in verse 2, the "two mothers" and the bull-like winds in verse 4, the "goddess sisters" (likely the freed rivers) in verse 7, and the reined cow-strength of verse 8. These are rendered conservatively, following the words rather than smoothing them into a single clear picture.
Colophon
Rigveda IV.22 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 IV.22
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.
yan na indro jujuṣe yac ca vaṣṭi tan no mahān karati śuṣmy ā cit |
brahma stomam maghavā somam ukthā yo aśmānaṁ śavasā bibhrad eti || 1 ||
vṛṣā vṛṣandhiṁ caturaśrim asyann ugro bāhubhyāṁ nṛtamaḥ śacīvān |
śriye paruṣṇīm uṣamāṇa ūrṇāṁ yasyāḥ parvāṇi sakhyāya vivye || 2 ||
yo devo devatamo jāyamāno maho vājebhir mahadbhiś ca śuṣmaiḥ |
dadhāno vajram bāhvor uśantaṁ dyām amena rejayat pra bhūma || 3 ||
viśvā rodhāṁsi pravataś ca pūrvīr dyaur ṛṣvāj janiman rejata kṣāḥ |
ā mātarā bharati śuṣmy ā gor nṛvat parijman nonuvanta vātāḥ || 4 ||
tā tū ta indra mahato mahāni viśveṣv it savaneṣu pravācyā |
yac chūra dhṛṣṇo dhṛṣatā dadhṛṣvān ahiṁ vajreṇa śavasāviveṣīḥ || 5 ||
tā tū te satyā tuvinṛmṇa viśvā pra dhenavaḥ sisrate vṛṣṇa ūdhnaḥ |
adhā ha tvad vṛṣamaṇo bhiyānāḥ pra sindhavo javasā cakramanta || 6 ||
atrāha te harivas tā u devīr avobhir indra stavanta svasāraḥ |
yat sīm anu pra muco badbadhānā dīrghām anu prasitiṁ syandayadhyai || 7 ||
pipīḻe aṁśur madyo na sindhur ā tvā śamī śaśamānasya śaktiḥ |
asmadryak chuśucānasya yamyā āśur na raśmiṁ tuvyojasaṁ goḥ || 8 ||
asme varṣiṣṭhā kṛṇuhi jyeṣṭhā nṛmṇāni satrā sahure sahāṁsi |
asmabhyaṁ vṛtrā suhanāni randhi jahi vadhar vanuṣo martyasya || 9 ||
asmākam it su śṛṇuhi tvam indrāsmabhyaṁ citrām̐ upa māhi vājān |
asmabhyaṁ viśvā iṣaṇaḥ puraṁdhīr asmākaṁ su maghavan bodhi godāḥ || 10 ||
nū ṣṭuta indra nū gṛṇāna iṣaṁ jaritre nadyo3 na pīpeḥ |
akāri te harivo brahma navyaṁ dhiyā syāma rathyaḥ sadāsāḥ || 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).