Hymn to Soma Pavamana
Rigveda IX.77 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 addressed entirely to Soma Pavamana — "Soma who purifies himself" — as the pressed juice runs through the woolen filter into the vat. 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. This sweet one has roared out in the vat — Indra's bolt, a marvel more wondrous than marvels. Toward him the good-milking cows of truth, dripping with ghee, stream lowing, like milch-cows with their milk.
2. He, the ancient one, flows pure — the one whom the falcon, sent swift, seized from heaven, tearing across the sky. Trembling, he binds the sweetness onto himself, in fear indeed of the archer Kṛśānu, his mind afraid.
3. Let those drops, the earlier ones and the later, run for us toward great cattle-rich strength — worth beholding, lovely as serpents, they who delight in every hymn, in every offering.
4. This drop, knowing, much-praised, shall overcome for us with steady mind the one who seeks to harm us — he who has laid his seed in the seat of the mighty lord, flowing toward the wide-opening pen of cows.
5. The doer of heaven's work flows pure, the potent sap, great and unassailable, like Varuṇa against the crooked one. He is pressed out, worthy of worship like Mitra amid the gathered clans, neighing like a stallion in the herd, bull-eager.
Translator's note: verse 2 alludes to the myth of the falcon (śyena) stealing soma from heaven, pursued or guarded by the archer Kṛśānu — the hymn assumes the listener already knows the story and only gestures at it. In verse 5, "hurug yate" (rendered here "against the crooked one") is a compressed, somewhat obscure phrase for one who moves crookedly or deceitfully; the rendering is conservative.
Colophon
Rigveda IX.77 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.77
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.
eṣa pra kośe madhumām̐ acikradad indrasya vajro vapuṣo vapuṣṭaraḥ |
abhīm ṛtasya sudughā ghṛtaścuto vāśrā arṣanti payaseva dhenavaḥ || 1 ||
sa pūrvyaḥ pavate yaṁ divas pari śyeno mathāyad iṣitas tiro rajaḥ |
sa madhva ā yuvate vevijāna it kṛśānor astur manasāha bibhyuṣā || 2 ||
te naḥ pūrvāsa uparāsa indavo mahe vājāya dhanvantu gomate |
īkṣeṇyāso ahyo3 na cāravo brahma-brahma ye jujuṣur havir-haviḥ || 3 ||
ayaṁ no vidvān vanavad vanuṣyata induḥ satrācā manasā puruṣṭutaḥ |
inasya yaḥ sadane garbham ādadhe gavām urubjam abhy arṣati vrajam || 4 ||
cakrir divaḥ pavate kṛtvyo raso mahām̐ adabdho varuṇo hurug yate |
asāvi mitro vṛjaneṣu yajñiyo 'tyo na yūthe vṛṣayuḥ kanikradat || 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).