Text
The Sanskrit text is Ṛgveda 10.129, given in Devanāgarī (as continuous recitation, saṃhitā) and in IAST roman transliteration with the words separated. The English translation and the word-by-word meanings were prepared for this edition; for scholarly work, please check them against the published translations listed below.
Audio
- Sanskrit chant: synthesised with Vāgdhenu, a Sanskrit chant text-to-speech system by Prof. Prathosh A. P., Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. It produces classical śloka chant, not Vedic svara recitation. The hymn’s triṣṭubh lines are chanted with the closest classical eleven-syllable metre, upajāti.
- English narration: ElevenLabs text-to-speech.
- Background music: a veena, bansuri and tanpura bed made with ElevenLabs Music, tuned to the chant’s tonic.
Word highlighting
Each word’s timing was found automatically by forced alignment (a speech model that matches known text to audio). It is accurate to a fraction of a second for most words, but it can drift, especially on long held vowels in the chant.
Further reading
- Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India (Oxford University Press, 2014). The standard modern complete translation.
- Joel P. Brereton, “Edifying Puzzlement: Ṛgveda 10.129 and the Uses of Enigma,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 119.2 (1999).
- Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, The Rig Veda: An Anthology (Penguin Classics, 1981).
- Ralph T. H. Griffith, The Hymns of the Rigveda (1896), a public-domain translation widely available online.