Agnim īḷe: the first verse of the Ṛgveda
अग्निमीळे पुरोहितं यज्ञस्य देवमृत्विजम् ।
होतारं रत्नधातमम् ॥
agnimīḻe purohitaṃ yajñasya devamṛtvijam |
hotāraṃ ratnadhātamam ||
Translation
I praise Agni, the household priest, god of the sacrifice, the priest of the seasons, the invoker, the best bestower of treasures.
Meaning
The Ṛgveda, the oldest Sanskrit text (its core is usually dated to the second half of the second millennium BCE), opens with this verse to Agni by the seer Madhucchandas Vaiśvāmitra. Its first word is agnim, "fire", a cousin of Latin ignis.
Agni is praised with the titles of human priests: purohita, ṛtvij, hotṛ. Fire is the priest of the gods, because the offerings poured into it are carried up to them.
The metre is gāyatrī (three lines of eight syllables), and the verb īḷe shows a Vedic sound: ḍ between vowels is written ळ (ḻ) in the Ṛgveda, so classical īḍe appears as īḷe.
Word by word · 8 words
| Devanagari | IAST | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| अग्निम् | agnim | Agni, the god of fire (acc. sg. m.) |
| ईळे | īḻe | I praise, I call on (√īḍ, present 1st sg. middle; Vedic ḻ for ḍ between vowels) |
| पुरोहितम् | purohitam | "placed in front": the household priest (acc. sg. m.) |
| यज्ञस्य | yajñasya | of the sacrifice (gen. sg. m.) |
| देवम् | devam | god (acc. sg. m.) |
| ऋत्विजम् | ṛtvijam | the priest who sacrifices at the right season (ṛtu "season" + √yaj; acc. sg. m.) |
| होतारम् | hotāram | the Hotṛ, the priest who invokes the gods (acc. sg. m. of hotṛ) |
| रत्नधातमम् | ratnadhātamam | the best bestower of treasures (ratna "treasure" + dhā "giver" + -tama "most"; acc. sg. m.) |
Pronunciation
agnimīḻe purohitaṃ yajñasya devamṛtvijam |
hotāraṃ ratnadhātamam ||
- īḻe (often printed īḷe): long ī, then the Vedic retroflex l (ळ): curl the tongue back as for ḍ but let the sound flow like l.
- ṛtvijam: starts with the vowel ṛ: ṛt-vi-jam.
- ṛ is a vowel, a short syllabic r (like the "ri" in "rhythm" said quickly): mṛ-tyu, not mar-tyu.
- ṃ (anusvāra) is a nasal: it sounds like m before p/b/m, n before t/d, ṅ before k/g, and a nasalised vowel before s/ś/h.