An Āprī Hymn to Agni and the Sacrificial Deities
Rigveda VII.2 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 hymn belongs to the Āprī class: a fixed sequence of eleven verses recited over the kindling of the fire and the animal offering, each verse addressed to a different figure in the rite — Agni, Narāśaṃsa, the sacred grass, the doors, Night and Dawn, the two divine Hotṛs, the goddesses Iḷā, Bhāratī and Sarasvatī, Tvaṣṭṛ, the sacrificial post, and finally the call of Svāhā. This is a Good Works Translation produced for the Good Works Library from the Sanskrit of the Śākala recension.
1. Accept our kindling wood today, Agni — blaze up high, sending forth the worshipful smoke. Touch the heavenly ridge with your flame-crests; stretch yourself out together with the rays of the sun.
2. Let us praise with our sacrifices the greatness of this worshipful Narāśaṃsa; the gods who are of good will, pure, holding insight, relish both kinds of offering.
3. As Manu did, so may we ever magnify for the rite your adorable, capable, mighty one — the messenger between the two world-halves, truthful of speech: Agni, kindled after the manner of Manu.
4. Worshipping, bearing their gifts, kneeling, they strew the sacred grass with homage at the fire. Pouring in the oblation, O Adhvaryu priests, adorn the ghee-backed, speckled one with the offering.
5. The well-minded ones, seeking the gods, have thrown the doors open, eager as chariots for the god's own affair. The many have anointed him together, like mothers licking a child, like unwed girls at a gathering.
6. And the two great heavenly maidens, our Uṣas and Night, bountiful like a good milking-cow, seated on the sacred grass, much invoked — may the two worshipful ones draw near for our welfare.
7. Inspired singers, poets at the sacrifices of men — I hold you two Jātavedases worthy of worship. Raise our rite up amid the invocations; may you two win desirable things among the gods.
8. May Bhāratī come, of one mind with the Bhāratīs; Iḷā with the gods, Agni with mortal men; Sarasvatī with the Sārasvatas — hither, all three: may the three goddesses sit down on this sacred grass.
9. That abundant, nourishing strength of ours, god Tvaṣṭṛ — bestow it freely, generous one — from which a capable, skillful hero is born, one who yokes the pressing-stones, loving the gods.
10. Vanaspati, release the offering toward the gods; Agni, the immolator, shall prepare it well. He, the truest of Hotṛs, will make the offering, since he knows the births of the gods.
11. Come here, Agni, once kindled, together with Indra and the swift gods riding the same chariot. May Aditi of the good sons sit down on our sacred grass; with the cry of Svāhā may the immortal gods rejoice.
Translator's note: several terms name fixed ritual figures rather than ordinary nouns and are kept close to the Sanskrit rather than smoothed into English — Narāśaṃsa (a praised intermediary form of Agni), the dual "Jātavedases" in verse 7 (understood as the two divine Hotṛ-priests, not Agni alone), and Vanaspati (the sacrificial post, "lord of the forest") in verse 10. "Speckled" (pṛṣadvat) in verse 4 describes Agni's ghee-anointed back and is rendered conservatively rather than resolved to a single image.
Colophon
Rigveda VII.2 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.2
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.
juṣasva naḥ samidham agne adya śocā bṛhad yajataṁ dhūmam ṛṇvan |
upa spṛśa divyaṁ sānu stūpaiḥ saṁ raśmibhis tatanaḥ sūryasya || 1 ||
narāśaṁsasya mahimānam eṣām upa stoṣāma yajatasya yajñaiḥ |
ye sukratavaḥ śucayo dhiyaṁdhāḥ svadanti devā ubhayāni havyā || 2 ||
īḻenyaṁ vo asuraṁ sudakṣam antar dūtaṁ rodasī satyavācam |
manuṣvad agnim manunā samiddhaṁ sam adhvarāya sadam in mahema || 3 ||
saparyavo bharamāṇā abhijñu pra vṛñjate namasā barhir agnau |
ājuhvānā ghṛtapṛṣṭham pṛṣadvad adhvaryavo haviṣā marjayadhvam || 4 ||
svādhyo3 vi duro devayanto 'śiśrayū rathayur devatātā |
pūrvī śiśuṁ na mātarā rihāṇe sam agruvo na samaneṣv añjan || 5 ||
uta yoṣaṇe divye mahī na uṣāsānaktā sudugheva dhenuḥ |
barhiṣadā puruhūte maghonī ā yajñiye suvitāya śrayetām || 6 ||
viprā yajñeṣu mānuṣeṣu kārū manye vāṁ jātavedasā yajadhyai |
ūrdhvaṁ no adhvaraṁ kṛtaṁ haveṣu tā deveṣu vanatho vāryāṇi || 7 ||
ā bhāratī bhāratībhiḥ sajoṣā iḻā devair manuṣyebhir agniḥ |
sarasvatī sārasvatebhir arvāk tisro devīr barhir edaṁ sadantu || 8 ||
tan nas turīpam adha poṣayitnu deva tvaṣṭar vi rarāṇaḥ syasva |
yato vīraḥ karmaṇyaḥ sudakṣo yuktagrāvā jāyate devakāmaḥ || 9 ||
vanaspate 'va sṛjopa devān agnir haviḥ śamitā sūdayāti |
sed u hotā satyataro yajāti yathā devānāṁ janimāni veda || 10 ||
ā yāhy agne samidhāno arvāṅ indreṇa devaiḥ sarathaṁ turebhiḥ |
barhir na āstām aditiḥ suputrā svāhā devā amṛtā mādayantām || 11 ||
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).