Hymn to Mitra and Varuṇa
Rigveda V.68 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. This short hymn addresses Mitra and Varuṇa together as a pair of sovereign gods, invoking their bond with cosmic order (ṛta), rain, and wealth.
1. Sing out to Mitra and to Varuṇa with inspired song — to the two of great dominion, the lofty ṛta.
2. The two sovereign kings whose home is in the ghee-offering, both Mitra and Varuṇa — gods praised among the gods.
3. May the two of you grant us of the great wealth of earth and of heaven; great is your dominion among the gods.
4. Cherishing ṛta with ṛta, the two attain vigorous strength; guileless, the two gods grow great.
5. The two whose heaven is rain, lords of flowing, active waters, of the dew-rich realm — they reach their lofty seat.
Translator's note: Verse 5 turns on two dense compounds — "rītyāpeṣas" (rendered here as "of flowing, active waters") and "dānumatyāḥ" ("of the dew-rich realm") — whose precise referent (a river, the sky, or the offering itself) is not fully certain from the verse alone; the rendering above is conservative rather than definitive.
Colophon
Rigveda V.68 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.68
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.
pra vo mitrāya gāyata varuṇāya vipā girā |
mahikṣatrāv ṛtam bṛhat || 1 ||
samrājā yā ghṛtayonī mitraś cobhā varuṇaś ca |
devā deveṣu praśastā || 2 ||
tā naḥ śaktam pārthivasya maho rāyo divyasya |
mahi vāṁ kṣatraṁ deveṣu || 3 ||
ṛtam ṛtena sapanteṣiraṁ dakṣam āśāte |
adruhā devau vardhete || 4 ||
vṛṣṭidyāvā rītyāpeṣas patī dānumatyāḥ |
bṛhantaṁ gartam āśāte || 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).