Hymn to Soma Pavamana
Rigveda IX.35 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. Flow to us in a stream, Pavamana, bringing broad wealth, by which you may grant us light.
2. O drop, you who make the ocean surge, who set everything in motion — flow, sustainer of wealth, by your strength.
3. With you as our hero, may we, rich in heroes, overcome those who make war against us; flow toward us, bringing what is most to be desired.
4. The drop sends forth strength, seeking to win it — a seer who gains reward, knowing the ordinances and the weapons.
5. With songs we clothe him, the stirrer of speech, as he is purified — Soma, herdsman of the people.
6. Under whose law all people are upheld — the lord of order, as he is purified, rich in abundance.
Translator's note: verse 4's "vratā vidānaḥ āyudhā" (knowing the ordinances and weapons) is terse and its exact syntactic link to the surrounding clause is uncertain; rendered conservatively rather than smoothed over. Verse 5's "vāsayāmasi" (we clothe/array) may also carry a sense of "we adorn" — the literal "clothe" is kept.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.35 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.35
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.
ā naḥ pavasva dhārayā pavamāna rayim pṛthum |
yayā jyotir vidāsi naḥ || 1 ||
indo samudramīṅkhaya pavasva viśvamejaya |
rāyo dhartā na ojasā || 2 ||
tvayā vīreṇa vīravo 'bhi ṣyāma pṛtanyataḥ |
kṣarā ṇo abhi vāryam || 3 ||
pra vājam indur iṣyati siṣāsan vājasā ṛṣiḥ |
vratā vidāna āyudhā || 4 ||
taṁ gīrbhir vācamīṅkhayam punānaṁ vāsayāmasi |
somaṁ janasya gopatim || 5 ||
viśvo yasya vrate jano dādhāra dharmaṇas pateḥ |
punānasya prabhūvasoḥ || 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).