Hymn to Soma Pavamana
Rigveda IX.53 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. Maṇḍala 9 is entirely devoted to Soma Pavamāna, "the Self-Purifying One" — the pressed and filtered soma juice addressed as a god in its own right, on its way to becoming Indra's drink. 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. Your surges of force have risen up, O bearer of the pressing stone, splitting apart the demon. Drive off those who contend against you on every side.
2. With this strength you have struck down your foes, when chariots clash and the prize is at stake. Praised, with a heart unafraid, [I raise this song / you press forward].
3. The laws of this Self-Purifying One cannot be defied by the malicious. Crush the one who wages war against you.
4. They send him onward — the tawny one, shaken by rapture, the vigorous one, into the streams — the drop, the exhilarating one, meant for Indra.
Translator's note: verse 2's "stavā abibhyuṣā hṛdā" is grammatically compressed; the subject (Soma being praised, or the poet praising with a fearless heart) is not fully disambiguated in the Sanskrit, and both readings are given in brackets.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.53 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.
🌲
Source Text: ṛgveda IX.53
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.
ut te śuṣmāso asthū rakṣo bhindanto adrivaḥ |
nudasva yāḥ parispṛdhaḥ || 1 ||
ayā nijaghnir ojasā rathasaṁge dhane hite |
stavā abibhyuṣā hṛdā || 2 ||
asya vratāni nādhṛṣe pavamānasya dūḍhyā |
ruja yas tvā pṛtanyati || 3 ||
taṁ hinvanti madacyutaṁ hariṁ nadīṣu vājinam |
indum indrāya matsaram || 4 ||
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).