Hymn to Soma Pavamana
Rigveda IX.41 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. They surged forward like impetuous cows, blazing, tireless, striking away the black skin.
2. We call to mind the path of good fortune, beyond the hard-to-cross barrier — we who have overcome the lawless Dasyu.
3. A sound is heard like the roar of rain — the sound of the furious purifying one. Lightnings move across the sky.
4. Flow here, O drop, purifying great nourishment rich in cattle and in gold, pressed out rich in horses and in strength.
5. Flow purifying, far-seeing one; fill the two great world-halves, as Dawn fills them, as the sun fills them with its rays.
6. Flow around us on every side with your sheltering stream, O Soma, flowing like the Rasā over the wide realm.
Translator's note: "black skin" (kṛṣṇām tvacam, v.1) is standard Soma-pavamana imagery for the husk cast off as the juice is strained, not a reference to a person. "Rasā" (v.6) is a mythic river named elsewhere in the Rigveda; it is kept untranslated as a proper name. "Vicarṣaṇe" (v.5), an epithet of Soma, is rendered "far-seeing one," its more common sense, though "active one" is also attested.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.41 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.41
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 ye gāvo na bhūrṇayas tveṣā ayāso akramuḥ |
ghnantaḥ kṛṣṇām apa tvacam || 1 ||
suvitasya manāmahe 'ti setuṁ durāvyam |
sāhvāṁso dasyum avratam || 2 ||
śṛṇve vṛṣṭer iva svanaḥ pavamānasya śuṣmiṇaḥ |
caranti vidyuto divi || 3 ||
ā pavasva mahīm iṣaṁ gomad indo hiraṇyavat |
aśvāvad vājavat sutaḥ || 4 ||
sa pavasva vicarṣaṇa ā mahī rodasī pṛṇa |
uṣāḥ sūryo na raśmibhiḥ || 5 ||
pari ṇaḥ śarmayantyā dhārayā soma viśvataḥ |
sarā raseva viṣṭapam || 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).