Hymn to Agni
Rigveda V.12 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 5 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. Forth to Agni, the lofty, worthy of worship, the bull of ṛta, the mighty lord — I offer this thought. Like ghee well-purified in the mouth at the sacrifice, I bring a well-purified song to meet the bull.
2. O knower of ṛta, know the truth indeed; open the many ancient streams of order. Not by force, not by duplicity do I follow sorcery — I hold to the truth of the ruddy bull.
3. By what truth, Agni, acting truly for us, will you become again the finder of new praise? Know me, god, guardian of the seasons of order — I do not know the lord who wins this wealth.
4. Who, Agni, are your fetters for the deceiver? What shining guardians will win the prize? Who guard the stronghold of untruth, Agni? Who are the keepers of false speech?
5. These friends of yours, Agni, are divided — kind ones who have turned unkind. They have wounded themselves with their own words, speaking crooked things to the one who is upright.
6. Whoever with homage honors your sacrifice, Agni, guards the truth of the ruddy bull. May his broad dwelling prosper and go well — offspring of ever-spreading humankind.
Translator's note: verses 2–6 turn on the opposition of ṛta (cosmic truth/order) and anṛta (falsehood); "the ruddy bull" (aruṣasya vṛṣṇaḥ) is Agni himself. Verse 3's "lord who wins this wealth" and verse 6's "Nahuṣa" (rendered here as "humankind," its common extended sense) are terse and somewhat obscure in the Sanskrit; the rendering above is conservative rather than interpretive.
Colophon
Rigveda V.12 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 V.12
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.
prāgnaye bṛhate yajñiyāya ṛtasya vṛṣṇe asurāya manma |
ghṛtaṁ na yajña āsye3 supūtaṁ giram bhare vṛṣabhāya pratīcīm || 1 ||
ṛtaṁ cikitva ṛtam ic cikiddhy ṛtasya dhārā anu tṛndhi pūrvīḥ |
nāhaṁ yātuṁ sahasā na dvayena ṛtaṁ sapāmy aruṣasya vṛṣṇaḥ || 2 ||
kayā no agna ṛtayann ṛtena bhuvo navedā ucathasya navyaḥ |
vedā me deva ṛtupā ṛtūnāṁ nāham patiṁ sanitur asya rāyaḥ || 3 ||
ke te agne ripave bandhanāsaḥ ke pāyavaḥ saniṣanta dyumantaḥ |
ke dhāsim agne anṛtasya pānti ka āsato vacasaḥ santi gopāḥ || 4 ||
sakhāyas te viṣuṇā agna ete śivāsaḥ santo aśivā abhūvan |
adhūrṣata svayam ete vacobhir ṛjūyate vṛjināni bruvantaḥ || 5 ||
yas te agne namasā yajñam īṭṭa ṛtaṁ sa pāty aruṣasya vṛṣṇaḥ |
tasya kṣayaḥ pṛthur ā sādhur etu prasarsrāṇasya nahuṣasya śeṣaḥ || 6 ||
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).