Hymn to Agni
Rigveda V.18 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. At dawn, may Agni, dear to many, guest of the clan, be praised — he who, immortal, delights among mortals in all their oblations.
2. For Dvita, whose offering is made ready, by the bounty of his own skill he set the soma-drop in due order; even your praiser belongs to you, immortal one.
3. Him, of long-enduring flame, I invoke with a song on behalf of the bounteous patrons — whose chariot goes forth unharmed, O giver of horses.
4. Those in whom was wondrous insight, or who guard the sacred hymns — upon the strewn sacrificial grass, in the world of light, they have won renown on every side.
5. Those who gave me fifty horses at our shared gathering of praise — for them, O Agni, make fame great and shining, lofty, immortal one, a fame full of men, the fame of these patrons among men.
Translator's note: verse 2 is textually dense and its precise sense is uncertain. "Dvita" (dvitāya) is taken as a proper name, likely the ṛṣi/patron Dvita Āptya, rather than an ordinal; "mṛktavāhase" is rendered conservatively as "whose offering is made ready." "svarṇare" in verse 4 (rendered "in the world of light") is a place-name/epithet whose exact referent is not settled.
Colophon
Rigveda V.18 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.18
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.
prātar agniḥ purupriyo viśaḥ stavetātithiḥ |
viśvāni yo amartyo havyā marteṣu raṇyati || 1 ||
dvitāya mṛktavāhase svasya dakṣasya maṁhanā |
induṁ sa dhatta ānuṣak stotā cit te amartya || 2 ||
taṁ vo dīrghāyuśociṣaṁ girā huve maghonām |
ariṣṭo yeṣāṁ ratho vy aśvadāvann īyate || 3 ||
citrā vā yeṣu dīdhitir āsann ukthā pānti ye |
stīrṇam barhiḥ svarṇare śravāṁsi dadhire pari || 4 ||
ye me pañcāśataṁ dadur aśvānāṁ sadhastuti |
dyumad agne mahi śravo bṛhat kṛdhi maghonāṁ nṛvad amṛta nṛṇām || 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).