Hymn to Agni

Rigveda V.15 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. I bring forth this song to the ordainer, the sage, the one worth knowing, the glorious, the ancient — Agni, favored with ghee, the mighty lord, most gracious, sustainer of riches, upholder of wealth.

2. By truth they hold up the truth that sustains, in the strength of the sacrifice, in the highest heaven — the unborn men, seated on that foundation, in heaven's ordinance, whom the born ones have approached.

3. Those who ward off distress stretch forth their great, irresistible vigor for the ancient one; newborn, may he surpass the years — they stood around him on every side, as around an angry lion.

4. When, like a mother, spreading yourself forth, you carry sustenance to every person, to nourish and to watch over them, taking on vigor after vigor as you grow old, you go about by your own power, taking manifold forms.

5. May strength now guard the full extent of your might, the wide, milk-rich, sustaining wealth, O god. Hiding your track in secret like a thief, you rescued Atri, making him known, for great wealth.

Translator's note: Verse 2 (jātaiḥ ajātān ... nanakṣuḥ) is one of the Rigveda's syntactically difficult cruxes; the rendering above follows the most defensible grammatical parse — unborn men seated on the ritual foundation, approached by the born ones — but the referents remain genuinely uncertain. Verse 5 alludes to the myth of Agni rescuing the sage Atri, told more fully elsewhere in the Rigveda.

Colophon

Rigveda V.15 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.15

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.

pra vedhase kavaye vedyāya giram bhare yaśase pūrvyāya |
ghṛtaprasatto asuraḥ suśevo rāyo dhartā dharuṇo vasvo agniḥ || 1 ||

ṛtena ṛtaṁ dharuṇaṁ dhārayanta yajñasya śāke parame vyoman |
divo dharman dharuṇe seduṣo nṝñ jātair ajātām̐ abhi ye nanakṣuḥ || 2 ||

aṅhoyuvas tanvas tanvate vi vayo mahad duṣṭaram pūrvyāya |
sa saṁvato navajātas tuturyāt siṅhaṁ na kruddham abhitaḥ pari ṣṭhuḥ || 3 ||

māteva yad bharase paprathāno janaṁ-janaṁ dhāyase cakṣase ca |
vayo-vayo jarase yad dadhānaḥ pari tmanā viṣurūpo jigāsi || 4 ||

vājo nu te śavasas pātv antam uruṁ doghaṁ dharuṇaṁ deva rāyaḥ |
padaṁ na tāyur guhā dadhāno maho rāye citayann atrim aspaḥ || 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).