Hymn to the Aśvins
Rigveda VIII.57 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 8 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. You two gods, yoked to your powerful chariot by your ancient will, worthy of worship — come, Nāsatyas, with your might; drink this third pressing.
2. The gods, three times eleven, true ones, true to the truth, have been seen before us, in the east. Delighting in our sacrifice and our pressing, drink the soma, Aśvins, bright as fire.
3. That deed of yours is worthy of praise, Aśvins — bull of heaven, of the middle realm, of earth. A thousand praises, and to those who ride out in search of cattle — come to all of them, to drink.
4. This share is set down for you, worshipful ones; come to these songs, Nāsatyas. Drink the honey-sweet soma here with us; with your might, favor the one who has given.
Translator's note: verse 3's "vṛṣabho divo rajasaḥ pṛthivyāḥ" ("bull of heaven, of the middle realm, of earth") is a compressed epithet whose exact grammatical anchor is uncertain in isolation; it is rendered here as a standing epithet rather than resolved into a fuller clause. "dīdyagnī" in verse 2 (from √dī, "to shine," + agni-) is rendered "bright as fire" rather than as a separate noun.
Colophon
Rigveda VIII.57 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 VIII.57
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.
yuvaṁ devā kratunā pūrvyeṇa yuktā rathena taviṣaṁ yajatrā |
āgacchataṁ nāsatyā śacībhir idaṁ tṛtīyaṁ savanam pibāthaḥ || 1 ||
yuvāṁ devās traya ekādaśāsaḥ satyāḥ satyasya dadṛśe purastāt |
asmākaṁ yajñaṁ savanaṁ juṣāṇā pātaṁ somam aśvinā dīdyagnī || 2 ||
panāyyaṁ tad aśvinā kṛtaṁ vāṁ vṛṣabho divo rajasaḥ pṛthivyāḥ |
sahasraṁ śaṁsā uta ye gaviṣṭau sarvām̐ it tām̐ upa yātā pibadhyai || 3 ||
ayaṁ vām bhāgo nihito yajatremā giro nāsatyopa yātam |
pibataṁ somam madhumantam asme pra dāśvāṁsam avataṁ śacībhiḥ || 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).