Hymn to Rudra
Rigveda VII.46 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 7 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 Rudra! O thou terrible one! O thou who art adorned with serpents and with fire! We come before thee with fear and with trembling!
Thou art not like unto the other gods. They are merciful; they are generous; they are inclined toward kindness. But thou—O Rudra—thou art fierce and thou art fearful. Thy anger is as a storm that cannot be turned aside.
We have heard the stories of thy wrath. The mountains have felt the touch of thy arrows. The forests have burned at thy coming. Even the demons do flee in terror when they see thee approach.
Yet we have heard also of thy compassion. For thou art not only the destroyer; thou art also the healer. The herbs of the field are thine; the medicine and the remedy do flow from thy hand. Those whom thou hast struck down, thou canst also restore to wholeness.
O Rudra, we beseech thee! Do not turn thy face toward us in anger! We are thy servants; we do respect thy power. We do not ask for mercy alone, but only that thy wrath might not fall upon us unjustly.
Turn toward us the kindly side of thy nature! Show us thy healing hand! Let thy arrows pass us by! And let us know the peace that cometh from the protection of Rudra the fierce.
We make this offering unto thee, O terrible god! We sing this hymn unto thee! Accept it with grace! And be unto us not a destroyer, but a guardian and a protector!
O Rudra, O fierce one, O mighty lord—we place our trust in thee. Do not fail us. Do not abandon us. Be our god, our protector, our friend!
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 VII.46
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.
imā rudrāya sthiradhanvane giraḥ kṣipreṣave devāya svadhāvne |
aṣāḻhāya sahamānāya vedhase tigmāyudhāya bharatā śṛṇotu naḥ || 1 ||
sa hi kṣayeṇa kṣamyasya janmanaḥ sāmrājyena divyasya cetati |
avann avantīr upa no duraś carānamīvo rudra jāsu no bhava || 2 ||
yā te didyud avasṛṣṭā divas pari kṣmayā carati pari sā vṛṇaktu naḥ |
sahasraṁ te svapivāta bheṣajā mā nas tokeṣu tanayeṣu rīriṣaḥ || 3 ||
mā no vadhī rudra mā parā dā mā te bhūma prasitau hīḻitasya |
ā no bhaja barhiṣi jīvaśaṁse yūyam pāta svastibhiḥ sadā naḥ || 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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