Hymn to Agni
Rigveda V.7 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 5 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.
Son of great strength! O Agni, thou art born
From two mothers who labor without ceasing.
The sacred sticks do hold thee in their bosom,
And with their friction call thee forth to life.
What mighty labor this! What sacred bearing!
That thou shouldst come forth crying from the wood,
A newborn god, most terrible and burning,
Born of the struggle of the kindling-sticks.
Thy father is the strength within the mortal,
The muscular will that drilleth without tiring.
Thy mothers are the wood so dry and eager,
The timber of the forest, old and wise.
How strange a birth! No womb of flesh and blood
Could ever bear a thing so hot and fierce.
Instead, the wood's cool heart doth serve as cradle,
Till friction's heat doth burst thee forth alive.
And having been born thus, through strength and struggle,
Thou art the son of every human effort,
Of every man who labors at his calling,
Who presses forward though the way be hard.
For in thy birth we recognize our own—
We too are children of a mighty struggle,
Born from the friction of desire and will,
From two opposing forces made as one.
O son of strength, teach us thy manner of being!
That we may know ourselves as thou dost know thee,
Born from the struggle, sharpened by the friction,
Made perfect through the heat of great tribulation.
Let us not fear the fire of thy creation,
But welcome it as sign of strength within us.
For he who is not tested in the burning
Hath not yet truly lived or truly been.
Accept our praise for thy most wondrous birth,
O child of contradiction and of struggle!
Go forth now, burning, burning, burning bright—
The son of strength made manifest in flame.
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 V.7
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.
sakhāyaḥ saṁ vaḥ samyañcam iṣaṁ stomaṁ cāgnaye |
varṣiṣṭhāya kṣitīnām ūrjo naptre sahasvate || 1 ||
kutrā cid yasya samṛtau raṇvā naro nṛṣadane |
arhantaś cid yam indhate saṁjanayanti jantavaḥ || 2 ||
saṁ yad iṣo vanāmahe saṁ havyā mānuṣāṇām |
uta dyumnasya śavasa ṛtasya raśmim ā dade || 3 ||
sa smā kṛṇoti ketum ā naktaṁ cid dūra ā sate |
pāvako yad vanaspatīn pra smā mināty ajaraḥ || 4 ||
ava sma yasya veṣaṇe svedam pathiṣu juhvati |
abhīm aha svajenyam bhūmā pṛṣṭheva ruruhuḥ || 5 ||
yam martyaḥ puruspṛhaṁ vidad viśvasya dhāyase |
pra svādanam pitūnām astatātiṁ cid āyave || 6 ||
sa hi ṣmā dhanvākṣitaṁ dātā na dāty ā paśuḥ |
hiriśmaśruḥ śucidann ṛbhur anibhṛṣṭataviṣiḥ || 7 ||
śuciḥ ṣma yasmā atrivat pra svadhitīva rīyate |
suṣūr asūta mātā krāṇā yad ānaśe bhagam || 8 ||
ā yas te sarpirāsute 'gne śam asti dhāyase |
aiṣu dyumnam uta śrava ā cittam martyeṣu dhāḥ || 9 ||
iti cin manyum adhrijas tvādātam ā paśuṁ dade |
ād agne apṛṇato 'triḥ sāsahyād dasyūn iṣaḥ sāsahyān nṝn || 10 ||
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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