Agni Sūktam — Ṛgveda 1.1 in every script, with meaning
The first hymn of the Ṛgveda, the nine ṛcas of Madhucchandas to Agni: Devanāgarī, Roman (IAST) and transliteration into every Indian script and the major world scripts, with the meaning of each verse and a word-by-word gloss.
The Agni Sūktam is the first hymn of the Ṛgveda: maṇḍala 1, sūkta 1, nine ṛcas in the Gāyatrī metre, seen by the ṛṣi Madhucchandas, son of Viśvāmitra, and addressed to Agni. It is the opening word of the oldest scripture of humanity, and its first verse is the first of the three invocations spoken as the Agnihotra fire catches.
Below, every verse is given in Devanāgarī, in Roman letters with the scholarly marks (IAST), and in the script of your choice — every Indian script and the major scripts of the world — so that anyone anywhere can read the sounds exactly. The transliterations are letter-for-letter renderings of the Sanskrit, not translations; the meaning of each verse follows it in your language, with a word-by-word gloss.
Scripture passes through this site untouched. The Devanāgarī and the IAST are the text as it is recited; the renderings in other scripts follow fixed letter correspondences; only the meanings are translated.
agnim īḷe purohitaṃ yajñasya devam ṛtvijam | hotāraṃ ratnadhātamam ||
I praise Agni, the priest placed in front, the shining god of the yajña, the one who offers in due season, the invoker who bestows treasures above all others.
agnim – Agni (object of praise); īḷe – I praise, I call upon; purohitam – placed in front, the household priest; yajñasya – of the yajña; devam – the shining one, the god; ṛtvijam – the one who sacrifices at the right season; hotāram – the invoker, the priest who pours; ratna-dhātamam – the greatest bestower of treasures.
Deep meaningAgni, the one placed in front
The hymn opens with the object before the verb: agnim, Agni, then īḷe, I praise. The first thing the Veda names is the fire. Sāyaṇa reads īḷe as both praise and call — the seer calls on Agni as one calls a priest to begin. Purohita is literally the one placed (hita) in front (puraḥ): in the house, the fire that is kindled before anything else; in the rite, the priest who stands at the front; in the cosmos, the force that goes before every transformation. Yāska's first derivation of agni is agraṇī, the leader.
Devam ṛtvijam: the shining one who offers at the right season — ṛtu, the season, and ij, to offer, make the ṛtvij, the priest whose knowledge is time. Agni is called the god who is also the priest: he is both the one offered to and the one who offers. Hotāram: the invoker, the pourer. Ratnadhātamam: ratna is treasure, dhā is to bestow, -tama the superlative — the greatest bestower of treasures. The hymn does not hide that the fire is asked for wealth; the sixth verse will say what kind.
Deep meaning: the Veda begins by placing fire in front of everything — the fire that must be lit before the day, the fire that leads the mind, the Agni who is at once the god and the priest. One who praises Agni first has put transformation before possession. This verse, with Oṃ prefixed, is the first invocation of the Agnihotra as the dung catches.
१.१.२ · 1.1.2
अग्निः पूर्वेभिर्ऋषिभिरीड्यो नूतनैरुत । स देवाँ एह वक्षति ॥
Agni, worthy of praise by the ancient seers and by the new ones too — may he bring the gods here to us.
agniḥ – Agni; pūrvebhiḥ ṛṣibhiḥ – by the ancient seers; īḍyaḥ – to be praised, praiseworthy; nūtanaiḥ – by the new, the present ones; uta – and also; sa – he; devān – the gods; eha – here, hither; vakṣati – will carry, will bring.
Deep meaningPraised by the ancient seers and the new
Pūrvebhir ṛṣibhiḥ, by the former seers; nūtanaiḥ uta, and by the new ones too. The second verse of the Veda already speaks of a past tradition and a present one — the praise of Agni was old when the Ṛgveda was composed. Sāyaṇa names the ancient seers as Bhṛgu, Aṅgiras and the rest, the first keepers of fire. Īḍyaḥ, to be praised, is the same root as īḷe in the first verse: the fire is praiseworthy, and the praise is a lineage.
Sa devāṁ eha vakṣati: may he carry the gods here. Agni is the vehicle (vah, to carry) — the gods come to the offering in the fire and by the fire. The verse establishes the two directions of the Agnihotra: the offering goes up, the gods come down, and both pass through the same flame.
Deep meaning: every practitioner who lights the fire joins the pūrva ṛṣis and the nūtana ṛṣis, the ancient and the new. The new generation that keeps Agnihotra is named in the second verse of the Veda.
agninā rayim aśnavat poṣam eva dive-dive | yaśasaṃ vīravattamam ||
Through Agni may one obtain wealth and nourishment day after day — wealth that is glorious and most rich in heroes.
agninā – through Agni; rayim – wealth; aśnavat – may one attain; poṣam – nourishment, increase; eva – indeed; dive-dive – day by day; yaśasam – glorious, bringing fame; vīra-vat-tamam – most abounding in heroes, in strong sons.
Deep meaningWealth that grows day by day
Agninā rayim aśnavat: through Agni may one attain wealth. Rayi is wealth in the widest Vedic sense — cattle, grain, children, strength, light. Poṣam eva dive-dive: nourishment, increase, indeed, day by day. The repetition dive-dive is the hymn's own name for the Agnihotra: a fire kept every single day. Yaśasam, bringing glory, fame; vīravattamam, most full of heroes — of strong sons, of brave people, of vigour.
Sāyaṇa reads vīravattamam as abounding in heroic sons and servants; the modern commentators (Aurobindo among them) read vīra as the inner hero, the strength of will. Both readings are open; the Vedic word carries both.
Deep meaning: the wealth the fire gives is daily, not sudden; it is nourishment (poṣa), not accumulation; it is glorious because it is rightly obtained; and its measure is the strength of the people in the house. This is the whole of the Vedic economics of the Agnihotra in one verse.
१.१.४ · 1.1.4
अग्ने यं यज्ञमध्वरं विश्वतः परिभूरसि । स इद्देवेषु गच्छति ॥
agne yaṃ yajñam adhvaraṃ viśvataḥ paribhūr asi | sa id deveṣu gacchati ||
O Agni, the yajña, the unbroken rite, which you encompass on every side — that alone goes to the gods.
agne – O Agni; yam yajñam – which yajña; adhvaram – unharmed, without obstruction, the rite; viśvataḥ – from all sides; paribhūḥ asi – you surround, you encompass; sa it – that very one; deveṣu – among the gods; gacchati – goes.
Deep meaningWhat Agni encompasses reaches the gods
Agne yaṃ yajñam adhvaraṃ viśvataḥ paribhūr asi: O Agni, the yajña, the adhvara, which you encompass on every side. Adhvara is explained by Yāska as a-dhvara, that which is not harmed, the rite without injury or interruption. Paribhū, surrounding, existing all around. Sa id deveṣu gacchati: that alone goes among the gods.
The verse is the rule of a valid offering: only what the fire wholly surrounds — the offering made entirely into the fire, with nothing held back — reaches its destination. Sāyaṇa: an offering protected on all sides by Agni from the rākṣasas, the disturbers, goes to the gods. The Śatapatha's Yājñavalkya answers Janaka with this: the oblations go up through the fire into the air and the sky and return.
Deep meaning: the āhuti is to be given completely — the whole pinch, the whole mantra, at the moment — because what is half-given does not go. Idaṃ na mama is the completeness this verse asks for.
May Agni the invoker, wise in insight, true, of the most wondrous fame, the god, come here together with the gods.
agniḥ – Agni; hotā – the invoker; kavi-kratuḥ – whose will and insight are those of a seer; satyaḥ – true, real; citra-śravas-tamaḥ – of most brilliant, most varied fame; devaḥ – the god; devebhiḥ – with the gods; ā gamat – may he come here.
Deep meaningThe true priest of wondrous fame
Agnir hotā kavikratuḥ: Agni the invoker, whose kratu — will, intention, power to act — is that of a kavi, a seer. Satyaḥ: true, real, the one whose word comes to be. Citraśravastamaḥ: of the most varied, brilliant fame — or, as Sāyaṇa also allows, the one who hears most variously, since śravas is both fame and hearing. Devo devebhir ā gamat: the god, may he come here with the gods.
Kavikratu is one of the great Vedic compounds: the fire is intelligence joined to will, insight joined to action. The seer's wisdom alone does not transform; will alone burns blindly; Agni is both. The verse asks that this true, seeing, acting god come with all the gods — that the whole order of the cosmos be present at the small fire.
Deep meaning: the fire in the kuṇḍa is to be met as kavikratu — with attention (the kavi) and with commitment (the kratu). A distracted Agnihotra is a fire without a seer; a mechanical one is a will without sight.
yad aṅga dāśuṣe tvam agne bhadraṃ kariṣyasi | tavet tat satyam aṅgiraḥ ||
Whatever good you will do, O Agni, for the one who offers — that, truly, is yours alone, O Aṅgiras.
yat – whatever; aṅga – indeed, O dear one; dāśuṣe – for the worshipper, the one who gives; tvam – you; agne – O Agni; bhadram – good, auspicious; kariṣyasi – you will do; tava it – yours indeed; tat – that; satyam – truth, true; aṅgiraḥ – O Aṅgiras (Agni as the first of the Aṅgiras seers).
Deep meaningThe good you do for the giver is truly yours
Yad aṅga dāśuṣe tvam agne bhadraṃ kariṣyasi: whatever good, O Agni, you will do for the dāśvān — the one who gives, who worships by offering. Tavet tat satyam aṅgiraḥ: that, O Aṅgiras, is yours, is truth. Aṅgiras is both the ancient seer-family of fire-priests and a name of Agni himself as the first Aṅgiras; Sāyaṇa takes it as the vocative of Agni.
The verse is a statement of the law of return. The good Agni does for the giver is tava it satyam — yours indeed, your truth, your nature. The fire does not reward; it is of its nature to transform what is given into good for the giver, as it is of its nature to burn. The Gītā will say: from yajña, rain; from rain, food.
Deep meaning: what is given completely into the fire returns as bhadra, good, by the fire's own nature, not by bargain. This is the Agnihotra's law of abundance, stated in the Veda's sixth verse.
To you, O Agni, day after day, by night and by day, we come with our thought, bringing homage.
upa – near, towards; tvā – you; agne – O Agni; dive-dive – day by day; doṣā-vastaḥ – at dusk and at dawn, by night and by day; dhiyā – with thought, with prayer; vayam – we; namaḥ – homage, bowing; bharantaḥ – bearing, bringing; emasi – we come.
Deep meaningWe come to you day by day, with thought, bearing homage
Upa tvā agne dive-dive doṣāvastar dhiyā vayam: to you, O Agni, day by day, doṣā-vastaḥ — by night and by day, at dusk and at dawn — with dhī, thought, insight, prayer, we. Namo bharanta emasi: bearing homage, we come. Sāyaṇa reads doṣāvastaḥ as a vocative of Agni as illuminer of the dark; the usual reading takes it as the two times.
Here is the Agnihotra itself, in the hymn's own words: every day, at the two junctions, approaching the fire with thought and bringing homage. The verse does not say with milk or with rice; it says with dhī — the inner offering the Upaniṣads will insist on. Namas, homage, is the bending of what one is before what is greater.
Deep meaning: this is the verse the practitioner lives. Two times a day, for as long as one lives, with attention, bowing. The whole discipline of this site — the clock, the timing, the voice — exists so that this verse can be kept exactly.
rājantam adhvarāṇāṃ gopām ṛtasya dīdivim | vardhamānaṃ sve dame ||
To you who shine as king of the rites, guardian of the cosmic order, radiant, growing in your own house.
rājantam – shining, ruling; adhvarāṇām – of the rites, of the unbroken sacrifices; gopām – protector, herdsman; ṛtasya – of ṛta, the truth and order of the cosmos; dīdivim – brilliant, blazing; vardhamānam – growing, increasing; sve dame – in your own house (the hearth, the altar).
Deep meaningKing of the rites, guardian of the cosmic order
Rājantam adhvarāṇām: shining — ruling — over the rites. Gopām ṛtasya: the herdsman, the guardian, of ṛta. Ṛta is the central word of the Ṛgveda: the truth that is also the order — the course of the Sun, the seasons, the law of the offering, the right. Agni guards it because the fire at the two junctions is where the human day is fitted to the cosmic order. Dīdivim: shining, blazing. Vardhamānaṃ sve dame: growing in your own house — the hearth, the altar, and, say the later readings, the body.
Deep meaning: the Agnihotra fire is the guardian of ṛta in the home. A house where the fire grows at its two times is a house fitted to the order of the Sun; Swara Yoga reads the same fitting in the breath. The fire grows in its own house — it is fed, it is kept, it is not borrowed.
As a father to his son, O Agni, be easy of approach to us; stay with us for our well-being.
sa – he, you; naḥ – to us; pitā iva – like a father; sūnave – to a son; agne – O Agni; su-upāyanaḥ – easy to approach, of good access; bhava – be; sacasvā – accompany, stay with; naḥ – us; svastaye – for well-being, for welfare.
Deep meaningAs a father to a son — be easy of approach, stay with us
Sa naḥ pitā iva sūnave agne sūpāyano bhava: be to us, O Agni, as a father to a son, easy of approach — su-upāyana, of good access, one whom one can come near. Sacasvā naḥ svastaye: stay with us, accompany us, for svasti — well-being, welfare, the state of being well. The hymn that began with the fire placed in front ends with the fire as a father at home, and with the word svasti, which closes Vedic prayer as peace closes a day.
Deep meaning: the relation to the fire is not fear but nearness. The god who eats, who carries the gods, who rules the rites and guards the cosmic order is asked at the end to be a father — to be approachable twice a day by anyone. That is the whole intent of the Gṛhya Agnihotra: the greatest force, made a member of the family, fed at dawn and dusk, kept for life. The practitioner who reads the nine verses once and then keeps the fire for a year will find that the hymn has described the practice from the outside and the inside, and that nothing in it is ornament.
Agni in the other Vedas
The Ṛgveda is not alone. The Sāmaveda opens with Agni too; the Yajurveda gives the kindling verses and the Agnihotra formulas; the Atharvaveda has the householder's own Agnihotra hymn. Each is given here in the same scripts, with its meaning and its place in the practice.
Sāmaveda
अग्न आ याहि वीतये गृणानो हव्यदातये । नि होता सत्सि बर्हिषि ॥
O Agni, come to the feast; praised, come to the giving of the oblation; sit down as the invoker on the sacred grass.
Sāmaveda 1.1.1 (= Ṛgveda 6.16.10) · The Sāmaveda, the Veda of melody, also opens with Agni. Where the Ṛgveda praises him, the Sāmaveda calls him to come and sit — the fire as the guest who is seated first.
agniṃ dūtaṃ vṛṇīmahe hotāraṃ viśvavedasam | asya yajñasya sukratum ||
We choose Agni as our messenger, the invoker who knows all things, the skilled performer of this yajña.
Ṛgveda 1.12.1 (also Sāmaveda 1.3) · Agni as dūta, the messenger between the human and the divine — the reason an offering into fire reaches anywhere. Sung in the Sāmaveda, this is one of the most-recited Agni verses of the tradition.
Serve Agni with fuel; wake the guest with ghee; offer the oblations into him.
Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 3.1 (= Ṛgveda 8.44.1) · The first of the Yajurveda's kindling verses for the daily fire: fuel, then ghee, then the offering — the exact order of the Agnihotra as it is performed.
Into the well-kindled, blazing one pour the strong ghee — to Agni Jātavedas, the knower of all that is born.
Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 3.2 (= Ṛgveda 5.5.1) · Jātavedas, the knower of all born beings, is Agni's name as the witness of every life; the ghee is poured only when the fire is fully kindled, as in the Vyāhṛti offerings.
Agni is light, light is Agni — svāhā. Sūrya is light, light is Sūrya — svāhā.
Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 3.9 — the śrauta Agnihotra formulas · The two formulas of the classical śrauta Agnihotra: the first spoken at the evening offering, the second at the morning. They state the doctrine of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa in four words — the fire and the Sun are one light, kept through the night by Agni and returned at dawn by Sūrya.
Evening after evening Agni is the lord of our house; morning after morning the giver of good thought. Giver of wealth, be for us a giver of treasure upon treasure; kindling you, may we nourish our bodies.
Atharvaveda 19.55.3 · The Atharvaveda's Agnihotra hymn — the fire as gṛhapati, the master of the house, fed at evening and morning. This is the householder's Agnihotra in the Veda's own words, and the direct ancestor of the sunrise and sunset practice.
Morning after morning Agni is the lord of our house; evening after evening the giver of good thought. Giver of wealth, be for us a giver of treasure upon treasure; kindling you, may we prosper for a hundred winters.
Atharvaveda 19.55.4 · The companion verse reverses the order — morning first — and asks for a hundred winters: the Vedic prayer for a full life, granted, the hymn says, to the house that kindles the fire twice a day.
The Ṛgveda could have opened with Indra, who has more hymns, or with Soma, or with the Sun. It opens with Agni because Agni is the one god who is present in every house and every rite and every body. The ṛṣis saw a single principle of transformation — the fire on the hearth, the lightning, the Sun, the heat of digestion, the light of consciousness — and gave it one name. Agni is the means by which anything given reaches anywhere; without him nothing offered goes, nothing eaten nourishes, nothing seen is known. The first hymn praises the condition of all the others.
The hymn also fixes the shape of Vedic religion: a daily meeting at dawn and dusk (verse 7), an offering given completely (verse 4), a return by the nature of the fire (verse 6), wealth that is nourishment (verse 3), a lineage of praise (verse 2), and nearness rather than dread (verse 9). The Agnihotra is this hymn made into an act.
The name Agni — Yāska and Sāyaṇa
Yāska's Nirukta (7.14) gives the etymologies the tradition uses. Agni is agraṇī, the one who goes in front — in the rites he is kindled first. Śākapūṇi derives the word from three roots: i, to go; añj or dah, to shine or burn; nī, to lead — the fire goes, burns and leads. Sāyaṇa, in the fourteenth century, opens his commentary on the whole Ṛgveda with this hymn and reads agnim īḷe as the seer praising the fire that is to be installed at the beginning of all rites.
The Brāhmaṇas add a fourth meaning: Agni is the eater, the mouth of the gods; whatever is placed in him is eaten by the gods. The Upaniṣads a fifth: Agni is speech (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 1.3) and is the inner fire of the breath. The practitioner may hold all five while kindling the kuṇḍa.
Readings — tradition and the modern interpreters
The traditional reading, Sāyaṇa's, is ritual and literal: the fire is the priest of the rite, the giver of wealth, and the hymn is the invocation of the rite's fire. Swara Yoga Peeth teaches from this reading. Modern interpreters have added layers. Dayānanda Sarasvatī read Agni as the one God addressed by the name of the physical fire. Sri Aurobindo read the whole hymn psychologically, Agni as the divine will-force in the human being, the priest who leads the inner sacrifice; ṛta as the Truth, rayi as spiritual felicity, vīra as the inner hero. These are interpretations, offered as such; they do not displace the rite, and several of them deepen it.
How the hymn is recited
The Ṛgveda is recited with its accents — udātta, anudātta, svarita — which the written text on this page omits and which the oral tradition preserves exactly. The Gāyatrī metre has three pādas of eight syllables; each verse is recited as three breaths. In the Agnihotra as taught here only the first verse is spoken, with Oṃ prefixed, as the fire catches; the whole hymn may be recited while sitting with the settled fire after the āhutis, as one of the companion recitations. Hear the first verse as it is spoken at the fire above; the transliterations are given so that anyone can sound every syllable exactly in their own script.
Who is Agni
Agni is the first of the devas addressed in the Veda, because he is the one present in every house and every rite. He is the fire on the hearth, the fire of the yajña, the lightning in the cloud, the Sun in the sky and the heat of digestion in the body. The Ṛgveda calls him purohita, the one placed in front; hotā, the invoker; dūta, the messenger who carries the offering upward and brings the gods down; ratnadhātama, the greatest bestower of treasures; and atithi, the guest. He is born anew each time the fire is kindled and yet is the oldest of all.
In the tradition of Swara Yoga Peeth, Agni is read as the one principle of transformation. The fire of the yajña (yajñāgni), the fire of consciousness (citāgni), the fire of the tissues (dhātvagni), the fire of digestion (jaṭharāgni), the fires of will and desire — nothing on earth moves or changes without the subtle Agni. That is why the Veda begins with his praise, and why Agnihotra begins the day.
About the hymn
Ṛṣi: Madhucchandas Vaiśvāmitra · Devatā: Agni · Chandas: Gāyatrī (three pādas of eight syllables) · Ṛgveda 1.1.1–9, the first sūkta of the Śākala saṃhitā.
The hymn is recited in full at the beginning of Vedic study and at the lighting of the yajña fire. Its first verse, with Oṃ prefixed, is the first invocation of the Agnihotra as taught by Swara Yoga Peeth.