Hymn to Indra
Rigveda IX.39 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 9 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.
Thou of lofty thought, thou swiftly runnest thy rounds through thine own dear realm, unto the place where men shall cry, “Lo, the gods are here!”
Thou makest ready what lacked its full shaping, ordering the draughts for mortal folk; down poureth the rain from heaven on every side.
Once pressed, he passeth through the strainer, gaining brightness by his strength; he casteth his gaze abroad and bringeth forth broad-shining light.
Behold him here—
he who hasteneth his course and hath flowed far and wide from the heavens, into the cloth, into the swelling stream.
Luring from afar, and drawing nigh as well, the pressed one is poured as honey for Indra’s joy.
Together they have thundered;
they drive the tawny one with the stones, saying, “Abide now in the womb of truth.”
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 IX.39
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.
āśur arṣa bṛhanmate pari priyeṇa dhāmnā |
yatra devā iti bravan || 1 ||
pariṣkṛṇvann aniṣkṛtaṁ janāya yātayann iṣaḥ |
vṛṣṭiṁ divaḥ pari srava || 2 ||
suta eti pavitra ā tviṣiṁ dadhāna ojasā |
vicakṣāṇo virocayan || 3 ||
ayaṁ sa yo divas pari raghuyāmā pavitra ā |
sindhor ūrmā vy akṣarat || 4 ||
āvivāsan parāvato atho arvāvataḥ sutaḥ |
indrāya sicyate madhu || 5 ||
samīcīnā anūṣata hariṁ hinvanty adribhiḥ |
yonāv ṛtasya sīdata || 6 ||
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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