Hymn to Dadhikrāvan
Rigveda IV.40 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. Let us now indeed praise Dadhikrāvan; let all the dawns speed me on — of the waters, of Agni, of the dawn, of Sūrya, of Bṛhaspati, of Aṅgiras, the victorious one.
2. He who seeks to carry off spoil, who seeks cattle, who delights, eager for fame, hastening at dawn for nourishment — true, swift, the fast runner, the flying one — Dadhikrāvan brings forth food, strength, and the sun.
3. And as he runs and hastens, eager, his mane streams like a bird's wing; like a swooping hawk rounding a bend, Dadhikrāvan presses on with strength, crossing over.
4. And that steed strains against the goad, bound at the neck, held fast at flank and at the mouth; Dadhikrā, following his own will, has beaten out the turnings of the roads with his strength.
5. The gander seated in brightness, the Vasu seated in mid-air, the priest seated at the altar, the guest seated in the house, seated among men, seated in the best place, seated in the cosmic order, seated in the sky — born of water, born of earth, born of order, born of rock — he is the cosmic order itself.
Translator's note: Verses 2–4 are dense with compound epithets (e.g. "dravaraḥ," "pataṁgaraḥ," "turaṇyataḥ") describing Dadhikrāvan's speed and eagerness in the chase/race; these are rendered conservatively for sense rather than word-for-word etymology. In verse 5, "gojā" (literally "born of cattle/cows") is rendered "born of earth," following the verse's pairing of cosmic elements (water, earth, order, rock); "ṛta" is rendered "order" or "cosmic order" throughout, its conventional range covering truth, cosmic law, and ritual rightness together.
Colophon
Rigveda IV.40 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.40
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.
dadhikrāvṇa id u nu carkirāma viśvā in mām uṣasaḥ sūdayantu |
apām agner uṣasaḥ sūryasya bṛhaspater āṅgirasasya jiṣṇoḥ || 1 ||
satvā bhariṣo gaviṣo duvanyasac chravasyād iṣa uṣasas turaṇyasat |
satyo dravo dravaraḥ pataṁgaro dadhikrāveṣam ūrjaṁ svar janat || 2 ||
uta smāsya dravatas turaṇyataḥ parṇaṁ na ver anu vāti pragardhinaḥ |
śyenasyeva dhrajato aṅkasam pari dadhikrāvṇaḥ sahorjā taritrataḥ || 3 ||
uta sya vājī kṣipaṇiṁ turaṇyati grīvāyām baddho apikakṣa āsani |
kratuṁ dadhikrā anu saṁtavītvat pathām aṅkāṁsy anv āpanīphaṇat || 4 ||
haṁsaḥ śuciṣad vasur antarikṣasad dhotā vediṣad atithir duroṇasat |
nṛṣad varasad ṛtasad vyomasad abjā gojā ṛtajā adrijā ṛtam || 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).