Hymn to the Viśvedevas
Rigveda VII.43 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. Seeking the gods, let us sing out to you at your sacrifices, with homage, reaching toward Heaven and Earth — you whose unmatched sacred words the poets send out in every direction, like the branches of a tree.
2. Let the sacrifice go forth like a team of horses at the starting-goad; raise high, with one mind, the ghee-filled ladles. Strew the sacred grass well for the rite — the upward-leaping flames, seeking the gods, have risen.
3. Let the gods sit down on the surface of the sacred grass, carried to it like sons to their mother. Let the all-encompassing one, fit for the sacred gathering, anoint them. O Agni, let no scorners come against us in our worship of the gods.
4. May the venerable ones take their pleasure as they wish, milking the richly-flowing streams of the cosmic order. Come today, all of you together, with one mind, to your greatest share of the great treasures.
5. So, Agni, show us favor among our people; with you, mighty one, may we stand joined together, companions at the feast, unharmed, with wealth as our ally. Protect us always, all of you, with your blessings.
Translator's note: verse 3's "viśvācī" (the "all-encompassing one") is left conservatively as a bare epithet — it likely names a ritual figure or offering (possibly Iḍā, the goddess of the sacrificial libation) rather than a common noun, but the Sanskrit does not name her outright. "Vibhṛtrāḥ" ("carried, borne along") and "daśasya" ("show favor, be gracious") in verses 3 and 5 are terms with a narrow attested range; they are rendered here by their most common Rigvedic sense.
Colophon
Rigveda VII.43 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.43
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.
pra vo yajñeṣu devayanto arcan dyāvā namobhiḥ pṛthivī iṣadhyai |
yeṣām brahmāṇy asamāni viprā viṣvag viyanti vanino na śākhāḥ || 1 ||
pra yajña etu hetvo na saptir ud yacchadhvaṁ samanaso ghṛtācīḥ |
stṛṇīta barhir adhvarāya sādhūrdhvā śocīṁṣi devayūny asthuḥ || 2 ||
ā putrāso na mātaraṁ vibhṛtrāḥ sānau devāso barhiṣaḥ sadantu |
ā viśvācī vidathyām anaktv agne mā no devatātā mṛdhas kaḥ || 3 ||
te sīṣapanta joṣam ā yajatrā ṛtasya dhārāḥ sudughā duhānāḥ |
jyeṣṭhaṁ vo adya maha ā vasūnām ā gantana samanaso yati ṣṭha || 4 ||
evā no agne vikṣv ā daśasya tvayā vayaṁ sahasāvann āskrāḥ |
rāyā yujā sadhamādo ariṣṭā 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).