Hymn to Agni
Rigveda V.7 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. Friends, bring together your united offering and praise-song for Agni — for the loftiest of peoples, the offspring of strength, the mighty one.
2. Wherever joyful men gather at his meeting-place, in his assembly-hall — the worthy ones kindle him, the people bring him to life.
3. When we win together our offerings, together the oblations of men — by the might of his splendor, I have grasped the rein of truth.
4. He makes a beacon even at night, for the one sitting far away, when the purifying, ageless one consumes the forest-lords.
5. At whose approach they pour down sweat on the paths; him, the self-born one, the many have grown up around, like ridges.
6. The much-desired one whom mortal man has found for the sustenance of all — the savor of food, unfailing, for living man.
7. He indeed, like a giver who gives not, crosses the unfailing waste as a herd of cattle would — golden-bearded, bright-toothed, skillful, his strength unbent.
8. Pure, for whom, as for Atri, he pours forth like an axe; the good mother bore him well, when, his work done, he attained good fortune.
9. O Agni, that of yours which brings well-being to our nourishment at the ghee-libation — set splendor and fame in these offerings, and place attentive mind among mortals.
10. Thus indeed, unyielding one, I take up the cattle given by you as my strength. Then, O Agni, may Atri overpower the Dasyus of the niggardly man — may he overpower rival men and win the food-offerings.
Translator's note: verses 5 and 7 are among the most syntactically compressed and lexically obscure in the hymn (the exact sense of "svajenya," "dhanva akṣita," and the cattle/desert imagery in v. 7 is disputed among grammarians); they are rendered here conservatively, following the visible grammar of the Sanskrit rather than any interpretive gloss. Verses 8 and 10 refer to the sage Atri, a figure elsewhere in the Rigveda rescued by Agni; the hymn alludes to that story without narrating it.
Colophon
Rigveda V.7 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.7
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.
sakhāyaḥ saṁ vaḥ samyañcam iṣaṁ stomaṁ cāgnaye |
varṣiṣṭhāya kṣitīnām ūrjo naptre sahasvate || 1 ||
kutrā cid yasya samṛtau raṇvā naro nṛṣadane |
arhantaś cid yam indhate saṁjanayanti jantavaḥ || 2 ||
saṁ yad iṣo vanāmahe saṁ havyā mānuṣāṇām |
uta dyumnasya śavasa ṛtasya raśmim ā dade || 3 ||
sa smā kṛṇoti ketum ā naktaṁ cid dūra ā sate |
pāvako yad vanaspatīn pra smā mināty ajaraḥ || 4 ||
ava sma yasya veṣaṇe svedam pathiṣu juhvati |
abhīm aha svajenyam bhūmā pṛṣṭheva ruruhuḥ || 5 ||
yam martyaḥ puruspṛhaṁ vidad viśvasya dhāyase |
pra svādanam pitūnām astatātiṁ cid āyave || 6 ||
sa hi ṣmā dhanvākṣitaṁ dātā na dāty ā paśuḥ |
hiriśmaśruḥ śucidann ṛbhur anibhṛṣṭataviṣiḥ || 7 ||
śuciḥ ṣma yasmā atrivat pra svadhitīva rīyate |
suṣūr asūta mātā krāṇā yad ānaśe bhagam || 8 ||
ā yas te sarpirāsute 'gne śam asti dhāyase |
aiṣu dyumnam uta śrava ā cittam martyeṣu dhāḥ || 9 ||
iti cin manyum adhrijas tvādātam ā paśuṁ dade |
ād agne apṛṇato 'triḥ sāsahyād dasyūn iṣaḥ sāsahyān nṝn || 10 ||
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).