Hymn to the Viśvedevas
Rigveda V.48 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. What indeed do we devise for the dear abode, self-ruling, self-glorious, and great? When, in the cloud of that region, the possessor of magic power spreads out the waters, choosing her course.
2. They stretched the hero-nourishing order over the whole region with one common bound. The waters that flow back, the later ones, drive onward; the god-loving person advances by means of the earlier ones.
3. With the pressing-stones, by day and by night, he pours out the widest thunderbolt for the one who holds magic power — he whose hundred, moving in his own house, roll the days together and roll them apart.
4. I have beheld that course of his, like the edge of an axe, facing toward it, for the enjoyment of his form. If, together, like a dwelling rich in food, he lays down treasure for the clan that calls out for sustenance.
5. He, four-faced, guides straight with his tongue, clad in what is fair — Varuṇa, holding the stranger in check. We do not know him by human power, nor whence Bhaga and Savitṛ give the desirable gift.
Translator's note: this hymn is one of the more genuinely obscure sūktas of Maṇḍala 5. Several words resist confident rendering: "āmenyasya" (verse 1) is an unclear adjective qualifying "rajasaḥ" (region/atmosphere) and is rendered here simply as "that region"; "apejate" (verse 2) is translated conservatively as "drive onward"; "bharahūtaye" (verse 4) — literally something like "for the invoking of support" — is rendered "that calls out for sustenance"; and "puruṣatvatā" (verse 5) is rendered "by human power." Where the Sanskrit itself is riddling, the English preserves that opacity rather than resolving it with invented clarity.
Colophon
Rigveda V.48 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.48
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.
kad u priyāya dhāmne manāmahe svakṣatrāya svayaśase mahe vayam |
āmenyasya rajaso yad abhra ām̐ apo vṛṇānā vitanoti māyinī || 1 ||
tā atnata vayunaṁ vīravakṣaṇaṁ samānyā vṛtayā viśvam ā rajaḥ |
apo apācīr aparā apejate pra pūrvābhis tirate devayur janaḥ || 2 ||
ā grāvabhir ahanyebhir aktubhir variṣṭhaṁ vajram ā jigharti māyini |
śataṁ vā yasya pracaran sve dame saṁvartayanto vi ca vartayann ahā || 3 ||
tām asya rītim paraśor iva praty anīkam akhyam bhuje asya varpasaḥ |
sacā yadi pitumantam iva kṣayaṁ ratnaṁ dadhāti bharahūtaye viśe || 4 ||
sa jihvayā caturanīka ṛñjate cāru vasāno varuṇo yatann arim |
na tasya vidma puruṣatvatā vayaṁ yato bhagaḥ savitā dāti vāryam || 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).