Hymn to Indra
Rigveda VI.32 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. For this great hero — mighty, swift, unmatched — I have fashioned unprecedented, most abundant words. For the bountiful one, wielder of the thunderbolt, the ancient and steadfast one, I have crafted with my mouth the most pleasing speech.
2. With the sun he made the two mother-worlds shine for the sages; praised, he split the rock. Together with the devoted singers, roaring in eagerness, he loosed the bond that held the cows.
3. With his singers and his kneeling companions he has conquered again and again among the cattle. Breaker of strongholds, befriending his friends, he shattered the firm forts — himself a sage, together with the sages.
4. Come to your praiser with heaped gifts, with great strength and mighty vigor, with your many hosts of men. O bull among the peoples, lover of praise-song, advance now for our well-being.
5. Indra, sped onward by his might in a rushing onset with his steeds, overpowering, drove from the flank. Thus set loose, unremitting toward their goal, day after day they have wrought a work not to be forgotten.
Translator's note: verse 5 is syntactically compressed and its referents (who is "sped," what is "set loose" and works "day after day") are not fully recoverable without inference; the rendering above follows the Sanskrit word order and case relations as closely as English allows rather than resolving the ambiguity with an invented subject.
Colophon
Rigveda VI.32 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.32
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.
apūrvyā purutamāny asmai mahe vīrāya tavase turāya |
virapśine vajriṇe śaṁtamāni vacāṁsy āsā sthavirāya takṣam || 1 ||
sa mātarā sūryeṇā kavīnām avāsayad rujad adriṁ gṛṇānaḥ |
svādhībhir ṛkvabhir vāvaśāna ud usriyāṇām asṛjan nidānam || 2 ||
sa vahnibhir ṛkvabhir goṣu śaśvan mitajñubhiḥ purukṛtvā jigāya |
puraḥ purohā sakhibhiḥ sakhīyan dṛḻhā ruroja kavibhiḥ kaviḥ san || 3 ||
sa nīvyābhir jaritāram acchā maho vājebhir mahadbhiś ca śuṣmaiḥ |
puruvīrābhir vṛṣabha kṣitīnām ā girvaṇaḥ suvitāya pra yāhi || 4 ||
sa sargeṇa śavasā takto atyair apa indro dakṣiṇatas turāṣāṭ |
itthā sṛjānā anapāvṛd arthaṁ dive-dive viviṣur apramṛṣyam || 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).