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Dhammapada · narration sample

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Rig Veda · 938 of 1027

Mandala 10: HYMN CI. Viśvedevas.

1.WAKE with one mind, my friends, and kindle Agni, ye who are many and who dwell together. Agni and Dadhikrās and Dawn the Goddess, you, Gods with Indra, I call down to help us.

2.Make pleasant hymns, spin out your songs and praises: build ye a ship equipped with oars for transport. Prepare the implements, make all things ready, and let the sacrifice, my friends, go forward.

3.Lay on the yokes, and fasten well the traces: formed is the furrow, sow the seed within it. Through song may we find bearing fraught with plenty: near to the ripened grain approach the sickle.

4.Wise, through desire of bliss from Gods, the skilful bind the traces fast, And lay the yokes on either side.

5.Arrange the buckets in their place securely fasten on the straps. We will pour forth the well that hath a copious stream, fair-flowing well that never fails.

6.I pour the water from the well with pails prepared and goodly straps, Unfailing, full, with plenteous stream.

7.Refresh the horses, win the prize before you: equip a chariot fraught with happy fortune. Pour forth the well with stone wheel, wooden buckets, the drink of heroes, with the trough for armour.

8.Prepare the cow-stall, for there drink your heroes: stitch ye the coats of armour, wide and many. Make iron forts, secure from all assailants let not your pitcher leak: stay it securely.

9.Hither, for help, I turn the holy heavenly mind of you the Holy Gods, that longs for sacrifice. May it pour milk for us, even as a stately cow who, having sought the pasture, yields a thousand streams.

10.Pour golden juice within the wooden vessel: with stone-made axes fashion ye and form it. Embrace and compass it with tenfold girdle, and to both chariot-poles attach the car-horse.

11.Between both poles the car-horse goes pressed closely, as in his dwelling moves the doubly-wedded. Lay in the wood the Soviran of the Forest, and sink the well although ye do not dig it.

12.Indra is he, O men, who gives us happiness: sport, urge the giver of delight to win us strength Bring quickly down, O priests, hither to give us aid, to drink the Soma, Indra Son of Nistigri.

Asked of Guide

Why does the hymn keep calling gods and tools together for the sacrifice and work?

The hymn strings together gods (Agni, Dawn, Indra, Viśvedevas) and concrete implements (yokes, buckets, chariot, well) to treat the ritual and labor as a single cooperative act. It pictures sacrifice as practical preparation—“build ye a ship…prepare the implements…lay on the yokes”—so the divine and the mundane advance the same project.

This fusion echoes later Vedic texts that make ritual efficacy depend on correct procedure and material care, as in Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa where precise tools and rites secure outcomes. The hymn asks gods to join human readiness, promising abundance when sacred invocation and skilled work come together.

Guide is the guide inside the Gnosis app, where every book on these shelves is free to read. Guide is the part you pay for — your guide has read all of them, and answers about the passage you’re actually on. Ask your guide your own question.