Hymn to Annaṃ
Rigveda I.187 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Annaṃ, food and sustenance, the sacred power of nourishment, in the rare Annaṃ hymn. 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.
Hail to thee, O Anna, sacred food! Thou art the breath of life itself. Without thee, no creature can endure. The strongest man becomes weak; the bravest warrior falleth. But he who hath eaten is made whole.
Thou art the gift of Heaven and Earth together. The sun doth ripen thee in the fields; the rain doth nourish thee; the wind doth dry thy grain. Many hands labor to bring thee forth — the ploughman and the sower, the reaper and the thresher. And all their toil is hallowed, for they do the work of the gods.
When we take thee into our bodies, we take in the very essence of creation. The strength of the earth becometh our strength. The warmth of the sun becometh our warmth. We are no longer separate from the world; we are woven into its fabric. To eat is to become one with the universe itself.
Yet thou art humble, O Anna. Thou speakest not loudly. Thou dost not demand attention or reverence. Thou simply givest thyself, day after day, without complaint, without pride. And in this humility lies thy true greatness. For what is greater than to sustain life? What is more noble than to nourish?
Therefore we honor thee with praise and gratitude. We do not take thee for granted, as do the thoughtless and the ungodly. We see in thee the hand of the divine. We recognize thy sacred nature. And so before we eat, we pause; we give thanks; we acknowledge the mystery and the mercy by which we are sustained.
O Anna, thou blessed gift! Continue to flow forth from the earth. Continue to nourish all creatures. And teach us the lesson of sustenance — that we too may give of ourselves freely, that we too may nourish the world with our own labor and love.
Colophon
Rigveda I.187 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 Annaṃ, food and sustenance, the sacred power of nourishment, in the rare Annaṃ hymn. 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.187
pituṁ nu stoṣam maho dharmāṇaṁ taviṣīm |
yasya trito vy ojasā vṛtraṁ viparvam ardayat || 1 ||
svādo pito madho pito vayaṁ tvā vavṛmahe |
asmākam avitā bhava || 2 ||
upa naḥ pitav ā cara śivaḥ śivābhir ūtibhiḥ |
mayobhur adviṣeṇyaḥ sakhā suśevo advayāḥ || 3 ||
tava tye pito rasā rajāṁsy anu viṣṭhitāḥ |
divi vātā iva śritāḥ || 4 ||
tava tye pito dadatas tava svādiṣṭha te pito |
pra svādmāno rasānāṁ tuvigrīvā iverate || 5 ||
tve pito mahānāṁ devānām mano hitam |
akāri cāru ketunā tavāhim avasāvadhīt || 6 ||
yad ado pito ajagan vivasva parvatānām |
atrā cin no madho pito 'ram bhakṣāya gamyāḥ || 7 ||
yad apām oṣadhīnām pariṁśam āriśāmahe |
vātāpe pīva id bhava || 8 ||
yat te soma gavāśiro yavāśiro bhajāmahe |
vātāpe pīva id bhava || 9 ||
karambha oṣadhe bhava pīvo vṛkka udārathiḥ |
vātāpe pīva id bhava || 10 ||
taṁ tvā vayam pito vacobhir gāvo na havyā suṣūdima |
devebhyas tvā sadhamādam asmabhyaṁ tvā sadhamādam || 11 ||
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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