Hymn to Indra
Rigveda VI.30 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 6 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. He has grown ever greater in strength, the one unaging, who gives out treasures. Indra exceeds heaven and earth — only half of him matches both world-halves together.
2. Now I hold his lordly power to be vast: what he has established, no one violates. Day by day the sun has become visible; the very wise one has set the dwelling-places far and wide.
3. Even today, even now, this stands true of the rivers' waters: you carved a course for them, Indra. The mountains settled down like men seated at a meal; by you, wise one, the regions were made firm.
4. This indeed is true: there is no other like you, Indra — no god, no mortal, is greater. You struck down the serpent that lay coiled around the flood, and you released the waters toward the sea.
5. You, Indra, threw open the doors of the waters that run every way; you broke apart the firm rock of the mountain. You became king of the moving world, of its peoples, generating at once the sun, the sky, and the dawn.
Translator's note: verse 1's closing line ("only half of him matches both world-halves") is a genuinely compressed image — the sense is that Indra's greatness surpasses the combined extent of heaven and earth, of which only a portion corresponds to him. Verse 3's "admasadaḥ" (rendered "men seated at a meal") is an uncommon compound describing how the mountains settled/sat down; the comparison is kept literal rather than smoothed over.
Colophon
Rigveda VI.30 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 VI.30
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.
bhūya id vāvṛdhe vīryāyam̐ eko ajuryo dayate vasūni |
pra ririce diva indraḥ pṛthivyā ardham id asya prati rodasī ubhe || 1 ||
adhā manye bṛhad asuryam asya yāni dādhāra nakir ā mināti |
dive-dive sūryo darśato bhūd vi sadmāny urviyā sukratur dhāt || 2 ||
adyā cin nū cit tad apo nadīnāṁ yad ābhyo arado gātum indra |
ni parvatā admasado na sedus tvayā dṛḻhāni sukrato rajāṁsi || 3 ||
satyam it tan na tvāvām̐ anyo astīndra devo na martyo jyāyān |
ahann ahim pariśayānam arṇo 'vāsṛjo apo acchā samudram || 4 ||
tvam apo vi duro viṣūcīr indra dṛḻham arujaḥ parvatasya |
rājābhavo jagataś carṣaṇīnāṁ sākaṁ sūryaṁ janayan dyām uṣāsam || 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).