Hymn to Soma

Rigveda IX.55 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, O Soma, grain by grain, abundance upon abundance, with your juice — and bring every kind of good fortune.

2. O drop, as your praise is now sung, as your juice is produced, take your seat on the dear, sacred grass.

3. And winning us cows, winning us horses, purify yourself, O Soma, with your juice, through the swiftest of days.

4. You who conquer and are never conquered, who strike down the enemy you meet face to face — purify yourself as that thousandfold winner.

Colophon

Rigveda IX.55 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.55

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.

yavaṁ-yavaṁ no andhasā puṣṭam-puṣṭam pari srava |
soma viśvā ca saubhagā || 1 ||

indo yathā tava stavo yathā te jātam andhasaḥ |
ni barhiṣi priye sadaḥ || 2 ||

uta no govid aśvavit pavasva somāndhasā |
makṣūtamebhir ahabhiḥ || 3 ||

yo jināti na jīyate hanti śatrum abhītya |
sa pavasva sahasrajit || 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).