The verse and its meaning · Vedas · Vedas — The Dawn

First of Dawns to Come

Rig Veda 1.113.8

परायतीनामन्वेति पाथ आयतीनां प्रथमा शश्वतीनाम्। व्युच्छन्ती जीवमुदीरयन्त्युषा मृतं कं चन बोधयन्ती

Meaning · English

She follows the track of the dawns now gone, first of the countless dawns still to come. Shining out, Dawn lifts the living, rousing even one who lay dead.

Today's dawn walks the same stretch of sky the earlier dawns walked, and she heads a long line of dawns not yet born. So each morning both follows and leads. Shining out means pushing the dark aside. She lifts the living up from where they lay. Sāyaṇa takes the one lying dead to be the sleeper, whose senses have gone quiet, and she brings awareness back into him. Griffith and some later readers take the line the other way: the dead she does not wake.

Picture someone asleep, face slack, hands open, the breath too faint to notice. A thin line of light reaches the eyelids. Slowly the face comes back: a small frown, a stretch, the eyes opening. That return of a person into their own body is what the dawn does each day, across a whole world at once.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Many Callings, One Morning · Rig Veda 1.113.6
• Next: Those Who Saw Before · Rig Veda 1.113.11
• All of Vedas · Ask Krishna about it

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