Hymn to Soma Pavamana
Rigveda IX.48 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. You who bear your manly powers in the dwelling-places of great heaven — dear one, we approach you with our well-made rite.
2. The bold one, gathering his strength, worthy of hymns, of great and mighty ordinance, the exhilarating draft, eager to shatter a hundred strongholds.
3. From there the eagle, unfaltering, carried you toward wealth, O wise king, down from heaven.
4. So that all might see the sunlight, the bird carried the one shared by all, who crosses through the realms of space, the herdsman of truth.
5. Then, being roused, he attained the greater greatness of Indra's own power — the vigorous one, the granter of aid.
Translator's note: verse 2's "saṁvṛktadhṛṣṇum" (the bold one who has gathered/rolled up his strength) and verse 5's "abhiṣṭikṛt" (maker of aid, granter of assistance) are compact epithets rendered conservatively rather than expanded. The hymn addresses Soma but borrows language of might elsewhere used for Indra (verse 5 names "indriyam," Indra's own power, as the greatness Soma attains) — this overlap is native to the Sanskrit, not an editorial choice.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.48 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.48
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.
taṁ tvā nṛmṇāni bibhrataṁ sadhastheṣu maho divaḥ |
cāruṁ sukṛtyayemahe || 1 ||
saṁvṛktadhṛṣṇum ukthyam mahāmahivratam madam |
śatam puro rurukṣaṇim || 2 ||
atas tvā rayim abhi rājānaṁ sukrato divaḥ |
suparṇo avyathir bharat || 3 ||
viśvasmā it svar dṛśe sādhāraṇaṁ rajasturam |
gopām ṛtasya vir bharat || 4 ||
adhā hinvāna indriyaṁ jyāyo mahitvam ānaśe |
abhiṣṭikṛd vicarṣaṇiḥ || 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).