Hymn to the Maruts
Rigveda V.58 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. Now indeed I praise that mighty troop of the Maruts with these newest hymns — they who, with their swift horses, drive on with force, and who rule, self-sovereign, over the immortal realm.
2. The dazzling, powerful troop, bracelets on their hands, whose nature is to shake all things, wondrous in their power, givers of gifts to choose — bringers of joy, whose greatness cannot be measured — praise them, O sage, these men of abundant bounty.
3. May the water-bearers come to you today, the rain which all the Maruts stir up. This fire, O Maruts, is kindled — delight in it, O youthful sages.
4. You, O worthy of worship, beget for the people a ruling lord, well-fashioned. From you comes the fist-fighter driven by the strength of his arm; from you, O Maruts, comes the one with good horses, rich in heroic sons.
5. Like spokes of a wheel, not lagging behind; like days, they are born forth one after another, blameless, in their might. The sons of Pṛśni, peerless, most impetuous — the Maruts have joined themselves together by their own wisdom.
6. When you set forth, O Maruts, with your dappled horses and firm-wheeled chariots, the waters surge, the woods are shaken and released, the ruddy bull descends — let heaven roar.
7. Even the earth spread wide before their coming, as a mother bears her child — they carried their own strength. They yoked the winds as horses to the chariot-pole; the sons of Rudra made the rain their sweat.
8. O men, O Maruts, be gracious to us — greatly bountiful, immortal, knowers of the sacred order, truly renowned, poets, ever young, dwellers of the great mountains, pouring forth abundantly.
Translator's note: verse 6's "ruddy bull" (osriya vṛṣabha) is a compressed image for the rain/storm-bull descending with the Maruts' onset; verse 8's "bṛhadgirayaḥ" (literally "of the great mountains") is rendered as a dwelling-epithet rather than resolved into a more specific reading, since the compound admits more than one construal.
Colophon
Rigveda V.58 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.58
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.
tam u nūnaṁ taviṣīmantam eṣāṁ stuṣe gaṇam mārutaṁ navyasīnām |
ya āśvaśvā amavad vahanta uteśire amṛtasya svarājaḥ || 1 ||
tveṣaṁ gaṇaṁ tavasaṁ khādihastaṁ dhunivratam māyinaṁ dātivāram |
mayobhuvo ye amitā mahitvā vandasva vipra tuvirādhaso nṝn || 2 ||
ā vo yantūdavāhāso adya vṛṣṭiṁ ye viśve maruto junanti |
ayaṁ yo agnir marutaḥ samiddha etaṁ juṣadhvaṁ kavayo yuvānaḥ || 3 ||
yūyaṁ rājānam iryaṁ janāya vibhvataṣṭaṁ janayathā yajatrāḥ |
yuṣmad eti muṣṭihā bāhujūto yuṣmat sadaśvo marutaḥ suvīraḥ || 4 ||
arā ived acaramā aheva pra-pra jāyante akavā mahobhiḥ |
pṛśneḥ putrā upamāso rabhiṣṭhāḥ svayā matyā marutaḥ sam mimikṣuḥ || 5 ||
yat prāyāsiṣṭa pṛṣatībhir aśvair vīḻupavibhir maruto rathebhiḥ |
kṣodanta āpo riṇate vanāny avosriyo vṛṣabhaḥ krandatu dyauḥ || 6 ||
prathiṣṭa yāman pṛthivī cid eṣām bharteva garbhaṁ svam ic chavo dhuḥ |
vātān hy aśvān dhury āyuyujre varṣaṁ svedaṁ cakrire rudriyāsaḥ || 7 ||
haye naro maruto mṛḻatā nas tuvīmaghāso amṛtā ṛtajñāḥ |
satyaśrutaḥ kavayo yuvāno bṛhadgirayo bṛhad ukṣamāṇāḥ || 8 ||
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).