Hymn to Dyāvāpṛthivī
Rigveda I.160 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Dyāvāpṛthivī, Heaven and Earth, the primordial parents, source of all that exists. 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.
O Dyāvāpṛthivī! O vast ones! Your embrace is boundless! Your union knoweth no limit! Ye are the measure of all space, the container of all existence!
Sky! Thou hearest all voices that cry out beneath thee. Thou art the listener, the witness, the one to whom all prayers ascend. When we raise our arms skyward and call upon the gods, thou receivest our words and beareth them upward to the realm of the immortals.
Earth! Thou feelest all who rest upon thee. Thou art the supporter, the nurisher, the one who receiveth all who fall. When we stumble and fall, thou art there to catch us. When we place our seeds in thy soil, thou dost provide the conditions for their growth.
Ye are never separate, though we sometimes speak of thee as if ye were distinct. In truth, ye are eternally embracing. The sky descendeth to kiss the earth at the horizon. The earth riseth to meet the sky. In that meeting place all things are born.
Thy children are countless! Look at all the creatures that dwell between you! The mighty mountains stand between you, their peaks nearly touching the sky whilst their roots sink deep into the earth. The forests grow in your arms. The waters flow from you and return to you in an endless cycle.
We tiny beings build our dwellings upon the earth and gaze upward at the sky. We are held in the cradle of your love. We are sustained by your generosity. We are guided by the light that descendeth from thee, O Sky! We are nourished by that which springeth forth from thee, O Earth!
O cosmic parents! Let not thy bond ever be loosened! Should the sky ever truly separate from the earth, all would perish. Should the earth ever refuse to support the weight of the sky, all would fall into chaos.
We offer thee our reverence and our gratitude! Continue forever thy eternal embrace! Let thy union bring forth new life, new growth, new beauty, age after age, world without end!
Colophon
Rigveda I.160 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 Dyāvāpṛthivī, Heaven and Earth, the primordial parents, source of all that exists. 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.160
te hi dyāvāpṛthivī viśvaśambhuva ṛtāvarī rajaso dhārayatkavī |
sujanmanī dhiṣaṇe antar īyate devo devī dharmaṇā sūryaḥ śuciḥ || 1 ||
uruvyacasā mahinī asaścatā pitā mātā ca bhuvanāni rakṣataḥ |
sudhṛṣṭame vapuṣye3 na rodasī pitā yat sīm abhi rūpair avāsayat || 2 ||
sa vahniḥ putraḥ pitroḥ pavitravān punāti dhīro bhuvanāni māyayā |
dhenuṁ ca pṛśniṁ vṛṣabhaṁ suretasaṁ viśvāhā śukram payo asya dukṣata || 3 ||
ayaṁ devānām apasām apastamo yo jajāna rodasī viśvaśambhuvā |
vi yo mame rajasī sukratūyayājarebhiḥ skambhanebhiḥ sam ānṛce || 4 ||
te no gṛṇāne mahinī mahi śravaḥ kṣatraṁ dyāvāpṛthivī dhāsatho bṛhat |
yenābhi kṛṣṭīs tatanāma viśvahā panāyyam ojo asme sam invatam || 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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