Hymn to Soma Pavamana
Rigveda IX.112 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 9 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. Our thoughts are many, and varied are the callings of people: the carpenter looks for something broken, the healer for an injury, the priest for a man pressing soma. Flow forth, bright drop, to Indra.
2. With aging herbs, with birds' feathers, with stones day after day, the smith works, seeking out the man who has gold. Flow forth, bright drop, to Indra.
3. I am a poet; my father is a healer; my mother grinds grain with a stone. With our different aims, all of us wanting wealth, we follow after it as cows follow the herd. Flow forth, bright drop, to Indra.
4. The horse wants a light chariot to pull; jesters want laughter; the phallus wants the hairy cleft; the frog wants water. Flow forth, bright drop, to Indra.
Translator's note: "upalaprakṣiṇī" (3) is rendered as "grinds grain with a stone," its plain sense as a compound built on upala, "millstone." "śepo... bhedau" (4) is translated literally, following the verse's own frank pairing of bodily desire with animal and craft desires; some manuscripts and readers have softened this line, but nothing in the Sanskrit supports euphemism here.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.112 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 IX.112
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.
nānānaṁ vā u no dhiyo vi vratāni janānām |
takṣā riṣṭaṁ rutam bhiṣag brahmā sunvantam icchatīndrāyendo pari srava || 1 ||
jaratībhir oṣadhībhiḥ parṇebhiḥ śakunānām |
kārmāro aśmabhir dyubhir hiraṇyavantam icchatīndrāyendo pari srava || 2 ||
kārur ahaṁ tato bhiṣag upalaprakṣiṇī nanā |
nānādhiyo vasūyavo 'nu gā iva tasthimendrāyendo pari srava || 3 ||
aśvo voḻhā sukhaṁ rathaṁ hasanām upamantriṇaḥ |
śepo romaṇvantau bhedau vār in maṇḍūka icchatīndrāyendo pari srava || 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).