Hymn to Parjanya

Rigveda VII.102 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. Sing out to Parjanya, to the son of heaven, the bounteous one. May he seek out pasture for us.

2. He who forms the germ of plants, of cows, of horses — Parjanya, of women too.

3. Pour the sweetest oblation into his mouth. May he make our nourishment secure and abundant.

Translator's note: verse 2's "germ" (garbha) is the seed or embryo of new life; the hymn credits Parjanya with quickening fertility across plants, livestock, and people alike. In verse 3, "nourishment" renders iḍā, a term spanning food-offering, refreshment, and the abundance such offerings secure.

Colophon

Rigveda VII.102 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.102

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.

parjanyāya pra gāyata divas putrāya mīḻhuṣe |
sa no yavasam icchatu || 1 ||

yo garbham oṣadhīnāṁ gavāṁ kṛṇoty arvatām |
parjanyaḥ puruṣīṇām || 2 ||

tasmā id āsye havir juhotā madhumattamam |
iḻāṁ naḥ saṁyataṁ karat || 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).