Ratri Sukta: Ode to The Deity of Night

By Srinjay Chakravarti

Hymn 6:
Our Mother who is the Goddess of Night,
You are full of kindness and mercy:
In Your compassion You overlook our sins.
And protect us from our desires,
as ferocious as wildtigers and wolves
--
And You drive away all the thieves
of lust, anger,greed
which rob our minds of peace.
We appeal to You to take us across
the ocean of samsara.

Hymn 7:
O Goddess of Night, our Mother,
The black nocturnal darkness
has filled up everything around us
with nescience and ignorance.
We plead with You, Goddess of Dawn,
to dispel our dark night,
which is sans knowledge,
and full of delusion.
In the same way as Your votaries
pay off their own debts
When Usha, the Goddess Aurora,
Herself grants them wealth.

Hymn 8:
Goddess of Night, we try to please You
with paeans of praise, chanting Your name
As though You are a cow full of life-giving milk.
You are the daughter of the Noumenon,
which is omnipresent, omniscient,
covering all of space
in the form of the Great Sky.
With Your blessings we shall be victorious
over our many enemies
-- lust, greed, pride, envy, rage.
In Your noble kindness,
please accept my hymns and oblations.

Composer: Sage Kushika.
Translated from the pre-Sanskrit Vedic language of the Rig Veda's 10th mandala (circa 1450 to 1000 BC).
Partly based on translations by Swami Jagadishwarananda and Edwin Gerow and Peter Dent