Parjanya! The rain-god cometh! Lo, how the sky blackeneth with his presence. The clouds gather like an army amassing for battle, swollen and heavy, pregnant with the waters of heaven. The wind precedeth him, crashing through the forests and fields, bending the trees as if in supplication.

The thunder is his voice—terrible, magnificent, shaking the very foundation of the earth. Each great peal is a word of power, a command that all nature must obey. And then cometh the lightning—his gleaming spear, flashing across the heavens, striking the ground with terrible force. Where he striketh, the earth trembleth.

And then! The rain! The blessed, longed-for rain! It falleth from the sky like the milk from the breast of a mother to her starving child. It poundeth upon the parched earth, soaking into the soil, reaching down to the roots of the plants that have been gasping in the terrible heat of the drought.

The world drinketh deeply and is renewed. The grass, which had turned to brittle straw, once more becometh green. The seeds that lay dormant in the earth begin to sprout. The cattle rush out into the rain-soaked pastures. The rivers rise and flow strong again, carrying the waters of life to all the land.

Without thee, O Parjanya, the world would become a dead thing. Without thy thunder and lightning and the waters thou bringest, all creation would perish. Thou art the bringer of abundance, the destroyer of drought, the savior of all that liveth.

We sing thy praise! Come to us with thy generous rains. Break the terrible heat. Fill the reservoirs and the rivers. Give life to the seeds. Bless all creatures with thy gift of water and renewal.