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Dhammapada · narration sample

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Rig Veda · 515 of 1027

Mandala 6: HYMN LXXIV. Soma-Rudra.

1.HOLD fast your Godlike sway, O Soma-Rudra: let these our sacrifices quickly reach you. Placing in every house your seven great treasures, bring blessing to our quadrupeds and bipeds.

2.Soma and Rudra, chase to every quarter the sickness that hath visited our dwelling. Drive Nirrti away into the distance, and give us excellent and happy glories.

3.Provide, O Soma-Rudra, for our bodies all needful medicines to heal and cure us. Set free and draw away the sin committed which we have still inherent in our persons.

4.Armed with keen shafts and weapons, kind and loving, be gracious unto us, Soma and Rudra. Release us from the noose of Varuṇa; keep us from sorrow, in your tender loving-kindness.

Asked of Guide

Why are Soma and Rudra invoked together in this hymn?

The hymn asks Soma and Rudra together because each brings complementary power: Soma supplies sacrificial potency and healing “seven great treasures,” while Rudra offers fierce protection and removal of sickness and sin. The couplet-like petitions—healing medicines, driving Nirrti away, and ‘‘armed with keen shafts’’—treat them as a single divine duo who both bless and defend the household.

This pairing echoes other Vedic poems where a gentle, life-giving deity works with a stormy, guardian figure; see Rig Veda Mandala 1 where Indra’s liberating force pairs with benevolent gods to secure prosperity. Here the hymn uses both aspects to secure animals, people, and ritual efficacy at once.

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