Hymn to Varuṇa
Rigveda VII.89 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 Varuṇa, I am bound! Thy ropes hold me; thy chains imprison me! I cannot escape thy grip. The more I struggle, the tighter thou dost hold. The more I cry out, the deeper thou dost bind me.
What shall I do, O sovereign one? All my attempts to free myself have failed. All my prayers have gone unheeded. Am I to lie here forever, bound by invisible cords, held captive by forces beyond my comprehension?
Yet perhaps thou bindest me for my own good. Perhaps these bonds are necessary. Perhaps it is only through suffering that I can be made pure. Perhaps it is only through captivity that I can come to understand the true nature of freedom.
I look upon the faces of my loved ones, and I see fear in their eyes. They know that I am dying; they know that thy bonds grow tighter each day. Soon, perhaps, thou wilt draw me beyond the realm of the living, into the kingdom of the dead, where all mortals must at last surrender their claim upon life.
And yet I am not afraid. For what is death but the final release from all bonds? What is death but the last and greatest freedom? If I must surrender my earthly life, then at least let me surrender it with courage, knowing that the pain shall end, knowing that the suffering shall cease.
O Varuṇa, thou art the lord of life and death alike! Grant me the wisdom to accept thy will! Grant me the strength to bear this burden to the very end! And when at last my time comes, let my death be swift and painless. Let me pass gently from this world into the next, knowing that I die in thy service, knowing that I die in thy presence!
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.89
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.
mo ṣu varuṇa mṛnmayaṁ gṛhaṁ rājann ahaṁ gamam |
mṛḻā sukṣatra mṛḻaya || 1 ||
yad emi prasphurann iva dṛtir na dhmāto adrivaḥ |
mṛḻā sukṣatra mṛḻaya || 2 ||
kratvaḥ samaha dīnatā pratīpaṁ jagamā śuce |
mṛḻā sukṣatra mṛḻaya || 3 ||
apām madhye tasthivāṁsaṁ tṛṣṇāvidaj jaritāram |
mṛḻā sukṣatra mṛḻaya || 4 ||
yat kiṁ cedaṁ varuṇa daivye jane 'bhidroham manuṣyā3ś carāmasi |
acittī yat tava dharmā yuyopima mā nas tasmād enaso deva rīriṣaḥ || 5 ||
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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