Indra in the Rig Veda

O Indra and Vāyu, come near to these Soma-pressings, borne by their powers of delight; for the Soma-drops indeed yearn for you—seeking your presence to awaken the inner force and the free breath in us.

O Vāyu and Indra, you two take cognizance of the pressed Soma; O lords of plenitude and victorious force, come—hasten near to the swift-flowing delight that runs toward you.

O Vāyu and Indra, come swiftly toward the one who is pressing Soma; draw near to the offering set out—O you two heroic powers—thus, by the awakened thought that aspires for the Truth.

O Indra, come—O bright-flaming power of many lights. These Soma-pressings are for you, purified in their whole substance through the fine strainers, ready for your intake of force.

O Indra, come—impelled by the illumined thought, urged on by the seer’s inspiration—to the one who has pressed the Soma; come near to the man of aspiration and his mantras, that the Force of truth may enter and act in us.

O Indra, come here—swiftly urged onward—towards our mantras of light, O Lord of the tawny steeds; in the pressed Soma establish in us even a particle of your delighting power and victorious fullness.

Then may we come to know of those your inmost gracious inspirations; do not pass beyond us in your seeing—come here to us.

Move beyond and go forth; seek out Indra, the unshaken stride of power, the luminous knower. He is the one who brings to your comrades the choicest boon—an opening of plenitude for the soul’s advance.

And may the voices of obstruction that speak against us be driven away even from every other side, while we place our offering of service wholly in Indra—so that his Force may stand with us.

And may the peoples speak of us as bearers of the luminous good-fortune, O Wonder-worker; may we indeed abide in the protecting peace of Indra.

Having drunk of this (Soma-delight), O Shatakratu, you became the smiter of the obstructers; and you brought forward the possessor of plenitudes in the fields of the vāja—those victorious intensities of power.

Thee, O Indra of a hundred powers of action, the bearer of plenitude in all our strivings—we would make victorious, so that the riches (the inner treasures of being) may be won.

Sing to Indra—he who is the great helper and protector of the soul’s plenitudes, the sure ferryman across, the comrade of the one who presses the Soma: the Power that befriends our consecrated effort and carries our being beyond the…

Come then—sit down here; sing forth toward Indra. O companions who bear the hymn, bring forward the force of the chant so the Power may take his seat within us.

Indra—most abundant among the many, the sovereign master of the choicest plenitudes—we call to be with us in the Soma that is pressed, companioning our offering and our aspiration.

May he indeed become for us the yoking-force in the union (of our consciousness); may he be for our spiritual plenitude (rāyí) and for the fullness of right-intelligence (puraṃdhi). May he come to us with the vājās—powers of accomplished…

Sing to that Indra in whose firm station the hostile powers, even in the clash of inner battles, cannot seize or check the two mighty steeds—those twin energies of luminous force that carry the soul’s will forward.

O Purifier of the pressed delight, these pressed Soma-forces, bright and clear, move forward for thy accepting enjoyment; the Soma-streams come mixed with curd as a nourishing essence for the inner offering.

Thou for the drinking of the pressed Soma wert born at once in thy full-grown power, O Indra, for the attainment of the highest mastery, O thou of luminous will.

May the swift Soma-energies enter into you, O Indra, Lord who answers to the hymns; may they become for you a force of peace and right well-being for the awakened intelligence.