Hymn to Parjanya
Rigveda VII.101 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 7 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. Speak forth the three voices, light-crested, that milk this udder streaming with honey. He who makes the germ of the plants his calf — the bull, newly born, bellows.
2. He who makes the plants grow, who makes the waters grow, the god who rules the whole moving world — may he grant us threefold shelter and protection, the threefold light, with his good help.
3. From you the cow becomes barren, from you she calves — this one shapes her body as he wills. The mother receives the father's seed; by it the father thrives, by it the son.
4. In whom all beings stand, the three heavens, the waters flowing in three streams — three vessels pour themselves out, dripping sweetness abundantly on every side.
5. This speech is for Parjanya, the self-ruling king — let it come from deep within the heart, and may he delight in it. May the joy-bringing rains be ours, and the well-fruited plants guarded by the gods.
6. He is the seed-giving bull of the eternal waters; in him is the life of all that moves and all that stands still. May that truth protect me for a hundred autumns. Protect us always with your blessings, O gods.
Translator's note: the hymn addresses Parjanya (rain-god) as a bull whose thunder is described as "three voices" (v. 1) and whose rain is figured as milk, seed, and honey throughout — imagery kept close to the Sanskrit rather than smoothed into separate metaphors. "tridhātu... trivartu" (v. 2, threefold substance/threefold-turning) and "śataśāradāya" (v. 6, "for a hundred autumns," i.e. a hundred years) are rendered conservatively.
Colophon
Rigveda VII.101 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 VII.101
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.
tisro vācaḥ pra vada jyotiragrā yā etad duhre madhudogham ūdhaḥ |
sa vatsaṁ kṛṇvan garbham oṣadhīnāṁ sadyo jāto vṛṣabho roravīti || 1 ||
yo vardhana oṣadhīnāṁ yo apāṁ yo viśvasya jagato deva īśe |
sa tridhātu śaraṇaṁ śarma yaṁsat trivartu jyotiḥ svabhiṣṭy a1sme || 2 ||
starīr u tvad bhavati sūta u tvad yathāvaśaṁ tanvaṁ cakra eṣaḥ |
pituḥ payaḥ prati gṛbhṇāti mātā tena pitā vardhate tena putraḥ || 3 ||
yasmin viśvāni bhuvanāni tasthus tisro dyāvas tredhā sasrur āpaḥ |
trayaḥ kośāsa upasecanāso madhvaḥ ścotanty abhito virapśam || 4 ||
idaṁ vacaḥ parjanyāya svarāje hṛdo astv antaraṁ taj jujoṣat |
mayobhuvo vṛṣṭayaḥ santv asme supippalā oṣadhīr devagopāḥ || 5 ||
sa retodhā vṛṣabhaḥ śaśvatīnāṁ tasminn ātmā jagatas tasthuṣaś ca |
tan ma ṛtam pātu śataśāradāya yūyam pāta svastibhiḥ sadā naḥ || 6 ||
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).