Hymn to Indra
Rigveda VIII.64 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. Let the hymns of praise exhilarate you upward — grant your bounty, O wielder of the stone. Strike down the haters of sacred speech.
2. With your foot, press down the stingy Paṇis — you are mighty. No one at all can match you.
3. You are lord of the pressed soma, Indra, and of the unpressed. You are king of the peoples.
4. Come, go forth — dwelling in heaven, resounding out over the peoples — you fill both world-halves.
5. That very mountain, that hill rich in hundreds and in thousands, you broke open for your praisers.
6. We call you by day at the pressing, we call you by night. Fulfill our desire.
7. Where is that young bull, thick-necked, unbending? What priest attends to him?
8. To whose pressing does the bull come down, well pleased? Who indeed longs for Indra?
9. Whom have your gifts reached, Vṛtra-slayer? Whom has your might reached? Who stands nearest in the hymn of praise?
10. This soma of yours is pressed among the human folk, among the Pūrus. Come to it — hurry, and drink.
11. This soma dear to you is at Śaryaṇāvat, at Suṣomā, most intoxicating at Ārjīkīya.
12. That lovely soma, today, for great bounty, for joyous intoxication — come, Indra, hurry and drink.
Translator's note: Verse 5's "mountain/hill rich in hundreds and thousands" alludes to the Vala myth, in which Indra breaks open a cattle-hoarding mountain to free herds for his worshippers; the cattle are implied by the epithets rather than named. Śaryaṇāvat, Suṣomā, and Ārjīkīya in verse 11 are place names associated with soma-pressing sites, kept untranslated as proper nouns.
Colophon
Rigveda VIII.64 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.64
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.
ut tvā mandantu stomāḥ kṛṇuṣva rādho adrivaḥ |
ava brahmadviṣo jahi || 1 ||
padā paṇīm̐r arādhaso ni bādhasva mahām̐ asi |
nahi tvā kaś cana prati || 2 ||
tvam īśiṣe sutānām indra tvam asutānām |
tvaṁ rājā janānām || 3 ||
ehi prehi kṣayo divy ā3ghoṣañ carṣaṇīnām |
obhe pṛṇāsi rodasī || 4 ||
tyaṁ cit parvataṁ giriṁ śatavantaṁ sahasriṇam |
vi stotṛbhyo rurojitha || 5 ||
vayam u tvā divā sute vayaṁ naktaṁ havāmahe |
asmākaṁ kāmam ā pṛṇa || 6 ||
kva1 sya vṛṣabho yuvā tuvigrīvo anānataḥ |
brahmā kas taṁ saparyati || 7 ||
kasya svit savanaṁ vṛṣā jujuṣvām̐ ava gacchati |
indraṁ ka u svid ā cake || 8 ||
kaṁ te dānā asakṣata vṛtrahan kaṁ suvīryā |
ukthe ka u svid antamaḥ || 9 ||
ayaṁ te mānuṣe jane somaḥ pūruṣu sūyate |
tasyehi pra dravā piba || 10 ||
ayaṁ te śaryaṇāvati suṣomāyām adhi priyaḥ |
ārjīkīye madintamaḥ || 11 ||
tam adya rādhase mahe cārum madāya ghṛṣvaye |
ehīm indra dravā piba || 12 ||
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).