Hymn to Indra
Rigveda VII.28 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. Come to our prayer, Indra, knowing one; let your bay horses be yoked and turned this way. All mortals indeed call out to you — but listen to ours, O impeller of all.
2. Your greatness, Indra, has reached our call, when you, mighty one, guard the seers' sacred word. When you take the thunderbolt in hand, fierce one, being terrible you were born unconquerable in power.
3. By your guidance, Indra, you have led together those who call upon you, as you hold heaven and earth as one. For you were born for great dominion, for might — the swift one struck down even the sluggish.
4. With these days grant to us, Indra — for the peoples of ill-friendship are sifted out. When the guileless one looks upon untruth, may Varuna the wise release us as well.
5. Let us call upon this bounteous Indra, that he may give us great wealth and bounty — he who is the best helper of the singer who shapes the sacred word. Protect us always, all of you, with blessings.
Translator's note: verse 4 is the most opaque verse in the hymn. "durmitrāsaḥ ... kṣitayaḥ pavante" is rendered conservatively as peoples of "ill-friendship" being "sifted/purified out," and "anena" (an uncommon form) as "the guileless one"; both readings track the surface Sanskrit rather than resolving the verse's syntax with confidence.
Colophon
Rigveda VII.28 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.28
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.
brahmā ṇa indropa yāhi vidvān arvāñcas te harayaḥ santu yuktāḥ |
viśve cid dhi tvā vihavanta martā asmākam ic chṛṇuhi viśvaminva || 1 ||
havaṁ ta indra mahimā vy ānaḍ brahma yat pāsi śavasinn ṛṣīṇām |
ā yad vajraṁ dadhiṣe hasta ugra ghoraḥ san kratvā janiṣṭhā aṣāḻhaḥ || 2 ||
tava praṇītīndra johuvānān saṁ yan nṝn na rodasī ninetha |
mahe kṣatrāya śavase hi jajñe 'tūtujiṁ cit tūtujir aśiśnat || 3 ||
ebhir na indrāhabhir daśasya durmitrāso hi kṣitayaḥ pavante |
prati yac caṣṭe anṛtam anenā ava dvitā varuṇo māyī naḥ sāt || 4 ||
vocemed indram maghavānam enam maho rāyo rādhaso yad dadan naḥ |
yo arcato brahmakṛtim aviṣṭho yūyam pāta svastibhiḥ sadā naḥ || 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).