Hymn to Agni
Rigveda V.14 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. Awaken Agni, the immortal one, with your hymn of praise, as he is kindled — he who sets our offerings among the gods.
2. Mortals invoke him at the rites, the immortal god, the best sacrificer among the race of humans.
3. Him indeed all people invoke with the ghee-dripping ladle — Agni, the god, to carry the offering.
4. Agni, once born, shone forth, slaying the Dasyus, driving off darkness with light. He found the cattle, the waters, the light of heaven.
5. Worship Agni, worthy of praise, the seer, his back anointed with ghee. May he come, may he hear my call.
6. They have strengthened Agni with ghee, with hymns of praise — him who beholds all peoples — with well-crafted, eloquent words.
Translator's note: verse 4's "svaḥ" is rendered "the light of heaven," a common sense of the word in this formula alongside "cattle" and "waters"; the three together name goods Agni recovers or wins for his worshippers.
Colophon
Rigveda V.14 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.14
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.
agniṁ stomena bodhaya samidhāno amartyam |
havyā deveṣu no dadhat || 1 ||
tam adhvareṣv īḻate devam martā amartyam |
yajiṣṭham mānuṣe jane || 2 ||
taṁ hi śaśvanta īḻate srucā devaṁ ghṛtaścutā |
agniṁ havyāya voḻhave || 3 ||
agnir jāto arocata ghnan dasyūñ jyotiṣā tamaḥ |
avindad gā apaḥ svaḥ || 4 ||
agnim īḻenyaṁ kaviṁ ghṛtapṛṣṭhaṁ saparyata |
vetu me śṛṇavad dhavam || 5 ||
agniṁ ghṛtena vāvṛdhuḥ stomebhir viśvacarṣaṇim |
svādhībhir vacasyubhiḥ || 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).