Rig Veda

RIG VEDA – BOOK TEN
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guides beyond our foes.
5 Adityas are beyond all foes,-Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman:
Strong Rudra with the Marut host, Indra, Agni let us call for
weal beyond our foes.
6 These lead us safely over all, Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman,
These who are Kings of living men, over all troubles far away
beyond our foes.
7 May they give bliss to aid us well, Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman:
May the Adityas, when we pray, grant us wide shelter and
defence beyond our foes.
8 As in this place, O Holy Ones, ye Vasus freed even the Gaud
when her feet were fettered.
So free us now from trouble and affliction: and let our life be
lengthened still, O Api.
HYMN CXXVII. Night.
1. WITH all her eyes the Goddess Night looks forth
approaching many a spot:
She hath put all her glories on.
2 Immortal. she hath filled the waste, the Goddess hath filled
height and depth:
She conquers darkness with her light.
3 The Goddess as she comes hath set the Dawn her Sister in
her place:
And then the darkness vanishes.
4 So favour us this night, O thou whose pathways we have
visited
As birds their nest upon the tree.
5 The villagers have sought their homes, and all that walks and
all that flies,
Even the falcons fain for prey.
6 Keep off the she-wolf and the wolf, O Urmya, keep the thief
away;
Easy be thou for us to pass.
7 Clearly hath she come nigh to me who decks the dark with
richest hues:
O Morning, cancel it like debts.
8 These have I brought to thee like kine. O Night, thou Child
of Heaven, accept
This laud as for a conqueror.
HYMN CXXVIII. Visvedevas.
1. LET me win glory, Agni, in our battles: enkindling thee,
may we support our bodies.
May the four regions bend and bow before me: with thee for
guardian may we win in combat.
2 May all the Gods be on my side in battle, the Maruts led by
Indra, Visnu, Agni.
Mine be the middle air's extended region, ani may the wind
blow favouring these my wishes.
3 May the Gods grant me riches; may the blessing and
invocation of the Gods assist me.
Foremost in fight be the divine Invokers: may we, unwounded,
have brave heroes round us.
4 For me let them present all mine oblations, and let my mind's
intention be accomplished.
May I he guiltless of the least transgression: and, all ye Go-is,
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do ye combine to bless us.
5 Ye six divine Expanses, grant us freedom: here, all ye Gods,
acquit yourselves like heroes.
Let us not lose our children or our bodies: let us not benefit the
foe, King Soma!
6 Baffling the wrath of our opponents, Agni, guard us as our
infallible Protector.
Let these thy foes turn back and seek their houses, and let their
thought who watch at home be ruined.
7 Lord of the world, Creator of creators the saviour God who
overcomes the foeman.
May Gods, Brhaspati, both Asvins shelter from ill thii sacrifice
and sacrificer.
8 Foodful, and much-invoked, at this our calling mty the great
Bull vouchsafe us wide protection.
Lord of Bay Coursers, Indra, blew our children: harm us not,
give us riot as prey to others.
9 Let those who are our foemen stay. afar from us: with Indra
and with Agni we will drive them off.
Vasus, Adityas, Rudras have exalted me, made me farreaching,
inighty, thinker, sovran lord.
HYMN CXXIX. Creation.
1. THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm
of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was
water there, unfathomed depth of water?
2 Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign
was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart
from it was nothing whatsoever.
3 Darkness there was: at first concealed in darknew this All
was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great
power of Warmth was born that Unit.
4 Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal
seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the
existent's kinship in the non-existent.
5 Transversely was their severing line extended: what was
above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action
here and energy up yonder
6 Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it
was born and whence comes this creation?
TheGods are later than this world's production. Who knows
then whence it first came into being?
7 He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all
or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily
knows it, or perhaps he knows not.
HYMN CXXX. Creation.
1. THE sacrifice drawn out with threads on every side,
stretched by a hundred sacred ministers and one,-
This do these Fathers weave who hitherward are come: they sit
beside the warp and cry, Weave forth, weave back.