Hymn to Agni Vaishvanara
Rigveda VII.6 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. I proclaim the glory of the sovereign lord, the man worthy of praise among the peoples — like the mighty deeds of Indra. Praising the kindling wood, in praise I speak.
2. They urge him on: the seer, the banner, the sustainer, the light of the pressing-stone, for the blessed dominion over the two world-halves. With songs to the fort-breaker I seek to win the ancient, great ordinances of Agni.
3. Down he casts the rite-less ones, the tangled-tongued, the scorn-speakers — the Panis, faithless, unthriving, without sacrifice. These Dasyus Agni has driven far away; the foremost has made the non-sacrificers the hindmost.
4. He who, most heroic in his powers, turned those reveling in the darkness of the west to face the east — him I praise, Agni the ruler of good things: unbending, taming those who make war.
5. He who bowed down the ramparts with deadly blows, who made the dawns belong to the noble lord — he, the vigorous young Agni of Nahusha, by his mighty deeds made the clans into tribute-bearers, having subdued them.
6. In whose shelter all peoples take their stand along their ritual paths, begging for his favor — Vaishvanara Agni has settled into the choicest place of the two world-halves, in the lap of his two parents.
7. The god Vaishvanara, at the rising of the sun, has taken up the treasures of the deep. From the near ocean and from the far, Agni has taken his portion — from heaven, and from earth.
Translator's note: Verse 1's "asura" is kept as "sovereign lord" (its early Rigvedic sense of divine lordship, not the later demonic sense). Verse 5's "aryapatnīḥ" (dawns "belonging to/wived to the noble lord") is a genuinely compressed phrase; rendered conservatively rather than expanded. "Nahuṣa" in verse 5 is left as a proper name (a legendary patriarch/king figure), following the Sanskrit rather than resolving it to a common noun.
Colophon
Rigveda VII.6 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.6
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 samrājo asurasya praśastim puṁsaḥ kṛṣṭīnām anumādyasya |
indrasyeva pra tavasas kṛtāni vande dāruṁ vandamāno vivakmi || 1 ||
kaviṁ ketuṁ dhāsim bhānum adrer hinvanti śaṁ rājyaṁ rodasyoḥ |
puraṁdarasya gīrbhir ā vivāse 'gner vratāni pūrvyā mahāni || 2 ||
ny akratūn grathino mṛdhravācaḥ paṇīm̐r aśraddhām̐ avṛdhām̐ ayajñān |
pra-pra tān dasyūm̐r agnir vivāya pūrvaś cakārāparām̐ ayajyūn || 3 ||
yo apācīne tamasi madantīḥ prācīś cakāra nṛtamaḥ śacībhiḥ |
tam īśānaṁ vasvo agniṁ gṛṇīṣe 'nānataṁ damayantam pṛtanyūn || 4 ||
yo dehyo3 anamayad vadhasnair yo aryapatnīr uṣasaś cakāra |
sa nirudhyā nahuṣo yahvo agnir viśaś cakre balihṛtaḥ sahobhiḥ || 5 ||
yasya śarmann upa viśve janāsa evais tasthuḥ sumatim bhikṣamāṇāḥ |
vaiśvānaro varam ā rodasyor āgniḥ sasāda pitror upastham || 6 ||
ā devo dade budhnyā3 vasūni vaiśvānara uditā sūryasya |
ā samudrād avarād ā parasmād āgnir dade diva ā pṛthivyāḥ || 7 ||
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).