Indra's Self-Praise and the Eagle Who Brought the Soma
Rigveda IV.26 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. I became Manu, and I became Surya; I am the sage Kakṣīvant, the inspired poet. I subdue Kutsa, son of Arjuni; I am the seer Uśanā — behold me!
2. I gave the earth to the Ārya, I gave rain to the pious mortal. I led the waters onward, roaring; the gods followed my design.
3. Exulting, I broke open the strongholds — nine together with ninety of Śambara — and the hundredth dwelling entirely, when I gave my full help to Divodāsa Atithigva.
4. Let that bird be foremost among birds, O Maruts — the falcon, swiftest-flying among falcons — when the fair-winged one, by his own unaided strength, carried the oblation loved by the gods for Manu.
5. If the bird, darting swiftly, bore it from there — set loose, mind-swift, on the wide path — quickly he came with the sweet soma-draught, and the falcon won fame in this deed.
6. The swift-darting falcon, gripping the soma-shoot, the bird from far away bearing the exhilarating, delighting draught — he carried the soma, holding it fast, god-accompanied, having taken it from that highest heaven.
7. Having taken it, the falcon carried the soma — a thousand libations and ten thousand together. Here Bounty cast off the niggardly; undeluded, in the exhilaration of soma, she left the deluded behind.
Translator's note: verse 1's "ny ṛñje" (rendered "subdue") is a difficult verbal form, more literally "I press/bring low" or "I bow down to" — its sense toward Kutsa is debated among grammarians and is given here conservatively. In verse 7, "Puraṁdhi" is rendered as "Bounty" — it names either the goddess of abundance or the abstract quality itself, and the verse's contrast of amūraḥ ("undeluded/wise") against mūrāḥ ("deluded/foolish") is kept literal rather than resolved into a fuller story, since the Sanskrit itself is compressed to the point of ambiguity.
Colophon
Rigveda IV.26 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.
🌲
Source Text: ṛgveda IV.26
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.
aham manur abhavaṁ sūryaś cāhaṁ kakṣīvām̐ ṛṣir asmi vipraḥ |
ahaṁ kutsam ārjuneyaṁ ny ṛñje 'haṁ kavir uśanā paśyatā mā || 1 ||
aham bhūmim adadām āryāyāhaṁ vṛṣṭiṁ dāśuṣe martyāya |
aham apo anayaṁ vāvaśānā mama devāso anu ketam āyan || 2 ||
aham puro mandasāno vy airaṁ nava sākaṁ navatīḥ śambarasya |
śatatamaṁ veśyaṁ sarvatātā divodāsam atithigvaṁ yad āvam || 3 ||
pra su ṣa vibhyo maruto vir astu pra śyenaḥ śyenebhya āśupatvā |
acakrayā yat svadhayā suparṇo havyam bharan manave devajuṣṭam || 4 ||
bharad yadi vir ato vevijānaḥ pathoruṇā manojavā asarji |
tūyaṁ yayau madhunā somyenota śravo vivide śyeno atra || 5 ||
ṛjīpī śyeno dadamāno aṁśum parāvataḥ śakuno mandram madam |
somam bharad dādṛhāṇo devāvān divo amuṣmād uttarād ādāya || 6 ||
ādāya śyeno abharat somaṁ sahasraṁ savām̐ ayutaṁ ca sākam |
atrā puraṁdhir ajahād arātīr made somasya mūrā amūraḥ || 7 ||
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).