Hymn to Indra
Rigveda VIII.89 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. Sing a mighty song to Indra, Maruts, the greatest slayer of Vṛtra — the song by which the strengtheners of truth brought forth the light, the wakeful god, for the god.
2. He blew away the false accusations; the queller of accusations, Indra, grew radiant. The gods, O Indra of great splendor, held themselves ready for friendship with you, together with the Marut host.
3. Chant your sacred hymn forth to great Indra, Maruts. The Vṛtra-slayer, lord of a hundred powers, slays Vṛtra with his hundred-jointed thunderbolt.
4. Bring it forth boldly, bold-minded one — let your fame be great. Let the waters, the mothers, rush forth swiftly; slay Vṛtra, win the sunlight.
5. When you were born, unprecedented bounteous one, for the slaying of Vṛtra, then you spread out the earth and propped up the sky.
6. From that your sacrifice was born, and that hymn of praise and its making of joy. You overpower all that exists — both what has been born and what is yet to be born.
7. You made the ripe arise from the raw; you made the sun climb into heaven. Heat forth this great chant like a hot oblation, cherished with fine hymns, for the one who loves praise.
Translator's note: Verse 1's "wakeful god" (jāgṛvi) is grammatically ambiguous — it may describe the light itself or a god born from it (commonly read as Agni); the Sanskrit is left to stand as written. Verse 6's jantvam ("that which is to be born") and verse 7's "ripe arising from the raw" (āmāsu pakvam) refer to standard but compressed Vedic images — the future creature yet to come into being, and the myth of ripened milk drawn from unripe cows — rendered conservatively here rather than expanded.
Colophon
Rigveda VIII.89 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.89
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.
bṛhad indrāya gāyata maruto vṛtrahaṁtamam |
yena jyotir ajanayann ṛtāvṛdho devaṁ devāya jāgṛvi || 1 ||
apādhamad abhiśastīr aśastihāthendro dyumny ābhavat |
devās ta indra sakhyāya yemire bṛhadbhāno marudgaṇa || 2 ||
pra va indrāya bṛhate maruto brahmārcata |
vṛtraṁ hanati vṛtrahā śatakratur vajreṇa śataparvaṇā || 3 ||
abhi pra bhara dhṛṣatā dhṛṣanmanaḥ śravaś cit te asad bṛhat |
arṣantv āpo javasā vi mātaro hano vṛtraṁ jayā svaḥ || 4 ||
yaj jāyathā apūrvya maghavan vṛtrahatyāya |
tat pṛthivīm aprathayas tad astabhnā uta dyām || 5 ||
tat te yajño ajāyata tad arka uta haskṛtiḥ |
tad viśvam abhibhūr asi yaj jātaṁ yac ca jantvam || 6 ||
āmāsu pakvam airaya ā sūryaṁ rohayo divi |
gharmaṁ na sāman tapatā suvṛktibhir juṣṭaṁ girvaṇase bṛhat || 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).