Hymn to Indra
Rigveda I.179 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Indra, the storm-king and champion of the gods, invoked by Lopāmudrā in her dialogue with Agastya. 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.
Hear now the rare and precious dialogue betwixt Lopāmudrā the beloved
And Agastya her husband, the sage most wise and ancient,
A hymn wherein the woman's voice doth speak with power and with passion true.
Lopāmudrā speaketh unto her husband with words of longing and desire:
Agastya, thou art wise and learned, thou art master of the sacred knowledge,
Yet thou dost neglect me here in our dwelling, consumed with meditation deep,
Thy mind doth dwell forever in the cosmic mysteries and the sacred truths,
But what of thy wife who waiteth for thy love and thy attention?
I am young and fair, my heart doth beat with passion unrestrained,
I have followed thee from the lands of the north unto these southern reaches,
I have borne with thy ascetic ways and thy devotion to the yoga sacred,
Yet now I must speak plainly: I hunger for thy love and thy embrace.
Thou sayest that the wise man must renounce the pleasures of the flesh,
That he must transcend desire and dwell forever in the realm of spirit,
Yet I do ask thee: Is not the love 'tween man and woman also divine?
Is not the creation of new life also a sacred act and a holy purpose?
Come now, O sage, and remember that thou art also a man,
That thy body doth hunger as surely as thy spirit doth seek knowledge,
That the balance betwixt the spiritual and the physical doth maintain all being,
And that a man who doth completely renounce one shall become incomplete.
Agastya doth listen to his wife with wisdom and with grace,
And he perceiveth the truth in what she uttereth with such passionate sincerity:
Thou speakest well, O Lopāmudrā, and thy words have pierced mine heart,
For I have been so lost in the pursuit of knowledge that I have forgotten
That knowledge itself is but one aspect of the fullness of being.
The sacred texts do speak of balance, of the harmony 'tween all the forces,
Of the union 'tween the masculine and the feminine, the active and the receptive,
Of the way that creation floweth forth from the embrace of opposites combined.
Come now, my beloved, and let us cease this separation false,
Let us unite in love and in the sacred act of generation,
That from our union new beings might come forth into the world,
That the continuance of all creation might be assured through us.
So Agastya doth take his wife into his arms with tenderness and passion,
And they do embrace in the sacred union that bindeth two souls as one,
And from this embrace shall come forth children wise and noble,
And the balance 'tween the spiritual and the earthly shall be restored once more.
This hymn doth teach that the renunciation of the world must not mean
The renunciation of love and of the deepest bonds 'tween human hearts,
For the fullest spiritual development includeth the capacity to give and receive love,
And the wisest path is not one of extremes but of balance and of wholeness true.
Colophon
Rigveda I.179 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 Indra, the storm-king and champion of the gods, invoked by Lopāmudrā in her dialogue with Agastya. 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.179
pūrvīr ahaṁ śaradaḥ śaśramāṇā doṣā vastor uṣaso jarayantīḥ |
mināti śriyaṁ jarimā tanūnām apy ū nu patnīr vṛṣaṇo jagamyuḥ || 1 ||
ye cid dhi pūrva ṛtasāpa āsan sākaṁ devebhir avadann ṛtāni |
te cid avāsur nahy antam āpuḥ sam ū nu patnīr vṛṣabhir jagamyuḥ || 2 ||
na mṛṣā śrāntaṁ yad avanti devā viśvā it spṛdho abhy aśnavāva |
jayāved atra śatanītham ājiṁ yat samyañcā mithunāv abhy ajāva || 3 ||
nadasya mā rudhataḥ kāma āgann ita ājāto amutaḥ kutaś cit |
lopāmudrā vṛṣaṇaṁ nī riṇāti dhīram adhīrā dhayati śvasantam || 4 ||
imaṁ nu somam antito hṛtsu pītam upa bruve |
yat sīm āgaś cakṛmā tat su mṛḻatu pulukāmo hi martyaḥ || 5 ||
agastyaḥ khanamānaḥ khanitraiḥ prajām apatyam balam icchamānaḥ |
ubhau varṇāv ṛṣir ugraḥ pupoṣa satyā deveṣv āśiṣo jagāma || 6 ||
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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