Hymn to Bṛhaspati

Rigveda VI.73 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 who splits the rock, the firstborn, possessing truth — Bṛhaspati of the Aṅgiras line, bearing the oblation — doubly mighty in his place, sitting before the hot offering: our father bellows like a bull toward the two world-halves.

2. For the people he made such ample room, Bṛhaspati, at the calling of the gods; slaying the obstructions, he tears the strongholds open, conquering enemies and foes, overpowering them in battle.

3. Bṛhaspati won treasures together, this god the great cattle-pens; seeking to win the waters and the sunlight, unrivaled, Bṛhaspati slays the foe with his hymns.

Translator's note: "arkaiḥ" (verse 3) can mean either "songs/hymns" or "flashes/rays"; the sense of a sung or radiant weapon is kept ambiguous in the Sanskrit and rendered here as "hymns." "Dvibarhajmā" (verse 1) is a rare compound (dvi-barhas, "double strength/greatness" + jman, "birth/place"); rendered conservatively as "doubly mighty in his place."

Colophon

Rigveda VI.73 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.

🌲

Source Text: ṛgveda VI.73

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.

yo adribhit prathamajā ṛtāvā bṛhaspatir āṅgiraso haviṣmān |
dvibarhajmā prāgharmasat pitā na ā rodasī vṛṣabho roravīti || 1 ||

janāya cid ya īvata u lokam bṛhaspatir devahūtau cakāra |
ghnan vṛtrāṇi vi puro dardarīti jayañ chatrūm̐r amitrān pṛtsu sāhan || 2 ||

bṛhaspatiḥ sam ajayad vasūni maho vrajān gomato deva eṣaḥ |
apaḥ siṣāsan sva1r apratīto bṛhaspatir hanty amitram arkaiḥ || 3 ||

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).