Hymn to Mitra and Varuṇa
Rigveda V.70 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. Manifold indeed is your help now, O Varuṇa; O Mitra, may I win your favor.
2. Free of guile, may we rightly obtain from you two nourishment for our support; may we belong to you, O mighty ones.
3. Protect us, O mighty ones, with your guardians, and as good protectors shield us; may we, in our own persons, overcome the Dasyus.
4. O you of wondrous power, may we suffer no one's assault in our own bodies — not in our offspring, not in our lineage.
Translator's note: "rudrā" (vs. 2–3) is the dual vocative of an epithet meaning something like "mighty/fierce ones," applied here to Mitra and Varuṇa rather than to the god Rudra; it is rendered "mighty ones" rather than left untranslated. "yakṣam" (vs. 4) is an obscure term for a hostile seizure or assault; "śeṣasā" and "tanasā" (vs. 4) both denote one's offspring or continuing lineage and are rendered as "offspring" and "lineage" to preserve the doubling of the Sanskrit.
Colophon
Rigveda V.70 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.70
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.
purūruṇā cid dhy asty avo nūnaṁ vāṁ varuṇa |
mitra vaṁsi vāṁ sumatim || 1 ||
tā vāṁ samyag adruhvāṇeṣam aśyāma dhāyase |
vayaṁ te rudrā syāma || 2 ||
pātaṁ no rudrā pāyubhir uta trāyethāṁ sutrātrā |
turyāma dasyūn tanūbhiḥ || 3 ||
mā kasyādbhutakratū yakṣam bhujemā tanūbhiḥ |
mā śeṣasā mā tanasā || 4 ||
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).