Hymn to Indra
Rigveda V.38 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. Wide is your bounty's gift, O Indra of a hundred powers, far-reaching. So grant us splendor, O lord seen by all peoples, O good ruler.
2. The renown-bringing strength you hold, O Indra, O mightiest one — it has spread abroad, most far-famed, unsurpassable, O golden-hued one.
3. Your mighty forces, O wielder of the stone, streaming out in bounty, reaching their aim — you two gods rule, for our help, over both heaven and earth.
4. And also, of whatever power is yours, O slayer of Vṛtra — bring us manly strength; toward us you show your favor to men.
5. Now, with these helping powers of yours, in your shelter, O hundred-powered one — O Indra, may we be well guarded; O hero, may we be well guarded.
Translator's note: verse 3's "ketasāpaḥ" (rendered here conservatively as "reaching their aim") and the dual verb "rājathaḥ" ("you two gods rule," pairing Indra with an unnamed second god ruling heaven and earth) are terse and somewhat ambiguous in the Sanskrit; the rendering favors literal caution over a smoothed-over guess.
Colophon
Rigveda V.38 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.38
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.
uroṣ ṭa indra rādhaso vibhvī rātiḥ śatakrato |
adhā no viśvacarṣaṇe dyumnā sukṣatra maṁhaya || 1 ||
yad īm indra śravāyyam iṣaṁ śaviṣṭha dadhiṣe |
paprathe dīrghaśruttamaṁ hiraṇyavarṇa duṣṭaram || 2 ||
śuṣmāso ye te adrivo mehanā ketasāpaḥ |
ubhā devāv abhiṣṭaye divaś ca gmaś ca rājathaḥ || 3 ||
uto no asya kasya cid dakṣasya tava vṛtrahan |
asmabhyaṁ nṛmṇam ā bharāsmabhyaṁ nṛmaṇasyase || 4 ||
nū ta ābhir abhiṣṭibhis tava śarmañ chatakrato |
indra syāma sugopāḥ śūra syāma sugopāḥ || 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).