Hymn to Mitra and Varuṇa
Rigveda V.67 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. Truly thus, O gods, is the great, worshipful trysting-place of the Ādityas. O Varuṇa, Mitra, Aryaman — you have won the loftiest dominion.
2. When you two, O Varuṇa and Mitra, sit upon your golden seat — you upholders of the peoples, destroyers of foes — bring your favor to us.
3. For all of them — all-knowing Varuṇa, Mitra, Aryaman — hold to their ordinances as to footprints; they guard mortal man from harm.
4. They indeed are true, touchers of cosmic order, possessors of order, among every people — good guides, generous givers, wide-ranging even out of distress.
5. Who now is unpraised among you two, Mitra or Varuṇa, in your own persons? This thought indeed goes out well to you — the thought goes out for the sons of Atri.
Translator's note: Verse 1 addresses three gods (Varuṇa, Mitra, Aryaman) but the verb "āśāthe" is dual, following the common Mitra-Varuṇa convention of retaining the dual even when Aryaman is named alongside them. Verse 5 is syntactically compressed and its exact sense is uncertain; "tanūnām" (genitive plural, literally "of bodies/persons") and the repeated "eṣate matiḥ" ("the thought/hymn goes forth") are rendered conservatively rather than smoothed into confident prose. "Sons of Atri" (atribhyaḥ) likely names the poet's own clan, to whom the hymn is offered.
Colophon
Rigveda V.67 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.67
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.
baḻ itthā deva niṣkṛtam ādityā yajatam bṛhat |
varuṇa mitrāryaman varṣiṣṭhaṁ kṣatram āśāthe || 1 ||
ā yad yoniṁ hiraṇyayaṁ varuṇa mitra sadathaḥ |
dhartārā carṣaṇīnāṁ yantaṁ sumnaṁ riśādasā || 2 ||
viśve hi viśvavedaso varuṇo mitro aryamā |
vratā padeva saścire pānti martyaṁ riṣaḥ || 3 ||
te hi satyā ṛtaspṛśa ṛtāvāno jane-jane |
sunīthāsaḥ sudānavo 'ṁhoś cid urucakrayaḥ || 4 ||
ko nu vām mitrāstuto varuṇo vā tanūnām |
tat su vām eṣate matir atribhya eṣate matiḥ || 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).