Hymn to Agni
Rigveda VIII.72 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 hymn belongs to the Rigveda's tradition of enigmatic "riddle" composition: it addresses Agni, but speaks of him throughout in the language of the soma-pressing rite — priests, pressing stones, milk, the well, the bull — so that fire and the sacred drink are woven into a single veiled description. This is a Good Works Translation produced for the Good Works Library from the Sanskrit of the Śākala recension.
1. Prepare the oblation. Let the adhvaryu priest come; he seeks it again, knowing its ordinance.
2. The hotar priest sits down toward the sharp soma-stalk, upon Manu's ground, delighting in its friendship.
3. They seek him, the Ruddy One, within the people, beyond by insight; with their tongue they seize the stalk.
4. Continually he has scorched the bow; the vigor-giver climbed the wood; with his tongue he struck the stone.
5. Wandering here, the bright calf finds no one to hold him back; he desires praise, he of the waters.
6. And now his great, lofty yoking, rich with horses, has been seen — the harness-straps of the chariot.
7. Seven milk the one; the two release the five, at the ford of the river, at the roaring place.
8. With the ten fingers of Vivasvat, Indra set the vessel shaking, with the threefold goad of heaven.
9. The threefold, ancient yet ever-new one goes around the rite; the priests anoint it with sweetness.
10. With homage they pour into the well — that has its wheel raised high, that wanders round about, whose opening faces down, the unfailing one.
11. Readily the pressing stones approach the sweetness poured into the lotus-vessel, at the outpouring of the well.
12. The cows go to the well, to the well, the great one who grants the sacrifice its voice, both ears of gold.
13. Pour into the pressed soma the splendor that adorns the two world-halves; may the essence hold fast the bull.
14. They know their own dwelling, as calves unite with their mothers; mutually they join with their kin.
15. Devouring at the corners of the mouth, they set a foundation in heaven; homage and heaven-light rest in Indra and Agni.
16. The devoted one has milked the swelling nourishment, the seven-pathed vigor, by the seven rays of the sun.
17. At the rising of the sun, through Mitra and Varuna, he has taken of the soma; that is the medicine for the sick.
18. And now his place too, the lovely one's, the treasured place — he has stretched it around heaven with his tongue.
Translator's note: this hymn is one of the Rigveda's deliberately opaque "riddle" compositions, and several phrases resist a single confident reading. Verse 7's numbers (seven, one, two, five) and verse 12's repeated "well" (avata) are rendered literally rather than resolved into an interpretive paraphrase. "Ruddy One" (rudra, v. 3) and "bull" (vṛṣabhaṁ, v. 13) are epithets applied elsewhere in the Rigveda to Agni and are kept untranslated-in-sense here rather than expanded.
Colophon
Rigveda VIII.72 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.72
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.
haviṣ kṛṇudhvam ā gamad adhvaryur vanate punaḥ |
vidvām̐ asya praśāsanam || 1 ||
ni tigmam abhy a1ṁśuṁ sīdad dhotā manāv adhi |
juṣāṇo asya sakhyam || 2 ||
antar icchanti taṁ jane rudram paro manīṣayā |
gṛbhṇanti jihvayā sasam || 3 ||
jāmy atītape dhanur vayodhā aruhad vanam |
dṛṣadaṁ jihvayāvadhīt || 4 ||
caran vatso ruśann iha nidātāraṁ na vindate |
veti stotava ambyam || 5 ||
uto nv asya yan mahad aśvāvad yojanam bṛhad |
dāmā rathasya dadṛśe || 6 ||
duhanti saptaikām upa dvā pañca sṛjataḥ |
tīrthe sindhor adhi svare || 7 ||
ā daśabhir vivasvata indraḥ kośam acucyavīt |
khedayā trivṛtā divaḥ || 8 ||
pari tridhātur adhvaraṁ jūrṇir eti navīyasī |
madhvā hotāro añjate || 9 ||
siñcanti namasāvatam uccācakram parijmānam |
nīcīnabāram akṣitam || 10 ||
abhyāram id adrayo niṣiktam puṣkare madhu |
avatasya visarjane || 11 ||
gāva upāvatāvatam mahī yajñasya rapsudā |
ubhā karṇā hiraṇyayā || 12 ||
ā sute siñcata śriyaṁ rodasyor abhiśriyam |
rasā dadhīta vṛṣabham || 13 ||
te jānata svam okya1ṁ saṁ vatsāso na mātṛbhiḥ |
mitho nasanta jāmibhiḥ || 14 ||
upa srakveṣu bapsataḥ kṛṇvate dharuṇaṁ divi |
indre agnā namaḥ svaḥ || 15 ||
adhukṣat pipyuṣīm iṣam ūrjaṁ saptapadīm ariḥ |
sūryasya sapta raśmibhiḥ || 16 ||
somasya mitrāvaruṇoditā sūra ā dade |
tad āturasya bheṣajam || 17 ||
uto nv asya yat padaṁ haryatasya nidhānyam |
pari dyāṁ jihvayātanat || 18 ||
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).