Hymn to Parjanya
Rigveda V.83 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.
Parjanya! The rain-god cometh! Lo, how the sky blackeneth with his presence. The clouds gather like an army amassing for battle, swollen and heavy, pregnant with the waters of heaven. The wind precedeth him, crashing through the forests and fields, bending the trees as if in supplication.
The thunder is his voice—terrible, magnificent, shaking the very foundation of the earth. Each great peal is a word of power, a command that all nature must obey. And then cometh the lightning—his gleaming spear, flashing across the heavens, striking the ground with terrible force. Where he striketh, the earth trembleth.
And then! The rain! The blessed, longed-for rain! It falleth from the sky like the milk from the breast of a mother to her starving child. It poundeth upon the parched earth, soaking into the soil, reaching down to the roots of the plants that have been gasping in the terrible heat of the drought.
The world drinketh deeply and is renewed. The grass, which had turned to brittle straw, once more becometh green. The seeds that lay dormant in the earth begin to sprout. The cattle rush out into the rain-soaked pastures. The rivers rise and flow strong again, carrying the waters of life to all the land.
Without thee, O Parjanya, the world would become a dead thing. Without thy thunder and lightning and the waters thou bringest, all creation would perish. Thou art the bringer of abundance, the destroyer of drought, the savior of all that liveth.
We sing thy praise! Come to us with thy generous rains. Break the terrible heat. Fill the reservoirs and the rivers. Give life to the seeds. Bless all creatures with thy gift of water and renewal.
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.83
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.
acchā vada tavasaṁ gīrbhir ābhiḥ stuhi parjanyaṁ namasā vivāsa |
kanikradad vṛṣabho jīradānū reto dadhāty oṣadhīṣu garbham || 1 ||
vi vṛkṣān hanty uta hanti rakṣaso viśvam bibhāya bhuvanam mahāvadhāt |
utānāgā īṣate vṛṣṇyāvato yat parjanyaḥ stanayan hanti duṣkṛtaḥ || 2 ||
rathīva kaśayāśvām̐ abhikṣipann āvir dūtān kṛṇute varṣyā3m̐ aha |
dūrāt siṁhasya stanathā ud īrate yat parjanyaḥ kṛṇute varṣya1ṁ nabhaḥ || 3 ||
pra vātā vānti patayanti vidyuta ud oṣadhīr jihate pinvate svaḥ |
irā viśvasmai bhuvanāya jāyate yat parjanyaḥ pṛthivīṁ retasāvati || 4 ||
yasya vrate pṛthivī nannamīti yasya vrate śaphavaj jarbhurīti |
yasya vrata oṣadhīr viśvarūpāḥ sa naḥ parjanya mahi śarma yaccha || 5 ||
divo no vṛṣṭim maruto rarīdhvam pra pinvata vṛṣṇo aśvasya dhārāḥ |
arvāṅ etena stanayitnunehy apo niṣiñcann asuraḥ pitā naḥ || 6 ||
abhi kranda stanaya garbham ā dhā udanvatā pari dīyā rathena |
dṛtiṁ su karṣa viṣitaṁ nyañcaṁ samā bhavantūdvato nipādāḥ || 7 ||
mahāntaṁ kośam ud acā ni ṣiñca syandantāṁ kulyā viṣitāḥ purastāt |
ghṛtena dyāvāpṛthivī vy undhi suprapāṇam bhavatv aghnyābhyaḥ || 8 ||
yat parjanya kanikradat stanayan haṁsi duṣkṛtaḥ |
pratīdaṁ viśvam modate yat kiṁ ca pṛthivyām adhi || 9 ||
avarṣīr varṣam ud u ṣū gṛbhāyākar dhanvāny atyetavā u |
ajījana oṣadhīr bhojanāya kam uta prajābhyo 'vido manīṣām || 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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