Hymn to the Lord of the Field and the Furrow
Rigveda IV.57 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. With the Lord of the Field as our ally, we win as it were with a friend; may he, the fosterer of cattle and horses, be gracious to us in this.
2. O Lord of the Field, pour out for us a honey-sweet wave, as a milk-cow yields her milk; may the lords of the sacred order be gracious to us, well-purified and dripping with sweetness, like ghee.
3. May the plants be full of honey, the sky and the waters honey-sweet; may the air between be honey-sweet for us; may the Lord of the Field be honey-sweet for us; unharmed, may we walk in his path.
4. Well may the draught-animals go, well the men, well may the plough plough; well may the straps be bound, well ply the goad.
5. O Śunāsīra, accept this speech; with the moisture you two made in the sky, sprinkle down upon this earth.
6. Come toward us, fortunate Sītā — we praise you — so that you may be fortunate for us, so that you may be fruitful for us.
7. May Indra take hold of Sītā, may Pūṣan guide her; may she, rich in milk, yield for us year after year.
8. Well may the ploughshares turn up the earth for us, well may the ploughmen go on with the oxen; well may Parjanya grant sweetness with honey and rain; O Śunāsīra, grant us well-being.
Translator's note: śuna/śunam (verses 4 and 8) carries a double sense of "well, auspiciously" and "prosperity," and echoes the name of the plough-deities Śunāsīra; the repetition is rendered as "well" throughout to preserve the refrain. Kṣetrapati (Lord of the Field), Śunāsīra (the paired plough-and-share deities), and Sītā (the furrow, addressed as a goddess) are kept untranslated as proper names, as is standard for these Vedic figures.
Colophon
Rigveda IV.57 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.57
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.
kṣetrasya patinā vayaṁ hiteneva jayāmasi |
gām aśvam poṣayitnv ā sa no mṛḻātīdṛśe || 1 ||
kṣetrasya pate madhumantam ūrmiṁ dhenur iva payo asmāsu dhukṣva |
madhuścutaṁ ghṛtam iva supūtam ṛtasya naḥ patayo mṛḻayantu || 2 ||
madhumatīr oṣadhīr dyāva āpo madhuman no bhavatv antarikṣam |
kṣetrasya patir madhumān no astv ariṣyanto anv enaṁ carema || 3 ||
śunaṁ vāhāḥ śunaṁ naraḥ śunaṁ kṛṣatu lāṅgalam |
śunaṁ varatrā badhyantāṁ śunam aṣṭrām ud iṅgaya || 4 ||
śunāsīrāv imāṁ vācaṁ juṣethāṁ yad divi cakrathuḥ payaḥ |
tenemām upa siñcatam || 5 ||
arvācī subhage bhava sīte vandāmahe tvā |
yathā naḥ subhagāsasi yathā naḥ suphalāsasi || 6 ||
indraḥ sītāṁ ni gṛhṇātu tām pūṣānu yacchatu |
sā naḥ payasvatī duhām uttarām-uttarāṁ samām || 7 ||
śunaṁ naḥ phālā vi kṛṣantu bhūmiṁ śunaṁ kīnāśā abhi yantu vāhaiḥ |
śunam parjanyo madhunā payobhiḥ śunāsīrā śunam asmāsu dhattam || 8 ||
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).