Hymn to Rudra
Rigveda VII.46 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. These songs are for Rudra, the one with the firm bow and the swift arrows, the self-sustaining god, the unconquerable, the overpowering ordainer, the one with the sharp weapons. Bring them to him — let him hear us.
2. For he, by his dominion over earthly creation and his sovereign rule over the heavenly, watches over all. Come, protecting, to our doors. Be free of malady toward us, O Rudra, among our people.
3. Your flashing weapon, once loosed from the sky, moves about over the earth — let it turn aside from us. A thousand remedies are yours, most gracious one; do not harm us in our children or our offspring.
4. Do not slay us, Rudra; do not abandon us; let us not fall into the snare of your anger. Grant us a share on the sacred grass, with life to praise it. May you always protect us with well-being.
Translator's note: "jāsu" (2) and "svapivāta" (3) are read conservatively as "among our people" and "most gracious one" respectively; both are terse epithets/forms whose precise sense is debated. "prasitau hīḻitasya" (4) is rendered "the snare of your anger," reading hīḻita as the wrath/displeasure of the angered god.
Colophon
Rigveda VII.46 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.
🌲
Source Text: ṛgveda VII.46
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.
imā rudrāya sthiradhanvane giraḥ kṣipreṣave devāya svadhāvne |
aṣāḻhāya sahamānāya vedhase tigmāyudhāya bharatā śṛṇotu naḥ || 1 ||
sa hi kṣayeṇa kṣamyasya janmanaḥ sāmrājyena divyasya cetati |
avann avantīr upa no duraś carānamīvo rudra jāsu no bhava || 2 ||
yā te didyud avasṛṣṭā divas pari kṣmayā carati pari sā vṛṇaktu naḥ |
sahasraṁ te svapivāta bheṣajā mā nas tokeṣu tanayeṣu rīriṣaḥ || 3 ||
mā no vadhī rudra mā parā dā mā te bhūma prasitau hīḻitasya |
ā no bhaja barhiṣi jīvaśaṁse yūyam pāta svastibhiḥ sadā naḥ || 4 ||
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).