✶Gnosis
← Contents
Theme
0024 / 1027

Listen

Dhammapada · narration sample

A one-minute narration sample. Every book in the library is narrated end to end — hear the rest in the app.

Rig Veda · 24 of 1027

Mandala 1: HYMN XXIV. Varuṇa and Others.

1.WHO now is he, what God among Immortals, of whose auspicious name we may bethink us? Who shall to mighty Aditi restore us, that I may see my Father and my Mother?

2.Agni the God the first among the Immortals,—of his auspicious name let us bethink us. He shall to mighty Aditi restore us, that I may see my Father and my Mother.

3.To thee, O Savitar, the Lord of precious things, who helpest us Continually, for our share we come—

4.Wealth, highly lauded ere reproach hath fallen on it, which is laid, Free from all hatred, in thy hands

5.Through thy protection may we come to even the height of affluence Which Bhaga hath dealt out to us.

6.Ne’er have those birds that fly through air attained to thy high dominion or thy might or spirit; Nor these the waters that flow on for ever, nor hills, abaters of the wind’s wild fury.

7.Varuṇa, King, of hallowed might, sustaineth erect the Tree’s stem in the baseless region. Its rays, whose root is high above, stream downward. Deep may they sink within us, and be hidden.

8.King Varuṇa hath made a spacious pathway, a pathway for the Sun wherein to travel. Where no way was he made him set his footstep, and warned afar whate’er afflicts the spirit.

9.A hundred balms are thine, O King, a thousand; deep and wide-reaching also be thy favours. Far from us, far away drive thou Destruction. Put from us e’en the sin we have committed.

10.Whither by day depart the constellations that shine at night, set high in heaven above us? Varuṇa’s holy laws remain unweakened, and through the night the Moon moves on in splendor

11.I ask this of thee with my prayer adoring; thy worshipper craves this with his oblation. Varuṇa, stay thou here and be not angry; steal not our life from us, O thou Wide-Ruler.

12.Nightly and daily this one thing they tell me, this too the thought of mine own heart repeateth. May he to whom prayed fettered Śunaḥśepa, may he the Sovran Varuṇa release us.

13.Bound to three pillars captured Śunaḥśepa thus to the Āditya made his supplication. Him may the Sovran Varuṇa deliver, wise, ne’er deceived, loosen the bonds that bind him.

14.With bending down, oblations, sacrifices, O Varuṇa, we deprecate thine anger: Wise Asura, thou King of wide dominion, loosen the bonds of sins by us committed.

15.Loosen the bonds, O Varuṇa, that hold me, loosen the bonds above, between, and under. So in thy holy law may we made sinless belong to Aditi, O thou Āditya.

Asked of Guide

Why does the hymn keep asking Varuṇa to 'loosen the bonds' and release someone?

The hymn repeatedly pleads with Varuṇa to loosen bonds because it pictures him as the sovereign lawgiver who can free people from guilt and danger; lines 13–15 recall Śunaḥśepa’s plea and ask Varuṇa to “loosen the bonds that bind him.” The request links Varuṇa’s moral power to ritual release: Varuṇa’s mercy restores a person into Aditi’s protection and back into the cosmic order.

This hymn treats restraint as both literal and symbolic — bonds of sin, fate, and physical captivity — and asks Varuṇa to remove them so the supplicant may be “made sinless” and returned to the family of the gods. The movement echoes themes in later Vedic and Upanishadic texts that make divine forgiveness a means of social and cosmic reintegration.

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.