Rig Veda · 65 of 1027
Mandala 1: HYMN LXV. Agni.
1.ONE-MINDED, wise, they tracked thee like a thief lurking in dark cave with a stolen cow: Thee claiming worship, bearing it to Gods: there nigh to thee sate all the Holy Ones.
2.The Gods approached the ways of holy Law; there was a gathering vast as heaven itself. The waters feed with praise the growing Babe, born nobly in the womb, the seat of Law.
3.Like grateful food, like some wide dwelling place, like a fruit-bearing hill, a wholesome stream. Like a steed urged to run in swift career, rushing like Sindhu, who may check his course?
4.Kin as a brother to his sister floods, he eats the woods as a King eats the rich. When through the forest, urged by wind, he spreads, verily Agni shears the hair of earth.
5.Like a swan sitting in the floods he pants wisest in mind mid men he wakes at morn. A Sage like Soma, sprung from Law, he grew like some young creature, mighty, shining far.
Asked of Guide
Why is Agni compared to a thief and a growing Babe in this hymn?
The hymn presents Agni as both secretive and intimate: “like a thief lurking in dark cave with a stolen cow” pictures his mysterious arrival where worshippers find and claim him, while “the growing Babe, born nobly in the womb” shows him as a nascent, law‑bearing presence whose life feeds the community. These images say Agni is simultaneously concealed power and a nurtured, legal center who draws the Gods and holy ones to a communal order.
The poem binds ritual, law, and nature: Agni’s motion is vivid—“rushing like Sindhu,” shearing earth and awakening men at morn—so he functions as sacrificial mediator and life force. This treatment echoes themes in Max Müller’s translations, which emphasize Agni as divine flame that both enlivens and structures the Vedic world.
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