Hymn to Agni
Rigveda I.146 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Agni, the divine fire, messenger between mortals and gods, the eternal priest of the sacred rite. It is one of the 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda organized within Maṇḍala 1, the first of ten books. The ṛṣi (seer) to whom this hymn is attributed and its precise liturgical context are recorded in the traditional Śākalya Anukramaṇī.
The Rigveda is the oldest of the four Vedas and one of the oldest surviving religious texts in the world, composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Indus-Sarasvatī region. Its hymns were preserved through oral transmission across millennia before being committed to writing. This is a Good Works Translation produced by the New Tianmu Anglican Church from the Sanskrit of the Śākala recension.
Agni! Thou art not one but many! The eye beholdeth thee and confoundeth, unable to grasp thy true nature. Art thou the flame that danceth upon the altar? Art thou the glow that liveth in the coals? Art thou the smoke that riseth upward? All these are thy forms, yet none is wholly thee.
Thy forms are as the stars in the night sky—numberless, each distinct, yet all belonging to a single heaven. We have glimpsed thee in the lightning, in the sun, in the eyes of the tiger that burneth with hunger. We have heard thee in the roar of the forge fire where the smith shapeth metal.
O enigmatic one! Which of thy faces shall we call upon? When thou art gentle as the lamp burning in the dwelling, art thou the same as when thou art terrible as the forest fire that consumeth all things? Yes! Thou art the same fire, only varying in measure and in purpose.
The priests know thy many forms. They call to thee as Agni the purifier. They call to thee as Agni the destroyer. They call to thee as Agni the nourisher. Yet they know these are but names for the one flame that manifesteth itself in countless ways.
Thou art in the body of the sacrifice, transforming the offerings. Thou art in the seed that groweth, that transformeth earth into plant. Thou art in the mind that transformeth ignorance into knowledge, that burneth away delusion.
O fire of many forms! Show us thy true nature! Yet we know that perhaps thou hast no single true nature—perhaps thy truth is that thou art all forms simultaneously, that thou art the capacity for transformation itself, the eternal power that maketh all becoming possible.
Come to us in whatever form we most need! Be the comfort of the cold, the purification of the unclean, the light in the darkness, the fierce determination of the warrior. We praise thee in all thy manifestations, O Agni the multiple, O Agni the one.
Colophon
Rigveda I.146 is drawn from the Śākala recension of the Rigveda, the version that has been transmitted and is considered canonical in the mainstream tradition. The Rigveda was composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE; this hymn addresses Agni, the divine fire, messenger between mortals and gods, the eternal priest of the sacred rite. This is a Good Works Translation produced by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, translated independently from the Sanskrit. Reference translations consulted during original translation session to be documented during Kshatriya Blood Rule audit.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: ṛgveda I.146
trimūrdhānaṁ saptaraśmiṁ gṛṇīṣe 'nūnam agnim pitror upasthe |
niṣattam asya carato dhruvasya viśvā divo rocanāpaprivāṁsam || 1 ||
ukṣā mahām̐ abhi vavakṣa ene ajaras tasthāv itaūtir ṛṣvaḥ |
urvyāḥ pado ni dadhāti sānau rihanty ūdho aruṣāso asya || 2 ||
samānaṁ vatsam abhi saṁcarantī viṣvag dhenū vi carataḥ sumeke |
anapavṛjyām̐ adhvano mimāne viśvān ketām̐ adhi maho dadhāne || 3 ||
dhīrāsaḥ padaṁ kavayo nayanti nānā hṛdā rakṣamāṇā ajuryam |
siṣāsantaḥ pary apaśyanta sindhum āvir ebhyo abhavat sūryo nṝn || 4 ||
didṛkṣeṇyaḥ pari kāṣṭhāsu jenya īḻenyo maho arbhāya jīvase |
purutrā yad abhavat sūr ahaibhyo garbhebhyo maghavā viśvadarśataḥ || 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).
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