Hymn to Soma Pavamana
Rigveda IX.34 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. Pressed out, the drop flows forth in an unbroken stream, driven onward; it breaks strongholds apart with its power.
2. Pressed for Indra, for Vāyu, for Varuṇa, for the Maruts, Soma flows for Viṣṇu.
3. The bull, held and guided by bulls, they press with stones; skillfully they milk out its milk.
4. He becomes the one to be groomed for Trita; he becomes the exhilarating draught for Indra; the tawny one is anointed with milky hues.
5. Toward him, those whose mother is Pṛśni milk out the summit of truth — the lovely, dearest offering.
6. These unswerving songs stream and flow together toward him; bellowing, he makes the milk-cows low in answer.
Translator's note: verse 3's "bulls" (vṛṣabhiḥ) likely refers to the pressing stones, sometimes figured as forceful bulls acting on the Soma-bull; verse 4's "one to be groomed" (marjyaḥ) draws on the image of tending a horse, applied here to Soma readied for Trita; verse 5's "those whose mother is Pṛśni" (pṛśnimātaraḥ) most often names the Maruts, here pictured milking out the offering.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.34 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.34
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.
pra suvāno dhārayā tanendur hinvāno arṣati |
rujad dṛḻhā vy ojasā || 1 ||
suta indrāya vāyave varuṇāya marudbhyaḥ |
somo arṣati viṣṇave || 2 ||
vṛṣāṇaṁ vṛṣabhir yataṁ sunvanti somam adribhiḥ |
duhanti śakmanā payaḥ || 3 ||
bhuvat tritasya marjyo bhuvad indrāya matsaraḥ |
saṁ rūpair ajyate hariḥ || 4 ||
abhīm ṛtasya viṣṭapaṁ duhate pṛśnimātaraḥ |
cāru priyatamaṁ haviḥ || 5 ||
sam enam ahrutā imā giro arṣanti sasrutaḥ |
dhenūr vāśro avīvaśat || 6 ||
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).