Hymn to Soma
Rigveda IX.47 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. By this good rite Soma has grown greater than the great; rejoicing, he rises up, acting the bull.
2. His deeds done and yet to be done stand plain to see, dasyu-crushing; and the bold one collects what is owed.
3. Then Soma, the sap that belongs to Indra, becomes a thunderbolt that wins thousands, when a hymn of praise is born for him.
4. Himself a seer, in the one who apportions he seeks a treasure for the inspired poet, when he refines his thoughts.
5. Eager to win riches, as horses eager in the racing-contests, you are among the victors in the frays.
Translator's note: verse 2's "dasyutarhaṇā" (dasyu-crushing) is taken as describing Soma's deeds rather than Soma himself, following its grammatical agreement; "cayate" in the same verse (root cāy-, "to avenge, exact") is rendered "collects what is owed" to keep the debt/repayment image literal. Verse 4's "vidhartari" (locative of "the one who apportions/dispenses") is left generic rather than resolved to a specific deity, since the Sanskrit itself does not name one.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.47 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.47
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.
ayā somaḥ sukṛtyayā mahaś cid abhy avardhata |
mandāna ud vṛṣāyate || 1 ||
kṛtānīd asya kartvā cetante dasyutarhaṇā |
ṛṇā ca dhṛṣṇuś cayate || 2 ||
āt soma indriyo raso vajraḥ sahasrasā bhuvat |
ukthaṁ yad asya jāyate || 3 ||
svayaṁ kavir vidhartari viprāya ratnam icchati |
yadī marmṛjyate dhiyaḥ || 4 ||
siṣāsatū rayīṇāṁ vājeṣv arvatām iva |
bhareṣu jigyuṣām asi || 5 ||
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).