Hymn to Uṣas
Rigveda I.49 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) addressed to Uṣas, the goddess of dawn, bringer of light, daughter of heaven, mother of mornings. 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.
She pusheth! O mighty Uṣas, thou dost thrust the darkness from the sky! It fleeth in terror before thee. The night that ruled but moments past—where is it now? Gone. Utterly gone. Thou hast driven it forth, cast it down below the horizon, banished it to the netherworld from whence it came.
How dost thou accomplish this feat? Thou art but one goddess, tender-limbed, graceful, fair to behold. Yet thy strength is beyond measure. Each dawn thou dost single-handedly overcome the vast and ancient darkness. With what weapon dost thou arm thyself? With what spell dost thou bind the night?
Nay—thou needest no weapon! Thou needest no incantation! Thy mere presence doth dispel the darkness. Like water poureth down the mountainside, sweeping all before it, so doth thy light advance inexorably. The darkness cannot withstand thee. It cannot bargain with thee. It cannot retreat slowly and maintain even a small corner of the world.
Thou art relentless, O Uṣas! Thy coming is inevitable. No prayer to the night-powers can delay thee. No sacrifice to the demons can appease thy advance. Each morning thou returnest, same as always, and the world is remade anew.
And we mortals do witness thy great struggle each day. We see how the darkness holdeth its ground to the last moment, even as thy light brighteneth the eastern sky. Then the darkness yielded suddenly, utterly, completely. And the day is born.
O mighty one! We praise thy strength, thy determination, thy faithfulness. Never dost thou fail to return. Never dost thou weaken in thy assault upon the darkness. Forever thou dost push it back, push it back, until day cometh and all the world is bright. Thus do we exalt thee, O warrior goddess of the dawn.
Colophon
Rigveda I.49 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 Uṣas, the goddess of dawn, bringer of light, daughter of heaven, mother of mornings. 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.49
uṣo bhadrebhir ā gahi divaś cid rocanād adhi |
vahantv aruṇapsava upa tvā somino gṛham || 1 ||
supeśasaṁ sukhaṁ rathaṁ yam adhyasthā uṣas tvam |
tenā suśravasaṁ janam prāvādya duhitar divaḥ || 2 ||
vayaś cit te patatriṇo dvipac catuṣpad arjuni |
uṣaḥ prārann ṛtūm̐r anu divo antebhyas pari || 3 ||
vyucchantī hi raśmibhir viśvam ābhāsi rocanam |
tāṁ tvām uṣar vasūyavo gīrbhiḥ kaṇvā ahūṣata || 4 ||
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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