Rig Veda · 588 of 1027
Mandala 7: HYMN LXXII. Aśvins.
1.COME, O Nāsatyas, on your car resplendent, rich in abundant wealth of kine and horses. As harnessed steeds, all our laudations follow you whose forms shine with most delightful beauty.
2.Come with the Gods associate, come ye hither to us, Nāsatyas, with your car accordant. ’Twixt you and us there is ancestral friendship and common kin: remember and regard it.
3.Awakened are the songs that praise the Aśvins, the kindred prayers and the Celestial Mornings. Inviting those we long for, Earth and Heaven, the singer calleth these Nāsatyas hither.
4.What time the Dawns break forth in light, O Aśvins, to you the poets offer their devotions. God Savitar hath sent aloft his splendour, and fires sing praises with the kindled fuel.
5.Come from the west, come from the cast, Nāsatyas, come, Aśvins, from below and from above us. Bring wealth from all sides for the Fivefold People. Preserve us evermore, ye Gods, with blessings.
Asked of Guide
Why do the poets keep calling the Aśvins to come from all directions?
The hymn repeatedly summons the Aśvins — “Come from the west, come from the east” — because they are invoked as rescuers and benefactors whose arrival brings wealth, protection, and the new light of dawn. The poets present the Aśvins as kin and allies, figures whose presence restores communal prosperity (“rich in abundant wealth of kine and horses”) and renews sacred order each morning.
This chapter treats the Aśvins like liminal deities who bridge heaven and earth: Savitar’s splendour and the “Celestial Mornings” frame them as dawn-bringers whose coming is both ritual need and existential hope. See also Rig Veda Mandala 1, hymn 24, where dawn and the divine delivering of riches form the same pattern of appeal and return.
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