Hymn to Agni
Rigveda III.13 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 3 of the Rigveda, one of the 1,028 hymns organized within the ten books of the oldest Veda. The Rigveda was composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE in Vedic Sanskrit and preserved through oral transmission across millennia.
This is a Good Works Translation produced by the New Tianmu Anglican Church from the Sanskrit of the Śākala recension.
O Agni, thou art the purifier most holy! Through thy transformative power, all that is unclean becometh clean, all that is base becometh precious. There is no offering so humble that thy touch cannot make it noble, no sacrifice so simple that thy presence cannot make it divine.
We bring unto thee our butter and our grain, our soma and our wine. In their raw form, these things are merely sustenance for mortal mouths. But once they pass through thy sacred flame, they are transformed! They become ambrosia, the food of the gods themselves. Thy touch conferreth divinity upon all things.
Even the most sinful mortal, the basest of creatures, can find redemption through thy power. If he doth come before thee with a sincere heart, if he doth kindle thy flame with genuine devotion, then all his accumulated corruption is consumed. The ash that remaineth is pure. The slate is made clean. He is born anew.
This is the deepest mystery of the sacrifice: not the giving of gifts, but the transformation of all things — matter into spirit, crude substance into divine essence, mortality into eternal being. And thou, O Agni, art the alchemist, the great transformer, the keeper of the sacred transmutation.
Therefore, we come before thee with our prayers and our offerings, knowing that we are unworthy, yet trusting in thy mercy and thy power. Purify us, O Agni! Burn away our impurities, consume our doubts, reduce to ash all that separateth us from the divine. And in the ash, plant the seed of something new, something whole, something worthy of thy sacred flame. Let us be reborn through thee, refined in thy fire, perfected by thy touch.
Colophon
This hymn is drawn from the Śākala recension of the Rigveda, composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE. This is a Good Works Translation produced by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, translated independently from the Sanskrit. Reference translations consulted during original translation are to be documented during audit.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: ṛgveda III.13
Sanskrit source text from the Aufrecht edition (1877) via GRETIL (Van Nooten & Holland input). Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
pra vo devāyāgnaye barhiṣṭham arcāsmai |
gamad devebhir ā sa no yajiṣṭho barhir ā sadat || 1 ||
ṛtāvā yasya rodasī dakṣaṁ sacanta ūtayaḥ |
haviṣmantas tam īḻate taṁ saniṣyanto 'vase || 2 ||
sa yantā vipra eṣāṁ sa yajñānām athā hi ṣaḥ |
agniṁ taṁ vo duvasyata dātā yo vanitā magham || 3 ||
sa naḥ śarmāṇi vītaye 'gnir yacchatu śaṁtamā |
yato naḥ pruṣṇavad vasu divi kṣitibhyo apsv ā || 4 ||
dīdivāṁsam apūrvyaṁ vasvībhir asya dhītibhiḥ |
ṛkvāṇo agnim indhate hotāraṁ viśpatiṁ viśām || 5 ||
uta no brahmann aviṣa uktheṣu devahūtamaḥ |
śaṁ naḥ śocā marudvṛdho 'gne sahasrasātamaḥ || 6 ||
nū no rāsva sahasravat tokavat puṣṭimad vasu |
dyumad agne suvīryaṁ varṣiṣṭham anupakṣitam || 7 ||
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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