Hymn to Pavamana Soma
Rigveda IX.59 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 clear, O Soma — winner of cattle, winner of horses, winner of everything, winner of delight. Bring us a treasure rich in offspring.
2. Flow clear for the waters that cannot be deceived; flow clear for the plants; flow clear for the Dhiṣaṇās.
3. You, Soma, growing clear as you flow, cross over every danger. Sit down as the seer upon the sacred grass.
4. Purifying one, finder of the sun's light — being born, you became great. Drop of Soma, you truly stand supreme over all.
Translator's note: "Dhiṣaṇās" (v.2) is left untranslated — it names a class of divine intelligences/insight-powers associated with the ritual, sometimes read as the ritual bowls themselves; no single modern English word covers both senses. "Abhīd asi" (v.4) is rendered "stand supreme over" — the phrase (abhi + emphatic it + asi) more literally says "you truly are against/over all," an assertion of dominance whose exact force is compact and hard to pin to one English verb.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.59 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.59
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.
pavasva gojid aśvajid viśvajit soma raṇyajit |
prajāvad ratnam ā bhara || 1 ||
pavasvādbhyo adābhyaḥ pavasvauṣadhībhyaḥ |
pavasva dhiṣaṇābhyaḥ || 2 ||
tvaṁ soma pavamāno viśvāni duritā tara |
kaviḥ sīda ni barhiṣi || 3 ||
pavamāna svar vido jāyamāno 'bhavo mahān |
indo viśvām̐ abhīd asi || 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).