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Rigveda

September 12, 2023

This article is about the collection of Vedic hymns. For the manga series, see RG Veda.

The Rigveda or Rig Veda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, from ṛc "praise"[2] and veda "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (sūktas). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (śruti) known as the Vedas.[3][4] Only one Shakha of the many survive today, namely the Śakalya Shakha. Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum.[5]

Rigveda
The four Vedas
Information
ReligionHinduism
LanguageVedic Sanskrit
Periodc. 1500–1000 BCE[note 1]
Chapters10 mandalas
Verses10,552 mantras[1]
Rigveda (padapatha) manuscript in Devanagari, early 19th century. After a scribal benediction (śrīgaṇéśāyanamaḥ Au3m), the first line has the first pada, RV 1.1.1a (agniṃ iḷe puraḥ-hitaṃ yajñasya devaṃ ṛtvijaṃ). The pitch-accent is marked by underscores and vertical overscores in red.

The Rigveda is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text.[6] Its early layers are among the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language.[7][note 2] The sounds and texts of the Rigveda have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE.[9][10][11] Philological and linguistic evidence indicates that the bulk of the Rigveda Samhita was composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent (see Rigvedic rivers), most likely between c. 1500 and 1000 BCE,[12][13][14] although a wider approximation of c. 1900–1200 BCE has also been given.[15][16][note 1]

The text is layered, consisting of the Samhita, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads.[note 3] The Rigveda Samhita is the core text and is a collection of 10 books (maṇḍalas) with 1,028 hymns (sūktas) in about 10,600 verses (called ṛc, eponymous of the name Rigveda). In the eight books – Books 2 through 9 – that were composed the earliest, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology, rites, and rituals and praise deities.[17][18] The more recent books (Books 1 and 10) in part also deal with philosophical or speculative questions,[18] virtues such as dāna (charity) in society,[19] questions about the origin of the universe and the nature of the divine,[20][21] and other metaphysical issues in their hymns.[22]

Some of its verses continue to be recited during Hindu prayer and celebration of rites of passage (such as weddings), making it probably the world's oldest religious text in continued use.[23][24]

Dating and historical context

Further information: Historical Vedic religion, Vedic period, and Proto-Indo-Aryan
 
A map of tribes and rivers mentioned in the Rigveda.

Dating

According to Jamison and Brereton, in their 2014 translation of the Rigveda, the dating of this text "has been and is likely to remain a matter of contention and reconsideration". The dating proposals so far are all inferred from the style and the content within the hymns themselves.[25] Philological estimates tend to date the bulk of the text to the second half of the second millennium BCE.[note 1] Being composed in an early Indo-Aryan language, the hymns must post-date the Indo-Iranian separation, dated to roughly 2000 BCE.[26] A reasonable date close to that of the composition of the core of the Rigveda is that of the Mitanni documents of northern Syria and Iraq (c. 1450–1350 BCE), which also mention the Vedic gods such as Varuna, Mitra and Indra.[27][28] Other evidence also points to a composition close to 1400 BCE.[29][30]

The Rigveda's core is accepted to date to the late Bronze Age, making it one of the few examples with an unbroken tradition. Its composition is usually dated to roughly between c. 1500 and 1000 BCE.[note 1] According to Michael Witzel, the codification of the Rigveda took place at the end of the Rigvedic period between c. 1200 and 1000 BCE, in the early Kuru kingdom.[14] Asko Parpola argues that the Rigveda was systematized around 1000 BCE, at the time of the Kuru kingdom.[31]

Historical and societal context

The Rigveda is far more archaic than any other Indo-Aryan text. For this reason, it was in the center of attention of Western scholarship from the times of Max Müller and Rudolf Roth onwards. The Rigveda records an early stage of Vedic religion. There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the early Iranian Avesta,[32][33] deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times,[34] often associated with the early Andronovo culture of c. 2000 BCE.[35]

The Rigveda offers no direct evidence of social or political systems in the Vedic era, whether ordinary or elite.[36] Only hints such as cattle raising and horse racing are discernible, and the text offers very general ideas about the ancient Indian society. There is no evidence, state Jamison and Brereton, of any elaborate, pervasive or structured caste system.[36] Social stratification seems embryonic, then and later a social ideal rather than a social reality.[36] The society was semi-nomadic and pastoral with evidence of agriculture since hymns mention plow and celebrate agricultural divinities.[37] There was division of labor and a complementary relationship between kings and poet-priests but no discussion of a relative status of social classes.[36] Women in the Rigveda appear disproportionately as speakers in dialogue hymns, both as mythical or divine Indrani, Apsaras Urvasi, or Yami, as well as Apāla Ātreyī (RV 8.91), Godhā (RV 10.134.6), Ghoṣā Kākṣīvatī (RV 10.39.40), Romaśā (RV 1.126.7), Lopāmudrā (RV 1.179.1–2), Viśvavārā Ātreyī (RV 5.28), Śacī Paulomī (RV 10.159), Śaśvatī Āṅgirasī (RV 8.1.34). The women of the Rigveda are quite outspoken and appear more sexually confident than men, in the text.[36] Elaborate and aesthetic hymns on wedding suggest rites of passage had developed during the Rigvedic period.[36] There is little evidence of dowry and no evidence of sati in it or related Vedic texts.[38]

The Rigvedic hymns mention rice and porridge, in hymns such as 8.83, 8.70, 8.77 and 1.61 in some versions of the text;[39] however, there is no discussion of rice cultivation.[37] The term áyas (metal) occurs in the Rigveda, but it is unclear which metal it was.[40] Iron is not mentioned in Rigveda, something scholars have used to help date Rigveda to have been composed before 1000 BCE.[41] Hymn 5.63 mentions "metal cloaked in gold", suggesting metal working had progressed in the Vedic culture.[42]

Some of the names of gods and goddesses found in the Rigveda are found amongst other belief systems based on Proto-Indo-European religion, while most of the words used share common roots with words from other Indo-European languages.[43] However, about 300 words in the Rigveda are neither Indo-Aryan nor Indo-European, states the Sanskrit and Vedic literature scholar Frits Staal.[44] Of these 300, many – such as kapardin, kumara, kumari, kikata – come from Munda or proto-Munda languages found in the eastern and northeastern (Assamese) region of India, with roots in Austroasiatic languages. The others in the list of 300 – such as mleccha and nir – have Dravidian roots found in the southern region of India, or are of Tibeto-Burman origins. A few non-Indo-European words in the Rigveda – such as for camel, mustard and donkey – belong to a possibly lost Central Asian language.[44][45][note 4] The linguistic sharing provides clear indications, states Michael Witzel, that the people who spoke Rigvedic Sanskrit already knew and interacted with Munda and Dravidian speakers.[47]

The earliest text were composed in northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent, and the more philosophical later texts were most likely composed in or around the region that is the modern era state of Haryana.[41]

Text

Composition

The "family books" (2–7) are associated with various clans and chieftains, containing hymns by members of the same clan in each book; but other clans are also represented in the Rigveda. The family books are associated with specific regions, and mention prominent Bharata and Pūru kings.[48]

Tradition associates a rishi (the composer) with each ṛc (verse) of the Rigveda. Most sūktas are attributed to single composers;[note 5] for each of them the Rigveda includes a lineage-specific āprī hymn (a special sūkta of rigidly formulaic structure, used for rituals). In all, 10 families of rishis account for more than 95 per cent of the ṛcs

Book Clan Region[48]
Mandala 2 Gṛtsamāda NW, Punjab
Mandala 3 Viśvāmitra Punjab, Sarasvatī
Mandala 4 Vāmadeva NW, Punjab
Mandala 5 Atri NW → Punjab → Yamunā
Mandala 6 Bharadvāja NW, Punjab, Sarasvati; → Gaṅgā
Mandala 7 Vasiṣṭha Punjab, Sarasvati; → Yamunā
Mandala 8 Kaṇva and Āṅgirasa NW, Punjab

Collection and organisation

The codification of the Rigveda took place late in the Rigvedic or rather in the early post-Rigvedic period at c. 1200 BCE, by members of the early Kuru tribe, when the center of Vedic culture moved east from the Punjab into what is now Uttar Pradesh.[49] The Rigveda was codified by compiling the hymns, including the arrangement of the individual hymns in ten books, coeval with the composition of the younger Veda Samhitas.[50] According to Witzel, the initial collection took place after the Bharata victory in the Battle of the Ten Kings, under king Sudās, over other Puru kings. This collection was an effort to reconcile various factions in the clans which were united in the Kuru kingdom under a Bharata king.[51][note 6] This collection was re-arranged and expanded in the Kuru Kingdom, reflecting the establishment of a new Bharata-Puru lineage and new srauta rituals.[52][note 7]

The fixing of the Vedic chant (by enforcing regular application of sandhi) and of the padapatha (by dissolving Sandhi out of the earlier metrical text), occurred during the later Brahmana period, in roughly the 6th century BCE.[54]

The surviving form of the Rigveda is based on an early Iron Age collection that established the core 'family books' (mandalas 2–7, ordered by author, deity and meter[5]) and a later redaction, coeval with the redaction of the other Vedas, dating several centuries after the hymns were composed. This redaction also included some additions (contradicting the strict ordering scheme) and orthoepic changes to the Vedic Sanskrit such as the regularization of sandhi (termed orthoepische Diaskeuase by Oldenberg, 1888).

Organisation

Mandalas

The text is organized in ten "books", or maṇḍalas ("circles"), of varying age and length.[55] The "family books", mandalas 2–7, are the oldest part of the Rigveda and the shortest books; they are arranged by length (decreasing length of hymns per book) and account for 38% of the text.[56][57]

The hymns are arranged in collections each dealing with a particular deity: Agni comes first, Indra comes second, and so on. They are attributed and dedicated to a rishi (sage) and his family of students.[58] Within each collection, the hymns are arranged in descending order of the number of stanzas per hymn. If two hymns in the same collection have equal numbers of stanzas then they are arranged so that the number of syllables in the metre are in descending order.[59][60] The second to seventh mandalas have a uniform format.[56]

The eighth and ninth mandalas, comprising hymns of mixed age, account for 15% and 9%, respectively. The ninth mandala is entirely dedicated to Soma and the Soma ritual. The hymns in the ninth mandala are arranged by both their prosody structure (chanda) and by their length.[56]

The first and the tenth mandalas are the youngest; they are also the longest books, of 191 suktas each, accounting for 37% of the text. Nevertheless, some of the hymns in mandalas 8, 1 and 10 may still belong to an earlier period and may be as old as the material in the family books.[61] The first mandala has a unique arrangement not found in the other nine mandalas. The first 84 hymns of the tenth mandala have a structure different from the remaining hymns in it.[56]

Hymns and prosody

Each mandala consists of hymns or sūktas (su- + ukta, literally, "well recited, eulogy") intended for various rituals. The sūktas in turn consist of individual stanzas called ṛc ("praise", pl. ṛcas), which are further analysed into units of verse called pada ("foot" or step).

The hymns of the Rigveda are in different poetic metres in Vedic Sanskrit. The meters most used in the ṛcas are the gayatri (3 verses of 8 syllables), anushtubh (4×8), trishtubh (4×11) and jagati (4×12). The trishtubh meter (40%) and gayatri meter (25%) dominate in the Rigveda.[62][63][64]

Meter[note 8] Rigvedic verses[65]
Gayatri 2451
Ushnih 341
Anushtubh 855
Brihati 181
Pankti 312
Trishtubh 4253
Jagati 1348
Atigagati 17
Sakvari 19
Atisakvari 9
Ashti 6
Atyashti 84
Dhriti 2
Atidhriti 1
Ekapada 6
Dvipada 17
Pragatha Barhata 388
Pragatha Kakubha 110
Mahabarhata 2
Total 10402

Transmission

As with the other Vedas, the redacted text has been handed down in several versions, including the Padapatha, in which each word is isolated in pausa form and is used for just one way of memorization; and the Samhitapatha, which combines words according to the rules of sandhi (the process being described in the Pratisakhya) and is the memorized text used for recitation.

The Padapatha and the Pratisakhya anchor the text's true meaning,[66] and the fixed text was preserved with unparalleled fidelity for more than a millennium by oral tradition alone.[27] In order to achieve this the oral tradition prescribed very structured enunciation, involving breaking down the Sanskrit compounds into stems and inflections, as well as certain permutations. This interplay with sounds gave rise to a scholarly tradition of morphology and phonetics.

It is unclear as to when the Rigveda was first written down. The oldest surviving manuscripts have been discovered in Nepal and date to c. 1040 CE.[3][67] According to Witzel, the Paippalada Samhita tradition points to written manuscripts c. 800–1000 CE.[68] The Upanishads were likely in the written form earlier, about mid-1st millennium CE (Gupta Empire period).[27][69] Attempts to write the Vedas may have been made "towards the end of the 1st millennium BCE". The early attempts may have been unsuccessful given the Smriti rules that forbade the writing down the Vedas, states Witzel.[27] The oral tradition continued as a means of transmission until modern times.[70]

Recensions

 
Geographical distribution of the Late Vedic Period. Each major region had its own recension of Rig Veda (Śākhās), and the versions varied.[3]

Several shakhas (from skt. śākhā f. "branch", i. e. "recension") of the Rig Veda are known to have existed in the past. Of these, Śākala Śākhā (named after the scholar Śākalya) is the only one to have survived in its entirety. Another śākhā that may have survived is the Bāṣkala, although this is uncertain.[71][72][73]

The surviving padapāṭha version of the Rigveda text is ascribed to Śākalya.[74] The Śākala recension has 1,017 regular hymns, and an appendix of 11 vālakhilya hymns[75] which are now customarily included in the 8th mandala (as 8.49–8.59), for a total of 1028 hymns.[76] The Bāṣkala recension includes eight of these vālakhilya hymns among its regular hymns, making a total of 1025 regular hymns for this śākhā.[77] In addition, the Bāṣkala recension has its own appendix of 98 hymns, the Khilani.[78]

In the 1877 edition of Aufrecht, the 1028 hymns of the Rigveda contain a total of 10,552 ṛcs, or 39,831 padas. The Shatapatha Brahmana gives the number of syllables to be 432,000,[79] while the metrical text of van Nooten and Holland (1994) has a total of 395,563 syllables (or an average of 9.93 syllables per pada); counting the number of syllables is not straightforward because of issues with sandhi and the post-Rigvedic pronunciation of syllables like súvar as svàr.

Three other shakhas are mentioned in Caraṇavyuha, a pariśiṣṭa (supplement) of Yajurveda: Māṇḍukāyana, Aśvalāyana and Śaṅkhāyana. The Atharvaveda lists two more shakhas. The differences between all these shakhas are very minor, limited to varying order of content and inclusion (or non-inclusion) of a few verses. The following information is known about the shakhas other than Śākala and Bāṣkala:[80]

  • Māṇḍukāyana: Perhaps the oldest of the Rigvedic shakhas.
  • Aśvalāyana: Includes 212 verses, all of which are newer than the other Rigvedic hymns.
  • Śaṅkhāyana: Very similar to Aśvalāyana
  • Saisiriya: Mentioned in the Rigveda Pratisakhya. Very similar to Śākala, with a few additional verses; might have derived from or merged with it.
Shakha Samhita Brahmana Aranyaka Upanishad
Shaakala Shaakala Samhita Aitareya Brahmana Aitareya Aranyaka Aitareya Upanishad
Baashkala Kaushitaki Samhita Kaushitaki Brahmana Manuscript exists Kaushitaki Upanishad
Shankhayana Sankhayana Samhita Shankhayana Brahmana Shankhyana Aranyaka edited as a part of the Aranyaka

Manuscripts

 
Rigveda manuscript page, Mandala 1, Hymn 1 (Sukta 1), lines 1.1.1 to 1.1.9 (Sanskrit, Devanagari script)

The Rigveda hymns were composed and preserved by oral tradition. They were memorized and verbally transmitted with "unparalleled fidelity" across generations for many centuries.[27][81] According to Barbara West, it was probably first written down about the 3rd-century BCE.[82][83] The manuscripts were made from birch bark or palm leaves, which decompose and therefore were routinely copied over the generations to help preserve the text.

Versions

There are, for example, 30 manuscripts of Rigveda at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, collected in the 19th century by Georg Bühler, Franz Kielhorn and others, originating from different parts of India, including Kashmir, Gujarat, the then Rajaputana, Central Provinces etc. They were transferred to Deccan College, Pune, in the late 19th century. They are in the Sharada and Devanagari scripts, written on birch bark and paper. The oldest of the Pune collection is dated to 1464. The 30 manuscripts of Rigveda preserved at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune were added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2007.[84]

Of these thirty manuscripts, nine contain the samhita text, five have the padapatha in addition. Thirteen contain Sayana's commentary. At least five manuscripts (MS. no. 1/A1879-80, 1/A1881-82, 331/1883-84 and 5/Viś I) have preserved the complete text of the Rigveda. MS no. 5/1875-76, written on birch bark in bold Sharada, was only in part used by Max Müller for his edition of the Rigveda with Sayana's commentary.

Müller used 24 manuscripts then available to him in Europe, while the Pune Edition used over five dozen manuscripts, but the editors of Pune Edition could not procure many manuscripts used by Müller and by the Bombay Edition, as well as from some other sources; hence the total number of extant manuscripts known then must surpass perhaps eighty at least.[85][full citation needed]

Scripts

Rigveda manuscripts in paper, palm leaves and birch bark form, either in full or in portions, have been discovered in the following Indic scripts:

Comparison

The various Rigveda manuscripts discovered so far show some differences. Broadly, the most studied Śākala recension has 1017 hymns, includes an appendix of eleven valakhīlya hymns which are often counted with the eighth mandala, for a total of 1028 metrical hymns. The Bāṣakala version of Rigveda includes eight of these vālakhilya hymns among its regular hymns, making a total of 1025 hymns in the main text for this śākhā. The Bāṣakala text also has an appendix of 98 hymns, called the Khilani, bringing the total to 1,123 hymns. The manuscripts of Śākala recension of the Rigveda have about 10,600 verses, organized into ten Books (Mandalas).[95][96] Books 2 through 7 are internally homogeneous in style, while Books 1, 8 and 10 are compilation of verses of internally different styles suggesting that these books are likely a collection of compositions by many authors.[96]

The first mandala is the largest, with 191 hymns and 2006 verses, and it was added to the text after Books 2 through 9. The last, or the 10th Book, also has 191 hymns but 1754 verses, making it the second largest. The language analytics suggest the 10th Book, chronologically, was composed and added last.[96] The content of the 10th Book also suggest that the authors knew and relied on the contents of the first nine books.[96]

The Rigveda is the largest of the four Vedas, and many of its verses appear in the other Vedas.[97] Almost all of the 1875 verses found in Samaveda are taken from different parts of the Rigveda, either once or as repetition, and rewritten in a chant song form. Books 8 and 9 of the Rigveda are by far the largest source of verses for Sama Veda. Book 10 contributes the largest number of the 1350 verses of Rigveda found in Atharvaveda, or about one fifth of the 5987 verses in the Atharvaveda text.[96] A bulk of 1875 ritual-focussed verses of Yajurveda, in its numerous versions, also borrow and build upon the foundation of verses in Rigveda.[97][98]

Contents

Altogether the Rigveda consists of:

In western usage, "Rigveda" usually refers to the Rigveda Samhita, while the Brahmanas are referred to as the "Rigveda Brahmanas" (etc.). Technically speaking, however, "the Rigveda" refers to the entire body of texts transmitted along with the Samhita portion. Different bodies of commentary were transmitted in the different shakhas or "schools". Only a small portion of these texts has been preserved: The texts of only two out of five shakhas mentioned by the Rigveda Pratishakhya have survived. The late (15th or 16th century) Shri Guru Charitra even claims the existence of twelve Rigvedic shakhas. The two surviving Rigvedic corpora are those of the Śākala and the Bāṣkala shakhas.

Hymns

See also: Anukramani and Rigvedic deities

The Rigvedic hymns are dedicated to various deities, chief of whom are Indra, a heroic god praised for having slain his enemy Vrtra; Agni, the sacrificial fire; and Soma, the sacred potion or the plant it is made from. Equally prominent gods are the Adityas or Asura gods Mitra–Varuna and Ushas (the dawn). Also invoked are Savitr, Vishnu, Rudra, Pushan, Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati, as well as deified natural phenomena such as Dyaus Pita (the shining sky, Father Heaven), Prithivi (the earth, Mother Earth), Surya (the sun god), Vayu or Vata (the wind), Apas (the waters), Parjanya (the thunder and rain), Vac (the word), many rivers (notably the Sapta Sindhu, and the Sarasvati River). The Adityas, Vasus, Rudras, Sadhyas, Ashvins, Maruts, Rbhus, and the Vishvadevas ("all-gods") as well as the "thirty-three gods" are the groups of deities mentioned.[citation needed]

  • Mandala 1 comprises 191 hymns. Hymn 1.1 is addressed to Agni, and his name is the first word of the Rigveda. The remaining hymns are mainly addressed to Agni and Indra, as well as Varuna, Mitra, the Ashvins, the Maruts, Usas, Surya, Rbhus, Rudra, Vayu, Brhaspati, Visnu, Heaven and Earth, and all the Gods. This Mandala is dated to have been added to the Rigveda after Mandala 2 through 9, and includes the philosophical Riddle Hymn 1.164, which inspires chapters in later Upanishads such as the Mundaka.[18][99][100]
  • Mandala 2 comprises 43 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra. It is chiefly attributed to the Rishi gṛtsamada śaunahotra.[citation needed]
  • Mandala 3 comprises 62 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra and the Vishvedevas. The verse 3.62.10 has great importance in Hinduism as the Gayatri Mantra. Most hymns in this book are attributed to viśvāmitra gāthinaḥ.[citation needed]
  • Mandala 4 comprises 58 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra as well as the Rbhus, Ashvins, Brhaspati, Vayu, Usas, etc. Most hymns in this book are attributed to vāmadeva gautama.[citation needed]
  • Mandala 5 comprises 87 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra, the Visvedevas ("all the gods'), the Maruts, the twin-deity Mitra-Varuna and the Asvins. Two hymns each are dedicated to Ushas (the dawn) and to Savitr. Most hymns in this book are attributed to the atri clan.[citation needed]
  • Mandala 6 comprises 75 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra, all the gods, Pusan, Ashvin, Usas, etc. Most hymns in this book are attributed to the bārhaspatya family of Angirasas.[citation needed]
  • Mandala 7 comprises 104 hymns, to Agni, Indra, the Visvadevas, the Maruts, Mitra-Varuna, the Asvins, Ushas, Indra-Varuna, Varuna, Vayu (the wind), two each to Sarasvati (ancient river/goddess of learning) and Vishnu, and to others. Most hymns in this book are attributed to vasiṣṭha maitravaruṇi.[citation needed]
  • Mandala 8 comprises 103 hymns to various gods. Hymns 8.49 to 8.59 are the apocryphal vālakhilya. Hymns 1–48 and 60–66 are attributed to the kāṇva clan, the rest to other (Angirasa) poets.[citation needed]
  • Mandala 9 comprises 114 hymns, entirely devoted to Soma Pavamana, the cleansing of the sacred potion of the Vedic religion.[citation needed]
  • Mandala 10 comprises additional 191 hymns, frequently in later language, addressed to Agni, Indra and various other deities. It contains the Nadistuti sukta which is in praise of rivers and is important for the reconstruction of the geography of the Vedic civilization and the Purusha sukta which has been important in studies of Vedic sociology.[36] It also contains the Nasadiya sukta (10.129) which deals with multiple speculations about the creation of universe, and whether anyone can know the right answer.[20] The marriage hymns (10.85) and the death hymns (10.10–18) still are of great importance in the performance of the corresponding Grhya rituals.

Rigveda Brahmanas

See also: Brahmana

Of the Brahmanas that were handed down in the schools of the Bahvṛcas (i.e. "possessed of many verses"), as the followers of the Rigveda are called, two have come down to us, namely those of the Aitareyins and the Kaushitakins. The Aitareya-brahmana[101] and the Kaushitaki- (or Sankhayana-) brahmana evidently have for their groundwork the same stock of traditional exegetic matter. They differ, however, considerably as regards both the arrangement of this matter and their stylistic handling of it, with the exception of the numerous legends common to both, in which the discrepancy is comparatively slight. There is also a certain amount of material peculiar to each of them.[citation needed]

 
Devi sukta, which highlights the goddess tradition of Hinduism is found in Rigveda hymns 10.125. It is cited in Devi Mahatmya and is recited every year during the Durga Puja festival.

The Kaushitaka is, upon the whole, far more concise in its style and more systematic in its arrangement features which would lead one to infer that it is probably the more modern work of the two. It consists of 30 chapters (adhyaya); while the Aitareya has 40, divided into eight books (or pentads, pancaka), of five chapters each. The last 10 adhyayas of the latter work are, however, clearly a later addition though they must have already formed part of it at the time of Pāṇini (c. 5th century BCE), if, as seems probable, one of his grammatical sutras, regulating the formation of the names of Brahmanas, consisting of 30 and 40 adhyayas, refers to these two works. In this last portion occurs the well-known legend (also found in the Shankhayana-sutra, but not in the Kaushitaki-brahmana) of Shunahshepa, whom his father Ajigarta sells and offers to slay, the recital of which formed part of the inauguration of kings.[citation needed]

While the Aitareya deals almost exclusively with the Soma sacrifice, the Kaushitaka, in its first six chapters, treats of the several kinds of haviryajna, or offerings of rice, milk, ghee, etc., whereupon follows the Soma sacrifice in this way, that chapters 7–10 contain the practical ceremonial and 11–30 the recitations (shastra) of the hotar. Sayana, in the introduction to his commentary on the work, ascribes the Aitareya to the sage Mahidasa Aitareya (i.e. son of Itara), also mentioned elsewhere as a philosopher; and it seems likely enough that this person arranged the Brahmana and founded the school of the Aitareyins. Regarding the authorship of the sister work we have no information, except that the opinion of the sage Kaushitaki is frequently referred to in it as authoritative, and generally in opposition to the Paingya—the Brahmana, it would seem, of a rival school, the Paingins. Probably, therefore, it is just what one of the manuscripts calls it—the Brahmana of Sankhayana (composed) in accordance with the views of Kaushitaki.[citation needed]

Rigveda Aranyakas and Upanishads

See also: Aranyaka and Upanishads

Each of these two Brahmanas is supplemented by a "forest book", or Aranyaka. The Aitareyaranyaka is not a uniform production. It consists of five books (aranyaka), three of which, the first and the last two, are of a liturgical nature, treating of the ceremony called mahavrata, or great vow. The last of these books, composed in sutra form, is, however, doubtless of later origin, and is, indeed, ascribed by Hindu authorities either to Shaunaka or to Ashvalayana. The second and third books, on the other hand, are purely speculative, and are also styled the Bahvrca-brahmana-upanishad. Again, the last four chapters of the second book are usually singled out as the Aitareya Upanishad,[102] ascribed, like its Brahmana (and the first book), to Mahidasa Aitareya; and the third book is also referred to as the Samhita-upanishad. As regards the Kaushitaki-aranyaka, this work consists of 15 adhyayas, the first two (treating of the mahavrata ceremony) and the 7th and 8th of which correspond to the first, fifth, and third books of the Aitareyaranyaka, respectively, whilst the four adhyayas usually inserted between them constitute the highly interesting Kaushitaki (Brahmana-) Upanishad,[103] of which we possess two different recensions. The remaining portions (9–15) of the Aranyaka treat of the vital airs, the internal Agnihotra, etc., ending with the vamsha, or succession of teachers.

Significance

The text is a highly stylized poetical Vedic Sanskrit with praise addressed to the Vedic gods and chieftains. Most hymns, according to Witzel, were intended to be recited at the annual New Year Soma ritual.[104] The text also includes some nonritual poetry,[104] fragments of mythology, archaic formulas, and a number of hymns with early philosophical speculations.[105] Composed by the poets of different clans, including famed Vedic rishis (sages) such as Vishvamitra and Vasishtha, these signify the power of prestige therewith to vac (speech, sound), a tradition set in place.[104] The text introduced the prized concepts such as Rta (active realization of truth, cosmic harmony) which inspired the later Hindu concept of Dharma. The Rigvedic verses formulate this Rta as effected by Brahman, a significant and non-self-evident truth.[104] The text also contains hymns of "highly poetical value" – some in dialogue form, along with love stories that likely inspired later Epic and classical poets of Hinduism, states Witzel.[105]

According to Nadkarni, several hymns of the Rigveda embed cherished virtues and ethical statements. For example, verses 5.82.7, 6.44.8, 9.113.4, 10.133.6 and 10.190.1 mention truthful speech, truthful action, self-discipline and righteousness.[106][107] Hymn 10.117 presents the significance of charity and of generosity between human beings, how helping someone in need is ultimately in the self-interest of the helper, its importance to an individual and the society.[19][108] According to Jamison and Brereton, hymns 9.112 and 9.113 poetically state, "what everyone [humans and all living beings] really want is gain or an easy life", even a water drop has a goal – namely, "simply to seek Indra". These hymns present the imagery of being in heaven as "freedom, joy and satisfaction", a theme that appears in the Hindu Upanishads to characterize their teachings of self-realization.[109]

Monism debate

While the older hymns of the Rigveda reflect sacrificial ritual typical of polytheism,[110] its younger parts, specifically mandalas 1 and 10, have been noted as containing monistic or henotheistic speculations.[110]

Nasadiya Sukta (10.129):

There was neither non-existence nor existence then;
Neither the realm of space, nor the sky which is beyond;
What stirred? Where? In whose protection?

There was neither death nor immortality then;
No distinguishing sign of night nor of day;
That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse;
Other than that there was nothing beyond.

Darkness there was at first, by darkness hidden;
Without distinctive marks, this all was water;
That which, becoming, by the void was covered;
That One by force of heat came into being;

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
Gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whether God's will created it, or whether He was mute;
Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not;
Only He who is its overseer in highest heaven knows,
Only He knows, or perhaps He does not know.

—Rigveda 10.129 (Abridged, Tr: Kramer / Christian)[20] This hymn is one of the roots of Hindu philosophy.[111]

A widely cited example of such speculations is hymn 1.164.46:

They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and he is heavenly nobly-winged Garutman.
To what is One, sages give many a title they call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan.

— Rigveda 1.164.46, Translated by Ralph Griffith[112][113]

Max Müller notably introduced the term "henotheism" for the philosophy expressed here, avoiding the connotations of "monotheism" in Judeo-Christian tradition.[113][114] Other widely cited examples of monistic tendencies include hymns 1.164, 8.36 and 10.31,[115][116] Other scholars state that the Rigveda includes an emerging diversity of thought, including monotheism, polytheism, henotheism and pantheism, the choice left to the preference of the worshipper.[117] and the Nasadiya Sukta (10.129), one of the most widely cited Rigvedic hymns in popular western presentations.

Ruse (2015) commented on the old discussion of "monotheism" vs. "henotheism" vs. "monism" by noting an "atheistic streak" in hymns such as 10.130.[118]

Examples from Mandala 1 adduced to illustrate the "metaphysical" nature of the contents of the younger hymns include: 1.164.34: "What is the ultimate limit of the earth?", "What is the center of the universe?", "What is the semen of the cosmic horse?", "What is the ultimate source of human speech?"; 1.164.34: "Who gave blood, soul, spirit to the earth?", "How could the unstructured universe give origin to this structured world?"; 1.164.5: "Where does the sun hide in the night?", "Where do gods live?"; 1.164.6: "What, where is the unborn support for the born universe?"; 1.164.20 (a hymn that is widely cited in the Upanishads as the parable of the Body and the Soul): "Two birds with fair wings, inseparable companions; Have found refuge in the same sheltering tree. One incessantly eats from the fig tree; the other, not eating, just looks on.".[22]

Reception in Hinduism

Shruti

The Vedas as a whole are classed as "shruti" in Hindu tradition. This has been compared to the concept of divine revelation in Western religious tradition, but Staal argues that "it is nowhere stated that the Veda was revealed", and that shruti simply means "that what is heard, in the sense that it is transmitted from father to son or from teacher to pupil".[119] The Rigveda, or other Vedas, do not anywhere assert that they are apauruṣeyā, and this reverential term appears only centuries after the end of the Vedic period in the texts of the Mimamsa school of Hindu philosophy.[119][120][121] The text of the Rigveda suggests it was "composed by poets, human individuals whose names were household words" in the Vedic age, states Staal.[119]

The authors of the Brāhmana literature discussed and interpreted the Vedic ritual.

Sanskrit grammarians

Main article: Vyākaraṇa

Yaska (4th c. BCE), a lexicographer, was an early commentator of the Rigveda by discussing the meanings of difficult words. In his book titled Nirukta Yaska asserts that the Rigveda in the ancient tradition can be interpreted in three ways – from the perspective of religious rites (adhiyajna), from the perspective of the deities (adhidevata), and from the perspective of the soul (adhyatman).[122] The fourth way to interpret the Rigveda also emerged in the ancient times, wherein the gods mentioned were viewed as symbolism for legendary individuals or narratives.[122] It was generally accepted that creative poets often embed and express double meanings, ellipses and novel ideas to inspire the reader.[122]

Medieval Hindu scholarship

By the period of Puranic Hinduism, in the medieval period, the language of the hymns had become "almost entirely unintelligible", and their interpretation mostly hinged on mystical ideas and sound symbolism.[123][124][125]

According to the Puranic tradition, Ved Vyasa compiled all the four Vedas, along with the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Vyasa then taught the Rigveda samhita to Paila, who started the oral tradition.[126] An alternate version states that Shakala compiled the Rigveda from the teachings of Vedic rishis, and one of the manuscript recensions mentions Shakala.[126]

Madhvacharya, a Hindu philosopher of the 13th century, provided a commentary of the first 40 hymns of the Rigveda in his book Rig Bhashyam.[note 9] In the 14th century, Sāyana wrote an exhaustive commentary on the complete text of the Rigveda in his book Rigveda Samhita.[note 10] This book was translated from Sanskrit to English by Max Müller in the year 1856. H.H. Wilson also translated this book into English as Rigveda Sanhita in the year 1856. Both Madvacharya and Sayanacharya studied at the Sringeri monastery.

A number of other commentaries (bhāṣyas) were written during the medieval period, including the commentaries by Skandasvamin (pre-Sayana, roughly of the Gupta period), Udgitha (pre-Sayana), Venkata-Madhava (pre-Sayana, c. 10th to 12th centuries) and Mudgala (after Sayana, an abbreviated version of Sayana's commentary).[127][full citation needed]

Some notable commentaries from Medieval period include:

Title Commentary Year Language Notes
Rig Bhashyam Madhvacharya 1285 Sanskrit Commentary on the first 40 hymns of the Rigveda. The original book has been translated to English by Prof.K.T. Pandurangi accessible here
Rigveda Samhita Sāyaṇācārya 1360 Sanskrit Sāyaṇācārya a Sanskrit scholar wrote a treatise on the Vedas in the book Vedartha Prakasha (Meaning of Vedas made as a manifest). The Rigveda Samhita is available here. This book was translated from Sanskrit to English by Max Müller in the year 1856. H.H.Wilson also translated this book into English as Rigveda Sanhita in the year 1856.

Arya Samaj and Aurobindo movements

In the 19th- and early 20th-centuries, reformers like Swami Dayananda Saraswati (founder of the Arya Samaj) and Sri Aurobindo (founder of Sri Aurobindo Ashram) discussed the philosophies of the Vedas. According to Robson, Dayananda believed "there were no errors in the Vedas (including the Rigveda), and if anyone showed him an error, he would maintain that it was a corruption added later".[128]

According to Dayananda and Aurobindo the Vedic scholars had a monotheistic conception.[129] Sri Aurobindo gave commentaries, general interpretation guidelines, and a partial translation in The secret of Veda (1946).[note 11] Sri Aurobindo finds Sayana's interpretation to be ritualistic in nature, and too often having inconsistent interpretations of Vedic terms, trying to fit the meaning to a narrow mold. Accorording to Aurobindo, if Sayana's interepretation were to be accepted, it would seem as if the Rig Veda belongs to an unquestioning tradition of faith, starting from an original error.[130] Aurobindo attempted to interpret hymns to Agni in the Rigveda as mystical.[129] Aurobindo states that the Vedic hymns were a quest after a higher truth, define the Rta (basis of Dharma), conceive life in terms of a struggle between the forces of light and darkness, and sought the ultimate reality.[129]

Contemporary Hinduism

 
The hymn 10.85 of the Rigveda includes the Vivaha-sukta (above). Its recitation continues to be a part of Hindu wedding rituals.[131][132]

The Rigveda, in contemporary Hinduism, has been a reminder of the ancient cultural heritage and point of pride for Hindus, with some hymns still in use in major rites of passage ceremonies, but the literal acceptance of most of the textual essence is long gone.[133][134] Musicians and dance groups celebrate the text as a mark of Hindu heritage, through incorporating Rigvedic hymns in their compositions, such as in Hamsadhvani and Subhapantuvarali of Carnatic music, and these have remained popular among the Hindus for decades.[133]

According to Axel Michaels, "most Indians today pay lip service to the Veda and have no regard for the contents of the text."[135] According to Louis Renou, the Vedic texts are a distant object, and "even in the most orthodox domains, the reverence to the Vedas has come to be a simple raising of the hat".[133] According to Andrea Pinkney, "the social history and context of the Vedic texts are extremely distant from contemporary Hindu religious beliefs and practice", and the reverence for the Vedas in contemporary Hinduism illustrates the respect among the Hindus for their heritage.[133]

Hindu nationalism

See also: 10,000 years of Hinduism

The Rig Veda plays a role in the modern construction of a Hindu identity, portraying Hindus as the original inhabitants of India. The Rigveda has been referred to in the "Indigenous Aryans" and Out of India theory. Dating the Rig Veda as contemporaneous, or even preceding the Indus Valley civilisation, an argument is made that the IVC was Aryan, and the bearer of the Rig Veda.[136][137] Indian nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak, in his Orion: Or Researches Into The Antiquity Of The Vedas (1893) has concluded that the date of composition of the Rigveda dates at least as far back as 6000–4000 BCE based on his astronomical research into the position of the constellation Orion.[138] These theories are controversial, and not accepted or propagated in mainstream scholarship.[139][140]

Translations

The Rigveda is considered particularly difficult to translate, owing to its length, poetic nature, the language itself, and the absence of any close contemporary texts for comparison.[141][142] Staal describes it as the most "obscure, distant and difficult for moderns to understand". As a result, he says, it "is often misinterpreted" – with many early translations containing straightforward errors – "or worse: used as a peg on which to hang an idea or a theory."[143][119] Another issue is technical terms such as mandala, conventionally translated "book", but more literally rendered "cycle".[119][144] Karen Thomson, author of Ancient Sanskrit Online[145] and editor of the Metrically Restored Text Online at the University of Texas at Austin, argues, as linguists in the nineteenth century had done (Friedrich Max Müller, Rudolf von Roth, William Dwight Whitney, Theodor Benfey, John Muir, Edward Vernon Arnold), that the apparent obscurity derives from the failure to discard a mass of assumptions about ritual meaning inherited from Vedic tradition.[146][147]

The first published translation of any portion of the Rigveda in any European language was into Latin, by Friedrich August Rosen, working from manuscripts brought back from India by Colebrooke. In 1849, Max Müller published his six-volume translation into German, the first printed edition and most studied.[148][149][note 12] H. H. Wilson was the first to make a translation of the Rig Veda into English, published from 1850–88.[151] Wilson's version was based on a commentary of the complete text by Sāyaṇa, a 14th-century Sanskrit scholar, which he also translated.[note 13]

Translations have since been made in several languages, including French and Russian.[148] Karl Friedrich Geldner completed the first scholarly translation in the 1920s, which was published after his death.[148] Translations of shorter cherrypicked anthologies have also been published, such as those by Wendy Doniger in 1981 and Walter Maurer in 1986, although Jamison and Brereton say they "tend to create a distorted view" of the text.[148] In 1994, Barend A. van Nooten and Gary B. Holland published the first attempt to restore the entirety of the Rigveda to its poetic form, systematically identifying and correcting sound changes and sandhi combinations which had distorted the original metre and meaning.[152][153]

Some notable translations of the Rig Veda include:

Title Commentary/Translation Year Language Notes
Rigvedae specimen Friedrich August Rosen[148] 1830 Latin Partial translation with 121 hymns (London, 1830). Also known as Rigveda Sanhita, Liber Primus, Sanskrite Et Latine (ISBN 978-1-275-45323-4). Based on manuscripts brought back from India by Henry Thomas Colebrooke.
Rig-Veda, oder die heiligen Lieder der Brahmanen Max Müller[148] 1849 German Partial translation published by W. H. Allen and Co., London, and later F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig. In 1873, Müller published an editio princeps titled The Hymns of the Rig-Veda in the Samhita Text. He also translated a few hymns in English (Nasadiya Sukta).
Ṛig-Veda-Sanhitā: A Collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns H. H. Wilson[148] 1850–88 English Published as 6 volumes, by N. Trübner & Co., London.
Rig-véda, ou livre des hymnes A. Langlois 1870 French Partial translation. Re-printed in Paris, 1948–51 (ISBN 2-7200-1029-4).
Der Rigveda Alfred Ludwig 1876 German Published by Verlag von F. Tempsky, Prague.
Rig-Veda Hermann Grassmann 1876 German Published by F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig
Rigved Bhashyam Dayananda Saraswati 1877–9 Hindi Incomplete translation. Later translated into English by Dharma Deva Vidya Martanda (1974).
The Hymns of the Rig Veda Ralph T.H. Griffith[148] 1889–92 English Revised as The Rig Veda in 1896. Revised by J. L. Shastri in 1973. Griffith's philology was outdated even in the 19th-century and questioned by scholars.[148]
Der Rigveda in Auswahl Karl Friedrich Geldner[148] 1907 German Published by Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart. Geldner's 1907 work was a partial translation; he completed a full translation in the 1920s, which was published after his death, in 1951.[148] This translation was titled Der Rig-Veda: aus dem Sanskrit ins Deutsche Übersetzt. Harvard Oriental Studies, vols. 33–37 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1951–7). Reprinted by Harvard University Press (2003) ISBN 0-674-01226-7.
Hymns from the Rigveda A. A. Macdonell 1917 English Partial translation (30 hymns). Published by Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Series of articles in Journal of the University of Bombay Hari Damodar Velankar[148] 1940s–1960s English Partial translation (Mandala 2, 5, 7 and 8). Later published as independent volumes.
Rig Veda – Hymns to the Mystic Fire 8 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine Sri Aurobindo 1946 English Partial translation published by N. K. Gupta, Pondicherry. Later republished several times (ISBN 978-0-914955-22-1)
RigVeda Samhita Pandit H.P. Venkat Rao, LaxmanAcharya and a couple of other Pandits 1947 Kannada Sources from Saayana Bhashya, SkandaSvami Bhashya, Taittareya Samhita, Maitrayini Samhita and other Samhitas. The Kannada translation work was commissioned by Maharaja of Mysore Jayachama Rajendra Wodeyar. The translations were compiled into 11 volumes.
Rig Veda Ramgovind Trivedi 1954 Hindi
Études védiques et pāṇinéennes Louis Renou[148] 1955–69 French Appears in a series of publications, organized by the deities. Covers most of the Rigveda, but leaves out significant hymns, including the ones dedicated to Indra and the Asvins.
ऋग्वेद संहिता Shriram Sharma 1950s Hindi
Hymns from the Rig-Veda Naoshiro Tsuji 1970 Japanese Partial translation
Rigveda: Izbrannye Gimny Tatyana Elizarenkova[148] 1972 Russian Partial translation, extended to a full translation published during 1989–1999.
Rigveda Parichaya Nag Sharan Singh 1977 English / Hindi Extension of Wilson's translation. Republished by Nag, Delhi in 1990 (ISBN 978-81-7081-217-3).
Rig Veda 8 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine M. R. Jambunathan 1978–80 Tamil Two volumes, both released posthumously.
(Creation Hymns of the Rig-Veda) Laszlo Forizs (hu) 1995 Hungarian Partial translation published in Budapest (ISBN 963-85349-1-5)
The Rig Veda Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty 1981 English Partial translation (108 hymns), along with critical apparatus. Published by Penguin (ISBN 0-14-044989-2). A bibliography of translations of the Rig Veda appears as an Appendix.
Rigved Subodh Bhasya Pandit Shripad Damodar Satwalekar 1985 Hindi, Marathi The Finest Translation Ever of the Rig Veda. Given meaning of each word/words, then gave the bhava-arth. Published by Swadhyay Mandal.
Pinnacles of India's Past: Selections from the Rgveda Walter H. Maurer 1986 English Partial translation published by John Benjamins.
The Rig Veda Bibek Debroy, Dipavali Debroy 1992 English Partial translation published by B. R. Publishing (ISBN 978-0-8364-2778-3). The work is in verse form, without reference to the original hymns or mandalas. Part of Great Epics of India: Veda series, also published as The Holy Vedas.
The Holy Vedas: A Golden Treasury Pandit Satyakam Vidyalankar 1983 English
Ṛgveda Saṃhitā H. H. Wilson, Ravi Prakash Arya and K. L. Joshi 2001 English 4-volume set published by Parimal (ISBN 978-81-7110-138-2). Revised edition of Wilson's translation. Replaces obsolete English forms with more modern equivalents (e.g. "thou" with "you"). Includes the original Sanskrit text in Devanagari script, along with a critical apparatus.
Ṛgveda for the Layman Shyam Ghosh 2002 English Partial translation (100 hymns). Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi.
Rig-Veda Michael Witzel, Toshifumi Goto 2007 German Partial translation (Mandala 1 and 2). The authors are working on a second volume. Published by Verlag der Weltreligionen (ISBN 978-3-458-70001-2).
ऋग्वेद Govind Chandra Pande 2008 Hindi Partial translation (Mandala 3 and 5). Published by Lokbharti, Allahabad
The Hymns of Rig Veda Tulsi Ram 2013 English Published by Vijaykumar Govindram Hasanand, Delhi
The Rigveda Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton 2014 English 3-volume set published by Oxford University Press (ISBN 978-0-19-937018-4). Funded by the United States' National Endowment for the Humanities in 2004.[154]
Rigveda Samhita Prasanna Chandra Gautam 2014, 2016 English, Hindi Sanskrit Text with Word To Word Meaning and English Translation and Hindi Translation (with Mahesh Chandra Gautam). Also contains Essence of a verse.

See also

  • Keśin – Ascetic wanderer with mystical powers described in the Vedic Sanskrit hymns
  • Mayabheda – Sanskrit word meaning the breaching or removal of Avidya (ignorance)

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d It is certain that the hymns of the Rig Veda post-date Indo-Iranian separation of c. 2000 BCE and probably that of the relevant Mitanni documents of c. 1400 BCE. Philological estimates tend to date the bulk of the text to the second half of the second millennium:
    • Max Müller: "the hymns of the Rig-Veda are said to date from 1500 B.C."[155]
    • The EIEC (s.v. Indo-Iranian languages, p. 306) gives 1500–1000 BCE.
    • Flood and Witzel both mention c. 1500–1200 BCE.[12][156]
    • Anthony mentions c. 1500–1300 BCE.[13]
    • Thomas Oberlies (Die Religion des Rgveda, 1998, p. 158) based on 'cumulative evidence' sets a wide range of 1700–1100 BCE.[15] Oberlies 1998, p. 155 gives an estimate of 1100 BCE for the youngest hymns in book 10.[157]
    • Witzel 1995, p. 4 mentions c. 1500–1200 BCE. According to Witzel 1997, p. 263, the whole Rig Vedic period may have lasted from c. 1900 BCE to c. 1200 BCE: "the bulk of the RV represents only 5 or 6 generations of kings (and of the contemporary poets) of the Pūru and Bharata tribes. It contains little else before and after this "snapshot" view of contemporary Rgvedic history, as reported by these contemporary "tape recordings." On the other hand, the whole Rgvedic period may have lasted even up to 700 years, from the infiltration of the Indo-Aryans into the subcontinent, c. 1900 B.C. (at the utmost, the time of collapse of the Indus civilization), up to c. 1200 B.C., the time of the introduction of iron which is first mentioned in the clearly post-gvedic hymns of the Atharvaveda."
  2. ^ According to Edgar Polome, the Hittite language Anitta text from the 17th century BCE is older. This text is about the conquest of Kanesh city of Anatolia, and mentions the same Indo-European gods as in the Rigveda.[8]
  3. ^ The associated material has been preserved from two śākhās or "schools", known as Śākalya and Bāṣkala. The school-specific commentaries are known as Brahmanas (Aitareya-brahmana and Kaushitaki-brahmana) Aranyakas (Aitareya-aranyaka and Kaushitaki-aranyaka), and Upanishads (partly excerpted from the Aranyakas: Bahvrca-brahmana-upanishad, Aitareya-upanishad, Samhita-upanishad, Kaushitaki-upanishad).
  4. ^ The horse (ashva), cattle, sheep and goat play an important role in the Rigveda. There are also references to the elephant (Hastin, Varana), camel (Ustra, especially in Mandala 8), ass (khara, rasabha), buffalo (Mahisa), wolf, hyena, lion (Simha), mountain goat (sarabha) and to the gaur in the Rigveda.[46] The peafowl (mayura), the goose (hamsa) and the chakravaka (Tadorna ferruginea) are some birds mentioned in the Rigveda.
  5. ^ Semi-myphical divinely inspired maharishis are believed to have composed the Rigvedic hymns. The main contributors were Angiras, Kanva, Vasishtha, and Vishvamitra. Among the other celebrated authors are Atri, Bhrigu, Kashyapa, Gritsamada, Agastya, Bharadvaja, as well as female sages Lopamudra and Ghosha. In a few cases, more than one rishi is given, signifying lack of certainty.
  6. ^ Witzel: "The original collection must have been the result of a strong political effort aiming at the re-alignment of the various factions in the tribes and poets' clans under a post-Sudås Bharata hegemony which included (at least sections of) their former Pūru enemies and some other tribes.[51]
  7. ^ Witzel: "To sum up: as has been discussed in detail elsewhere [Early Sanskritization], the new Kuru dynasty of Parik it, living in the Holy Land of Kuruk etra, unified most of the Rigvedic tribes, brought the poets and priests together in the common enterprise of collecting their texts and of "reforming" the ritual."[53]
  8. ^ The total number of verses and meter counts show minor variations with the manuscript.[65]
  9. ^ See Rig Bhashyam.
  10. ^ See Rigveda Samhita.
  11. ^ See [1]
  12. ^ The birch bark text from which Müller produced his translation is held at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, India.[150]
  13. ^ See Rigveda Samhita.

References

  1. ^ . VedicGranth.Org. Archived from the original on 17 July 2021. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  2. ^ Derived from the root ṛc "to praise", cf. Dhātupātha 28.19. Monier-Williams translates Rigveda as "a Veda of Praise or Hymn-Veda".
  3. ^ a b c Witzel 1997, pp. 259–264.
  4. ^ Antonio de Nicholas (2003), Meditations Through the Rig Veda: Four-Dimensional Man, New York: Authors Choice Press, ISBN 978-0-595-26925-9, p. 273
  5. ^ a b H. Oldenberg, Prolegomena,1888, Engl. transl. New Delhi: Motilal 2004
  6. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, p. 3.
  7. ^ Edwin F. Bryant (2015). The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 565–566. ISBN 978-1-4299-9598-6. from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  8. ^ Edgar Polome (2010). Per Sture Ureland (ed.). Entstehung von Sprachen und Völkern: glotto- und ethnogenetische Aspekte europäischer Sprachen. Walter de Gruyter. p. 51. ISBN 978-3-11-163373-2. from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  9. ^ Wood 2007.
  10. ^ Hexam 2011, p. chapter 8.
  11. ^ Dwyer 2013.
  12. ^ a b Flood 1996, p. 37.
  13. ^ a b Anthony 2007, p. 454.
  14. ^ a b Witzel 2019, p. 11: "Incidentally, the Indo-Aryan loanwords in Mitanni confirm the date of the Rig Veda for ca. 1200–1000 BCE. The Rig Veda is a late Bronze age text, thus from before 1000 BCE. However, the Mitanni words have a form of Indo-Aryan that is slightly older than that ... Clearly the Rig Veda cannot be older than ca. 1400, and taking into account a period needed for linguistic change, it may not be much older than ca. 1200 BCE."
  15. ^ a b Oberlies 1998, p. 158.
  16. ^ Lucas F. Johnston, Whitney Bauman (2014). Science and Religion: One Planet, Many Possibilities. Routledge. p. 179.
  17. ^ Werner, Karel (1994). A Popular Dictionary of Hinduism. Curzon Press. ISBN 0-7007-1049-3.
  18. ^ a b c Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 4, 7–9.
  19. ^ a b C Chatterjee (1995), Values in the Indian Ethos: An Overview, Journal of Human Values, Vol 1, No 1, pp. 3–12;
    Original text translated in English: The Rig Veda, Mandala 10, Hymn 117, Ralph T. H. Griffith (Translator);
  20. ^ a b c *Original Sanskrit: Rigveda 10.129 Archived 25 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine Wikisource;
    • Translation 1: F. Max Müller (1859). A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature. Williams and Norgate, London. pp. 559–565.
    • Translation 2: Kenneth Kramer (1986). World Scriptures: An Introduction to Comparative Religions. Paulist Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-8091-2781-8.
    • Translation 3: David Christian (2011). Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. University of California Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0-520-95067-2.
    • Translation 4: Robert N. Bellah (2011). Religion in Human Evolution. Harvard University Press. pp. 510–511. ISBN 978-0-674-06309-9.
  21. ^ Examples:
    Verse 1.164.34, "What is the ultimate limit of the earth?", "What is the center of the universe?", "What is the semen of the cosmic horse?", "What is the ultimate source of human speech?"
    Verse 1.164.34, "Who gave blood, soul, spirit to the earth?", "How could the unstructured universe give origin to this structured world?"
    Verse 1.164.5, "Where does the sun hide in the night?", "Where do gods live?"
    Verse 1.164.6, "What, where is the unborn support for the born universe?";
    Verse 1.164.20 (a hymn that is widely cited in the Upanishads as the parable of the Body and the Soul): "Two birds with fair wings, inseparable companions; Have found refuge in the same sheltering tree. One incessantly eats from the fig tree; the other, not eating, just looks on.";
    Rigveda Book 1, Hymn 164 Wikisource;
    See translations of these verses: Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) (2014)
  22. ^ a b Antonio de Nicholas (2003), Meditations Through the Rig Veda: Four-Dimensional Man, New York: Authors Choice Press, ISBN 978-0-595-26925-9, pp. 64–69;
    Jan Gonda (1975), A History of Indian Literature: Veda and Upanishads, Volume 1, Part 1, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 978-3-447-01603-2, pp. 134–135.
  23. ^ Klaus Klostermaier (1984). Mythologies and Philosophies of Salvation in the Theistic Traditions of India. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-88920-158-3. from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  24. ^ Lester Kurtz (2015), Gods in the Global Village, SAGE Publications, ISBN 978-1-4833-7412-3, p. 64, Quote: "The 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda are recited at initiations, weddings and funerals...."
  25. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 5–6.
  26. ^ Mallory 1989.
  27. ^ a b c d e Witzel 2003, pp. 68–69. "The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalized early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is, in fact, something like a tape-recording of ca. 1500–500 BCE. Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in Japanese) has been preserved up to the present. On the other hand, the Vedas have been written down only during the early second millennium CE, while some sections such as a collection of the Upanishads were perhaps written down at the middle of the first millennium, while some early, unsuccessful attempts (indicated by certain Smriti rules forbidding to write down the Vedas) may have been made around the end of the first millennium BCE".
  28. ^ "As a possible date ad quem for the RV one usually adduces the Hittite-Mitanni agreement of the middle of the 14th cent. B.C. which mentions four of the major Rgvedic gods: mitra, varuNa, indra and the nAsatya azvin)" M. Witzel, Early Sanskritization – Origin and development of the Kuru state 5 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ The Vedic People: Their History and Geography, Rajesh Kochar, 2000, Orient Longman, ISBN 81-250-1384-9
  30. ^ Rigveda and River Saraswati: class.uidaho.edu 5 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  31. ^ Asko Parpola (2015). The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization. Oxford University Press. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-19-022693-0.
  32. ^ Oldenberg 1894 (tr. Shrotri), p. 14 "The Vedic diction has a great number of favourite expressions which are common with the Avestic, though not with later Indian diction. In addition, there is a close resemblance between them in metrical form, in fact, in their overall poetic character. If it is noticed that whole Avesta verses can be easily translated into the Vedic alone by virtue of comparative phonetics, then this may often give, not only correct Vedic words and phrases, but also the verses, out of which the soul of Vedic poetry appears to speak."
  33. ^ Bryant 2001:130–131 "The oldest part of the Avesta... is linguistically and culturally very close to the material preserved in the Rigveda... There seems to be economic and religious interaction and perhaps rivalry operating here, which justifies scholars in placing the Vedic and Avestan worlds in close chronological, geographical and cultural proximity to each other not far removed from a joint Indo-Iranian period."
  34. ^ Mallory 1989 p. 36 "Probably the least-contested observation concerning the various Indo-European dialects is that those languages grouped together as Indic and Iranian show such remarkable similarities with one another that we can confidently posit a period of Indo-Iranian unity..."
  35. ^ Mallory 1989 "The identification of the Andronovo culture as Indo-Iranian is commonly accepted by scholars."
  36. ^ a b c d e f g Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 57–59.
  37. ^ a b Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 6–7.
  38. ^ Michael Witzel (1996), Little Dowry, No Sati: The Lot of Women in the Vedic Period, Journal of South Asia Women Studies, Vol 2, No 4
  39. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 40, 180, 1150, 1162.
  40. ^ Chakrabarti, D.K. The Early Use of Iron in India (1992) Oxford University Press argues that it may refer to any metal. If ayas refers to iron, the Rigveda must date to the late second millennium at the earliest.
  41. ^ a b Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, p. 5.
  42. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, p. 744.
  43. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 50–57.
  44. ^ a b Frits Staal (2008). Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights. Penguin. pp. 23–24. ISBN 978-0-14-309986-4. from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  45. ^ Franklin C Southworth (2016). Hock, Hans Henrich; Bashir, Elena (eds.). The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia. pp. 241–374. doi:10.1515/9783110423303-004. ISBN 978-3-11-042330-3.
  46. ^ Among others, Macdonell and Keith, and Talageri 2000, Lal 2005
  47. ^ Michael Witzel (2012). George Erdosy (ed.). The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 98–110 with footnotes. ISBN 978-3-11-081643-3., Quote (p. 99): "Although the Middle/Late Vedic periods are the earliest for which we can reconstruct a linguistic map, the situation even at the time of the Indua Civilisation and certainly during the time of the earliest texts of the Rigveda, cannot have been very different. There are clear indications that the speakers of Rigvedic Sanskrit knew, and interacted with, Dravidian and Munda speakers."
  48. ^ a b Witzel 1997, p. 262.
  49. ^ Witzel 1997, p. 261.
  50. ^ Witzel 1997, pp. 261–266.
  51. ^ a b Witzel 1997, p. 263.
  52. ^ Witzel 1997, p. 263-264.
  53. ^ Witzel 1997, p. 265.
  54. ^ Keith, Arthur Berriedale (1920). Rigveda Brahmanas: the Aitareya and Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇas of the Rigveda. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 44.
  55. ^ George Erdosy 1995, pp. 68–69.
  56. ^ a b c d Pincott, Frederic (1887). "The First Maṇḍala of the Ṛig-Veda". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Cambridge University Press. 19 (4): 598–624. doi:10.1017/s0035869x00019717. S2CID 163189831. from the original on 6 September 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  57. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 10–11.
  58. ^ Barbara A. Holdrege (2012). Veda and Torah: Transcending the Textuality of Scripture. State University of New York Press. pp. 229–230. ISBN 978-1-4384-0695-4.
  59. ^ George Erdosy 1995, pp. 68–69, 180–189.
  60. ^ Gregory Possehl & Michael Witzel 2002, pp. 391–393.
  61. ^ Bryant 2001, pp. 66–67.
  62. ^ Kireet Joshi (1991). The Veda and Indian Culture: An Introductory Essay. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 101–102. ISBN 978-81-208-0889-8.
  63. ^ A history of Sanskrit Literature, Arthur MacDonell, Oxford University Press/Appleton & Co, p. 56
  64. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, p. 74.
  65. ^ a b F. Max Müller (1891). Physical Religion. Longmans & Green. pp. 373–379. from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  66. ^ K. Meenakshi (2002). "Making of Pāṇini". In George Cardona; Madhav Deshpande; Peter Edwin Hook (eds.). Indian Linguistic Studies: Festschrift in Honor of George Cardona. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 235. ISBN 978-81-208-1885-9.
  67. ^ The oldest manuscript in the Pune collection dates to the 15th century. The Benares Sanskrit University has a Rigveda manuscript of the 14th century. Older palm leaf manuscripts are rare.
  68. ^ Witzel 1997, p. 259, footnote 7.
  69. ^ Wilhelm Rau (1955), Zur Textkritik der Brhadaranyakopanisad, ZDMG, 105(2), p. 58
  70. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, p. 18.
  71. ^ Witzel 2003, p. 69. "The RV has been transmitted in one recension (the śākhā of Śākalya) while others (such as the Bāṣkala text) have been lost or are only rumored about so far."
  72. ^ Maurice Winternitz (History of Sanskrit Literature, Revised English Translation Edition, 1926, vol. 1, p. 57) says that "Of the different recensions of this Saṃhitā, which once existed, only a single one has come down to us." He adds in a note (p. 57, note 1) that this refers to the "recension of the Śākalaka-School."
  73. ^ Sures Chandra Banerji (A Companion To Sanskrit Literature, Second Edition, 1989, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, pp. 300–301) says that "Of the 21 recensions of this Veda, that were known at one time, we have got only two, viz. Śākala and Vāṣkala."
  74. ^ Maurice Winternitz (History of Sanskrit Literature, Revised English Translation Edition, 1926, vol. 1, p. 283.
  75. ^ Mantras of "khila" hymns were called khailika and not ṛcas (Khila meant distinct "part" of Rgveda separate from regular hymns; all regular hymns make up the akhila or "the whole" recognised in a śākhā, although khila hymns have sanctified roles in rituals from ancient times).
  76. ^ Hermann Grassmann had numbered the hymns 1 through to 1028, putting the vālakhilya at the end. Griffith's translation has these 11 at the end of the eighth mandala, after 8.92 in the regular series.
  77. ^ cf. Preface to Khila section by C.G.Kāshikar in Volume-5 of Pune Edition of RV (in references).
  78. ^ These Khilani hymns have also been found in a manuscript of the Śākala recension of the Kashmir Rigveda (and are included in the Poone edition).
  79. ^ equalling 40 times 10,800, the number of bricks used for the uttaravedi: the number is motivated numerologically rather than based on an actual syllable count.
  80. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, p. 16.
  81. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 13–14.
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Bibliography

Editions

  • The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India. Vol. 1–3. Translated by Stephanie W. Jamison; Joel P. Brereton. New York: Oxford University Press. 2014. ISBN 978-0-19-937018-4.
    • Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.); Joel P. Brereton (tr.) (2014). The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India. 3-volume set. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-937018-4. from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
    • Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.); Joel P. Brereton (tr.) (2014a). The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-972078-1.
  • editio princeps: Friedrich Max Müller, The Hymns of the Rigveda, with Sayana's commentary, London, 1849–75, 6 vols., 2nd ed. 4 vols., Oxford, 1890–92.
  • Theodor Aufrecht, 2nd ed., Bonn, 1877.
  • Sontakke, N. S. (1933). Rgveda-Samhitā: Śrimat-Sāyanāchārya virachita-bhāṣya-sametā. Sāyanachārya (commentary) (First ed.). Vaidika Samśodhana Maṇḍala.. The editorial board for the First Edition included N. S. Sontakke (Managing Editor), V. K. Rājvade, M. M. Vāsudevaśāstri, and T. S. Varadarājaśarmā.
  • B. van Nooten und G. Holland, Rig Veda, a metrically restored text, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 1994.
  • Rgveda-Samhita, Text in Devanagari, English translation Notes and indices by H. H. Wilson, Ed. W. F. Webster, originally in 1888, Published Nag Publishers 1990, 11A/U.A. Jawaharnagar, Delhi-7.

Commentary

  • Sayana (14th century)
    • ed. Müller 1849–75 (German translation);
    • ed. Müller (original commentary of Sāyana in Sanskrit based on 24 manuscripts).
    • ed. Sontakke et al., published by Vaidika Samsodhana Mandala, Pune (2nd ed. 1972) in 5 volumes.
  • Rgveda-Samhitā Srimat-sāyanāchārya virachita-bhāṣya-sametā, ed. by Sontakke et al., published by Vaidika Samśodhana Mandala, Pune-9, 1972, in 5 volumes (It is original commentary of Sāyana in Sanskrit based on over 60 manuscripts).
  • Sri Aurobindo (1998), The Secret of veda (PDF), Sri Aurobindo Ashram press, (PDF) from the original on 22 September 2020, retrieved 27 July 2020
  • Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire (Commentary on the Rig Veda), Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-914955-22-5 Rig Veda – Hymns to the Mystic Fire – Sri Aurobindo – INDEX 6 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  • Raimundo Pannikar (1972), The Vedic Experience, University of California Press

Philology

  • Harold G. Coward (1990). The Philosophy of the Grammarians, in Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Volume 5 (Editor: Karl Potter). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-81-208-0426-5.
  • Vashishtha Narayan Jha, A Linguistic Analysis of the Rgveda-Padapatha Sri Satguru Publications, Delhi (1992).
  • Bjorn Merker, , Mongolian Studies, Journal of the Mongolian Society XI, 1988.
  • Oberlies, Thomas (1998). Die Religion des Rgveda. Wien.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Oldenberg, Hermann (1894). Hymnen des Rigveda. 1. Teil: Metrische und textgeschichtliche Prolegomena. Berlin 1888. (please add), Wiesbaden 1982.
  • —Die Religion des Veda. Berlin 1894; Stuttgart 1917; Stuttgart 1927; Darmstadt 1977
  • —Vedic Hymns, The Sacred Books of the East Vol l. 46 ed. Friedrich Max Müller, Oxford 1897
  • Adolf Kaegi, The Rigveda: The Oldest Literature of the Indians (trans. R. Arrowsmith), Boston, Ginn and Co. (1886), 2004 reprint: ISBN 978-1-4179-8205-9.
  • Mallory, J. P.; et al. (1989). Indo-Iranian Languages in Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Fitzroy Dearborn (published 1997).

Historical

  • Anthony, David W. (2007), The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World, Princeton University Press
  • Avari, Burjor (2007), India: The Ancient Past, London: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-35616-9
  • Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513777-4.
  • Dwyer, Rachel (2013), What Do Hindus Believe?, Granta Books, ISBN 978-1-84708-940-3
  • Flood, Gavin D. (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press
  • George Erdosy (1995). The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-014447-5.
  • Hexam, Irving (2011), Understanding World Religions: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, ISBN 978-0-310-31448-6
  • Gregory Possehl; Michael Witzel (2002). "Vedic". In Peter N. Peregrine; Melvin Ember (eds.). Encyclopedia of Prehistory. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4684-7135-9.
  • Lal, B.B. 2005. The Homeland of the Aryans. Evidence of Rigvedic Flora and Fauna & Archaeology, New Delhi, Aryan Books International.
  • Talageri, Shrikant: The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis, 2000. ISBN 81-7742-010-0
  • Witzel, Michael (1995), (PDF), EJVS, vol. 1, no. 4, archived from the original (PDF) on 20 February 2012
  • Witzel, Michael (1997), "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu" (PDF), in Michael Witzel (ed.), Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts: New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas, Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, vol. 2, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 257–348, (PDF) from the original on 4 August 2020, retrieved 22 September 2015
  • Witzel, Michael (2003). "Vedas and Upanisads". In Flood, Gavin (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-631-21535-6.
  • Witzel, Michael (2019). "Beyond the Flight of the Falcon". In Thapar, Romila (ed.). Which of Us are Aryans?: Rethinking the Concept of Our Origins. Aleph. ISBN 978-93-88292-38-2.
  • Wood, Michael (2007), The Story of India Hardcover, BBC Worldwide, ISBN 978-0-563-53915-5

External links

 
Sanskrit Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Original Sanskrit text in Devanagari
 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Original Sanskrit text in ASCII transliteration
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Rigveda.
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rig Veda.

Text

For links to translations, see § Translations.
  • The Rig Veda The complete Rig Veda in English translation at holybooks.com
  • Devanagari and transliteration experimental online text at: sacred-texts.com
  • ITRANS, Devanagari, transliteration online text and PDF, several versions prepared by Detlef Eichler
  • Transliteration, metrically restored 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine online text, at: Linguistics Research Center, Univ. of Texas
  • The Hymns of the Rigveda, Editio Princeps by Friedrich Max Müller (large PDF files of book scans). Two editions: London, 1877 (Samhita and Pada texts) and Oxford, 1890–92, with Sayana's commentary.
  • Works by or about Rigveda at Internet Archive

Dictionary

  • Rigvedic Dictionary by Hermann Grassmann (online database, uni-koeln.de)


September 12, 2023
rigveda, this, article, about, collection, vedic, hymns, manga, series, veda, veda, sanskrit, ऋग, ṛgveda, from, ṛc, praise, veda, knowledge, ancient, indian, collection, vedic, sanskrit, hymns, sūktas, four, sacred, canonical, hindu, texts, śruti, known, vedas. This article is about the collection of Vedic hymns For the manga series see RG Veda The Rigveda or Rig Veda Sanskrit ऋग व द ṛgveda from ṛc praise 2 and veda knowledge is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns suktas It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts sruti known as the Vedas 3 4 Only one Shakha of the many survive today namely the Sakalya Shakha Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum 5 RigvedaThe four VedasInformationReligionHinduismLanguageVedic SanskritPeriodc 1500 1000 BCE note 1 Chapters10 mandalasVerses10 552 mantras 1 Rigveda padapatha manuscript in Devanagari early 19th century After a scribal benediction srigaṇesayanamaḥ Au3m the first line has the first pada RV 1 1 1a agniṃ iḷe puraḥ hitaṃ yajnasya devaṃ ṛtvijaṃ The pitch accent is marked by underscores and vertical overscores in red The Rigveda is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text 6 Its early layers are among the oldest extant texts in any Indo European language 7 note 2 The sounds and texts of the Rigveda have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE 9 10 11 Philological and linguistic evidence indicates that the bulk of the Rigveda Samhita was composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent see Rigvedic rivers most likely between c 1500 and 1000 BCE 12 13 14 although a wider approximation of c 1900 1200 BCE has also been given 15 16 note 1 The text is layered consisting of the Samhita Brahmanas Aranyakas and Upanishads note 3 The Rigveda Samhita is the core text and is a collection of 10 books maṇḍalas with 1 028 hymns suktas in about 10 600 verses called ṛc eponymous of the name Rigveda In the eight books Books 2 through 9 that were composed the earliest the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology rites and rituals and praise deities 17 18 The more recent books Books 1 and 10 in part also deal with philosophical or speculative questions 18 virtues such as dana charity in society 19 questions about the origin of the universe and the nature of the divine 20 21 and other metaphysical issues in their hymns 22 Some of its verses continue to be recited during Hindu prayer and celebration of rites of passage such as weddings making it probably the world s oldest religious text in continued use 23 24 Contents 1 Dating and historical context 1 1 Dating 1 2 Historical and societal context 2 Text 2 1 Composition 2 2 Collection and organisation 2 3 Organisation 2 3 1 Mandalas 2 3 2 Hymns and prosody 2 4 Transmission 2 5 Recensions 2 6 Manuscripts 2 6 1 Versions 2 6 2 Scripts 2 6 3 Comparison 3 Contents 3 1 Hymns 3 2 Rigveda Brahmanas 3 3 Rigveda Aranyakas and Upanishads 3 3 1 Significance 3 3 2 Monism debate 4 Reception in Hinduism 4 1 Shruti 4 2 Sanskrit grammarians 4 3 Medieval Hindu scholarship 4 4 Arya Samaj and Aurobindo movements 4 5 Contemporary Hinduism 4 5 1 Hindu nationalism 5 Translations 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 External linksDating and historical contextFurther information Historical Vedic religion Vedic period and Proto Indo Aryan nbsp A map of tribes and rivers mentioned in the Rigveda Dating According to Jamison and Brereton in their 2014 translation of the Rigveda the dating of this text has been and is likely to remain a matter of contention and reconsideration The dating proposals so far are all inferred from the style and the content within the hymns themselves 25 Philological estimates tend to date the bulk of the text to the second half of the second millennium BCE note 1 Being composed in an early Indo Aryan language the hymns must post date the Indo Iranian separation dated to roughly 2000 BCE 26 A reasonable date close to that of the composition of the core of the Rigveda is that of the Mitanni documents of northern Syria and Iraq c 1450 1350 BCE which also mention the Vedic gods such as Varuna Mitra and Indra 27 28 Other evidence also points to a composition close to 1400 BCE 29 30 The Rigveda s core is accepted to date to the late Bronze Age making it one of the few examples with an unbroken tradition Its composition is usually dated to roughly between c 1500 and 1000 BCE note 1 According to Michael Witzel the codification of the Rigveda took place at the end of the Rigvedic period between c 1200 and 1000 BCE in the early Kuru kingdom 14 Asko Parpola argues that the Rigveda was systematized around 1000 BCE at the time of the Kuru kingdom 31 Historical and societal context The Rigveda is far more archaic than any other Indo Aryan text For this reason it was in the center of attention of Western scholarship from the times of Max Muller and Rudolf Roth onwards The Rigveda records an early stage of Vedic religion There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the early Iranian Avesta 32 33 deriving from the Proto Indo Iranian times 34 often associated with the early Andronovo culture of c 2000 BCE 35 The Rigveda offers no direct evidence of social or political systems in the Vedic era whether ordinary or elite 36 Only hints such as cattle raising and horse racing are discernible and the text offers very general ideas about the ancient Indian society There is no evidence state Jamison and Brereton of any elaborate pervasive or structured caste system 36 Social stratification seems embryonic then and later a social ideal rather than a social reality 36 The society was semi nomadic and pastoral with evidence of agriculture since hymns mention plow and celebrate agricultural divinities 37 There was division of labor and a complementary relationship between kings and poet priests but no discussion of a relative status of social classes 36 Women in the Rigveda appear disproportionately as speakers in dialogue hymns both as mythical or divine Indrani Apsaras Urvasi or Yami as well as Apala Atreyi RV 8 91 Godha RV 10 134 6 Ghoṣa Kakṣivati RV 10 39 40 Romasa RV 1 126 7 Lopamudra RV 1 179 1 2 Visvavara Atreyi RV 5 28 Saci Paulomi RV 10 159 Sasvati Aṅgirasi RV 8 1 34 The women of the Rigveda are quite outspoken and appear more sexually confident than men in the text 36 Elaborate and aesthetic hymns on wedding suggest rites of passage had developed during the Rigvedic period 36 There is little evidence of dowry and no evidence of sati in it or related Vedic texts 38 The Rigvedic hymns mention rice and porridge in hymns such as 8 83 8 70 8 77 and 1 61 in some versions of the text 39 however there is no discussion of rice cultivation 37 The term ayas metal occurs in the Rigveda but it is unclear which metal it was 40 Iron is not mentioned in Rigveda something scholars have used to help date Rigveda to have been composed before 1000 BCE 41 Hymn 5 63 mentions metal cloaked in gold suggesting metal working had progressed in the Vedic culture 42 Some of the names of gods and goddesses found in the Rigveda are found amongst other belief systems based on Proto Indo European religion while most of the words used share common roots with words from other Indo European languages 43 However about 300 words in the Rigveda are neither Indo Aryan nor Indo European states the Sanskrit and Vedic literature scholar Frits Staal 44 Of these 300 many such as kapardin kumara kumari kikata come from Munda or proto Munda languages found in the eastern and northeastern Assamese region of India with roots in Austroasiatic languages The others in the list of 300 such as mleccha and nir have Dravidian roots found in the southern region of India or are of Tibeto Burman origins A few non Indo European words in the Rigveda such as for camel mustard and donkey belong to a possibly lost Central Asian language 44 45 note 4 The linguistic sharing provides clear indications states Michael Witzel that the people who spoke Rigvedic Sanskrit already knew and interacted with Munda and Dravidian speakers 47 The earliest text were composed in northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent and the more philosophical later texts were most likely composed in or around the region that is the modern era state of Haryana 41 TextComposition The family books 2 7 are associated with various clans and chieftains containing hymns by members of the same clan in each book but other clans are also represented in the Rigveda The family books are associated with specific regions and mention prominent Bharata and Puru kings 48 Tradition associates a rishi the composer with each ṛc verse of the Rigveda Most suktas are attributed to single composers note 5 for each of them the Rigveda includes a lineage specific apri hymn a special sukta of rigidly formulaic structure used for rituals In all 10 families of rishis account for more than 95 per cent of the ṛcs Book Clan Region 48 Mandala 2 Gṛtsamada NW PunjabMandala 3 Visvamitra Punjab SarasvatiMandala 4 Vamadeva NW PunjabMandala 5 Atri NW Punjab YamunaMandala 6 Bharadvaja NW Punjab Sarasvati GaṅgaMandala 7 Vasiṣṭha Punjab Sarasvati YamunaMandala 8 Kaṇva and Aṅgirasa NW PunjabCollection and organisation The codification of the Rigveda took place late in the Rigvedic or rather in the early post Rigvedic period at c 1200 BCE by members of the early Kuru tribe when the center of Vedic culture moved east from the Punjab into what is now Uttar Pradesh 49 The Rigveda was codified by compiling the hymns including the arrangement of the individual hymns in ten books coeval with the composition of the younger Veda Samhitas 50 According to Witzel the initial collection took place after the Bharata victory in the Battle of the Ten Kings under king Sudas over other Puru kings This collection was an effort to reconcile various factions in the clans which were united in the Kuru kingdom under a Bharata king 51 note 6 This collection was re arranged and expanded in the Kuru Kingdom reflecting the establishment of a new Bharata Puru lineage and new srauta rituals 52 note 7 The fixing of the Vedic chant by enforcing regular application of sandhi and of the padapatha by dissolving Sandhi out of the earlier metrical text occurred during the later Brahmana period in roughly the 6th century BCE 54 The surviving form of the Rigveda is based on an early Iron Age collection that established the core family books mandalas 2 7 ordered by author deity and meter 5 and a later redaction coeval with the redaction of the other Vedas dating several centuries after the hymns were composed This redaction also included some additions contradicting the strict ordering scheme and orthoepic changes to the Vedic Sanskrit such as the regularization of sandhi termed orthoepische Diaskeuase by Oldenberg 1888 Organisation Mandalas The text is organized in ten books or maṇḍalas circles of varying age and length 55 The family books mandalas 2 7 are the oldest part of the Rigveda and the shortest books they are arranged by length decreasing length of hymns per book and account for 38 of the text 56 57 The hymns are arranged in collections each dealing with a particular deity Agni comes first Indra comes second and so on They are attributed and dedicated to a rishi sage and his family of students 58 Within each collection the hymns are arranged in descending order of the number of stanzas per hymn If two hymns in the same collection have equal numbers of stanzas then they are arranged so that the number of syllables in the metre are in descending order 59 60 The second to seventh mandalas have a uniform format 56 The eighth and ninth mandalas comprising hymns of mixed age account for 15 and 9 respectively The ninth mandala is entirely dedicated to Soma and the Soma ritual The hymns in the ninth mandala are arranged by both their prosody structure chanda and by their length 56 The first and the tenth mandalas are the youngest they are also the longest books of 191 suktas each accounting for 37 of the text Nevertheless some of the hymns in mandalas 8 1 and 10 may still belong to an earlier period and may be as old as the material in the family books 61 The first mandala has a unique arrangement not found in the other nine mandalas The first 84 hymns of the tenth mandala have a structure different from the remaining hymns in it 56 Hymns and prosody Each mandala consists of hymns or suktas su ukta literally well recited eulogy intended for various rituals The sukta s in turn consist of individual stanzas called ṛc praise pl ṛcas which are further analysed into units of verse called pada foot or step The hymns of the Rigveda are in different poetic metres in Vedic Sanskrit The meters most used in the ṛcas are the gayatri 3 verses of 8 syllables anushtubh 4 8 trishtubh 4 11 and jagati 4 12 The trishtubh meter 40 and gayatri meter 25 dominate in the Rigveda 62 63 64 Meter note 8 Rigvedic verses 65 Gayatri 2451Ushnih 341Anushtubh 855Brihati 181Pankti 312Trishtubh 4253Jagati 1348Atigagati 17Sakvari 19Atisakvari 9Ashti 6Atyashti 84Dhriti 2Atidhriti 1Ekapada 6Dvipada 17Pragatha Barhata 388Pragatha Kakubha 110Mahabarhata 2Total 10402Transmission As with the other Vedas the redacted text has been handed down in several versions including the Padapatha in which each word is isolated in pausa form and is used for just one way of memorization and the Samhitapatha which combines words according to the rules of sandhi the process being described in the Pratisakhya and is the memorized text used for recitation The Padapatha and the Pratisakhya anchor the text s true meaning 66 and the fixed text was preserved with unparalleled fidelity for more than a millennium by oral tradition alone 27 In order to achieve this the oral tradition prescribed very structured enunciation involving breaking down the Sanskrit compounds into stems and inflections as well as certain permutations This interplay with sounds gave rise to a scholarly tradition of morphology and phonetics It is unclear as to when the Rigveda was first written down The oldest surviving manuscripts have been discovered in Nepal and date to c 1040 CE 3 67 According to Witzel the Paippalada Samhita tradition points to written manuscripts c 800 1000 CE 68 The Upanishads were likely in the written form earlier about mid 1st millennium CE Gupta Empire period 27 69 Attempts to write the Vedas may have been made towards the end of the 1st millennium BCE The early attempts may have been unsuccessful given the Smriti rules that forbade the writing down the Vedas states Witzel 27 The oral tradition continued as a means of transmission until modern times 70 Recensions nbsp Geographical distribution of the Late Vedic Period Each major region had its own recension of Rig Veda Sakhas and the versions varied 3 Several shakhas from skt sakha f branch i e recension of the Rig Veda are known to have existed in the past Of these Sakala Sakha named after the scholar Sakalya is the only one to have survived in its entirety Another sakha that may have survived is the Baṣkala although this is uncertain 71 72 73 The surviving padapaṭha version of the Rigveda text is ascribed to Sakalya 74 The Sakala recension has 1 017 regular hymns and an appendix of 11 valakhilya hymns 75 which are now customarily included in the 8th mandala as 8 49 8 59 for a total of 1028 hymns 76 The Baṣkala recension includes eight of these valakhilya hymns among its regular hymns making a total of 1025 regular hymns for this sakha 77 In addition the Baṣkala recension has its own appendix of 98 hymns the Khilani 78 In the 1877 edition of Aufrecht the 1028 hymns of the Rigveda contain a total of 10 552 ṛc s or 39 831 padas The Shatapatha Brahmana gives the number of syllables to be 432 000 79 while the metrical text of van Nooten and Holland 1994 has a total of 395 563 syllables or an average of 9 93 syllables per pada counting the number of syllables is not straightforward because of issues with sandhi and the post Rigvedic pronunciation of syllables like suvar as svar Three other shakhas are mentioned in Caraṇavyuha a parisiṣṭa supplement of Yajurveda Maṇḍukayana Asvalayana and Saṅkhayana The Atharvaveda lists two more shakhas The differences between all these shakhas are very minor limited to varying order of content and inclusion or non inclusion of a few verses The following information is known about the shakhas other than Sakala and Baṣkala 80 Maṇḍukayana Perhaps the oldest of the Rigvedic shakhas Asvalayana Includes 212 verses all of which are newer than the other Rigvedic hymns Saṅkhayana Very similar to Asvalayana Saisiriya Mentioned in the Rigveda Pratisakhya Very similar to Sakala with a few additional verses might have derived from or merged with it Shakha Samhita Brahmana Aranyaka UpanishadShaakala Shaakala Samhita Aitareya Brahmana Aitareya Aranyaka Aitareya UpanishadBaashkala Kaushitaki Samhita Kaushitaki Brahmana Manuscript exists Kaushitaki UpanishadShankhayana Sankhayana Samhita Shankhayana Brahmana Shankhyana Aranyaka edited as a part of the AranyakaManuscripts nbsp Rigveda manuscript page Mandala 1 Hymn 1 Sukta 1 lines 1 1 1 to 1 1 9 Sanskrit Devanagari script The Rigveda hymns were composed and preserved by oral tradition They were memorized and verbally transmitted with unparalleled fidelity across generations for many centuries 27 81 According to Barbara West it was probably first written down about the 3rd century BCE 82 83 The manuscripts were made from birch bark or palm leaves which decompose and therefore were routinely copied over the generations to help preserve the text Versions There are for example 30 manuscripts of Rigveda at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute collected in the 19th century by Georg Buhler Franz Kielhorn and others originating from different parts of India including Kashmir Gujarat the then Rajaputana Central Provinces etc They were transferred to Deccan College Pune in the late 19th century They are in the Sharada and Devanagari scripts written on birch bark and paper The oldest of the Pune collection is dated to 1464 The 30 manuscripts of Rigveda preserved at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute Pune were added to UNESCO s Memory of the World Register in 2007 84 Of these thirty manuscripts nine contain the samhita text five have the padapatha in addition Thirteen contain Sayana s commentary At least five manuscripts MS no 1 A1879 80 1 A1881 82 331 1883 84 and 5 Vis I have preserved the complete text of the Rigveda MS no 5 1875 76 written on birch bark in bold Sharada was only in part used by Max Muller for his edition of the Rigveda with Sayana s commentary Muller used 24 manuscripts then available to him in Europe while the Pune Edition used over five dozen manuscripts but the editors of Pune Edition could not procure many manuscripts used by Muller and by the Bombay Edition as well as from some other sources hence the total number of extant manuscripts known then must surpass perhaps eighty at least 85 full citation needed Scripts Rigveda manuscripts in paper palm leaves and birch bark form either in full or in portions have been discovered in the following Indic scripts Devanagari Rajasthan Maharashtra Uttar Pradesh Nepal 86 87 88 Grantha Tamil Nadu 89 90 Malayalam Kerala 91 Nandinagari South India 92 Sharada Kashmir 93 94 Comparison The various Rigveda manuscripts discovered so far show some differences Broadly the most studied Sakala recension has 1017 hymns includes an appendix of eleven valakhilya hymns which are often counted with the eighth mandala for a total of 1028 metrical hymns The Baṣakala version of Rigveda includes eight of these valakhilya hymns among its regular hymns making a total of 1025 hymns in the main text for this sakha The Baṣakala text also has an appendix of 98 hymns called the Khilani bringing the total to 1 123 hymns The manuscripts of Sakala recension of the Rigveda have about 10 600 verses organized into ten Books Mandalas 95 96 Books 2 through 7 are internally homogeneous in style while Books 1 8 and 10 are compilation of verses of internally different styles suggesting that these books are likely a collection of compositions by many authors 96 The first mandala is the largest with 191 hymns and 2006 verses and it was added to the text after Books 2 through 9 The last or the 10th Book also has 191 hymns but 1754 verses making it the second largest The language analytics suggest the 10th Book chronologically was composed and added last 96 The content of the 10th Book also suggest that the authors knew and relied on the contents of the first nine books 96 The Rigveda is the largest of the four Vedas and many of its verses appear in the other Vedas 97 Almost all of the 1875 verses found in Samaveda are taken from different parts of the Rigveda either once or as repetition and rewritten in a chant song form Books 8 and 9 of the Rigveda are by far the largest source of verses for Sama Veda Book 10 contributes the largest number of the 1350 verses of Rigveda found in Atharvaveda or about one fifth of the 5987 verses in the Atharvaveda text 96 A bulk of 1875 ritual focussed verses of Yajurveda in its numerous versions also borrow and build upon the foundation of verses in Rigveda 97 98 ContentsAltogether the Rigveda consists of the Samhita hymns to the deities the oldest part of the Rigveda the Brahmanas commentaries on the hymns the Aranyakas or forest books the UpanishadsIn western usage Rigveda usually refers to the Rigveda Samhita while the Brahmanas are referred to as the Rigveda Brahmanas etc Technically speaking however the Rigveda refers to the entire body of texts transmitted along with the Samhita portion Different bodies of commentary were transmitted in the different shakhas or schools Only a small portion of these texts has been preserved The texts of only two out of five shakhas mentioned by the Rigveda Pratishakhya have survived The late 15th or 16th century Shri Guru Charitra even claims the existence of twelve Rigvedic shakhas The two surviving Rigvedic corpora are those of the Sakala and the Baṣkala shakhas Hymns See also Anukramani and Rigvedic deities The Rigvedic hymns are dedicated to various deities chief of whom are Indra a heroic god praised for having slain his enemy Vrtra Agni the sacrificial fire and Soma the sacred potion or the plant it is made from Equally prominent gods are the Adityas or Asura gods Mitra Varuna and Ushas the dawn Also invoked are Savitr Vishnu Rudra Pushan Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati as well as deified natural phenomena such as Dyaus Pita the shining sky Father Heaven Prithivi the earth Mother Earth Surya the sun god Vayu or Vata the wind Apas the waters Parjanya the thunder and rain Vac the word many rivers notably the Sapta Sindhu and the Sarasvati River The Adityas Vasus Rudras Sadhyas Ashvins Maruts Rbhus and the Vishvadevas all gods as well as the thirty three gods are the groups of deities mentioned citation needed Mandala 1 comprises 191 hymns Hymn 1 1 is addressed to Agni and his name is the first word of the Rigveda The remaining hymns are mainly addressed to Agni and Indra as well as Varuna Mitra the Ashvins the Maruts Usas Surya Rbhus Rudra Vayu Brhaspati Visnu Heaven and Earth and all the Gods This Mandala is dated to have been added to the Rigveda after Mandala 2 through 9 and includes the philosophical Riddle Hymn 1 164 which inspires chapters in later Upanishads such as the Mundaka 18 99 100 Mandala 2 comprises 43 hymns mainly to Agni and Indra It is chiefly attributed to the Rishi gṛtsamada saunahotra citation needed Mandala 3 comprises 62 hymns mainly to Agni and Indra and the Vishvedevas The verse 3 62 10 has great importance in Hinduism as the Gayatri Mantra Most hymns in this book are attributed to visvamitra gathinaḥ citation needed Mandala 4 comprises 58 hymns mainly to Agni and Indra as well as the Rbhus Ashvins Brhaspati Vayu Usas etc Most hymns in this book are attributed to vamadeva gautama citation needed Mandala 5 comprises 87 hymns mainly to Agni and Indra the Visvedevas all the gods the Maruts the twin deity Mitra Varuna and the Asvins Two hymns each are dedicated to Ushas the dawn and to Savitr Most hymns in this book are attributed to the atri clan citation needed Mandala 6 comprises 75 hymns mainly to Agni and Indra all the gods Pusan Ashvin Usas etc Most hymns in this book are attributed to the barhaspatya family of Angirasas citation needed Mandala 7 comprises 104 hymns to Agni Indra the Visvadevas the Maruts Mitra Varuna the Asvins Ushas Indra Varuna Varuna Vayu the wind two each to Sarasvati ancient river goddess of learning and Vishnu and to others Most hymns in this book are attributed to vasiṣṭha maitravaruṇi citation needed Mandala 8 comprises 103 hymns to various gods Hymns 8 49 to 8 59 are the apocryphal valakhilya Hymns 1 48 and 60 66 are attributed to the kaṇva clan the rest to other Angirasa poets citation needed Mandala 9 comprises 114 hymns entirely devoted to Soma Pavamana the cleansing of the sacred potion of the Vedic religion citation needed Mandala 10 comprises additional 191 hymns frequently in later language addressed to Agni Indra and various other deities It contains the Nadistuti sukta which is in praise of rivers and is important for the reconstruction of the geography of the Vedic civilization and the Purusha sukta which has been important in studies of Vedic sociology 36 It also contains the Nasadiya sukta 10 129 which deals with multiple speculations about the creation of universe and whether anyone can know the right answer 20 The marriage hymns 10 85 and the death hymns 10 10 18 still are of great importance in the performance of the corresponding Grhya rituals Rigveda Brahmanas See also Brahmana Of the Brahmanas that were handed down in the schools of the Bahvṛcas i e possessed of many verses as the followers of the Rigveda are called two have come down to us namely those of the Aitareyins and the Kaushitakins The Aitareya brahmana 101 and the Kaushitaki or Sankhayana brahmana evidently have for their groundwork the same stock of traditional exegetic matter They differ however considerably as regards both the arrangement of this matter and their stylistic handling of it with the exception of the numerous legends common to both in which the discrepancy is comparatively slight There is also a certain amount of material peculiar to each of them citation needed nbsp Devi sukta which highlights the goddess tradition of Hinduism is found in Rigveda hymns 10 125 It is cited in Devi Mahatmya and is recited every year during the Durga Puja festival The Kaushitaka is upon the whole far more concise in its style and more systematic in its arrangement features which would lead one to infer that it is probably the more modern work of the two It consists of 30 chapters adhyaya while the Aitareya has 40 divided into eight books or pentads pancaka of five chapters each The last 10 adhyayas of the latter work are however clearly a later addition though they must have already formed part of it at the time of Paṇini c 5th century BCE if as seems probable one of his grammatical sutras regulating the formation of the names of Brahmanas consisting of 30 and 40 adhyayas refers to these two works In this last portion occurs the well known legend also found in the Shankhayana sutra but not in the Kaushitaki brahmana of Shunahshepa whom his father Ajigarta sells and offers to slay the recital of which formed part of the inauguration of kings citation needed While the Aitareya deals almost exclusively with the Soma sacrifice the Kaushitaka in its first six chapters treats of the several kinds of haviryajna or offerings of rice milk ghee etc whereupon follows the Soma sacrifice in this way that chapters 7 10 contain the practical ceremonial and 11 30 the recitations shastra of the hotar Sayana in the introduction to his commentary on the work ascribes the Aitareya to the sage Mahidasa Aitareya i e son of Itara also mentioned elsewhere as a philosopher and it seems likely enough that this person arranged the Brahmana and founded the school of the Aitareyins Regarding the authorship of the sister work we have no information except that the opinion of the sage Kaushitaki is frequently referred to in it as authoritative and generally in opposition to the Paingya the Brahmana it would seem of a rival school the Paingins Probably therefore it is just what one of the manuscripts calls it the Brahmana of Sankhayana composed in accordance with the views of Kaushitaki citation needed Rigveda Aranyakas and Upanishads See also Aranyaka and Upanishads Each of these two Brahmanas is supplemented by a forest book or Aranyaka The Aitareyaranyaka is not a uniform production It consists of five books aranyaka three of which the first and the last two are of a liturgical nature treating of the ceremony called mahavrata or great vow The last of these books composed in sutra form is however doubtless of later origin and is indeed ascribed by Hindu authorities either to Shaunaka or to Ashvalayana The second and third books on the other hand are purely speculative and are also styled the Bahvrca brahmana upanishad Again the last four chapters of the second book are usually singled out as the Aitareya Upanishad 102 ascribed like its Brahmana and the first book to Mahidasa Aitareya and the third book is also referred to as the Samhita upanishad As regards the Kaushitaki aranyaka this work consists of 15 adhyayas the first two treating of the mahavrata ceremony and the 7th and 8th of which correspond to the first fifth and third books of the Aitareyaranyaka respectively whilst the four adhyayas usually inserted between them constitute the highly interesting Kaushitaki Brahmana Upanishad 103 of which we possess two different recensions The remaining portions 9 15 of the Aranyaka treat of the vital airs the internal Agnihotra etc ending with the vamsha or succession of teachers Significance The text is a highly stylized poetical Vedic Sanskrit with praise addressed to the Vedic gods and chieftains Most hymns according to Witzel were intended to be recited at the annual New Year Soma ritual 104 The text also includes some nonritual poetry 104 fragments of mythology archaic formulas and a number of hymns with early philosophical speculations 105 Composed by the poets of different clans including famed Vedic rishis sages such as Vishvamitra and Vasishtha these signify the power of prestige therewith to vac speech sound a tradition set in place 104 The text introduced the prized concepts such as Rta active realization of truth cosmic harmony which inspired the later Hindu concept of Dharma The Rigvedic verses formulate this Rta as effected by Brahman a significant and non self evident truth 104 The text also contains hymns of highly poetical value some in dialogue form along with love stories that likely inspired later Epic and classical poets of Hinduism states Witzel 105 According to Nadkarni several hymns of the Rigveda embed cherished virtues and ethical statements For example verses 5 82 7 6 44 8 9 113 4 10 133 6 and 10 190 1 mention truthful speech truthful action self discipline and righteousness 106 107 Hymn 10 117 presents the significance of charity and of generosity between human beings how helping someone in need is ultimately in the self interest of the helper its importance to an individual and the society 19 108 According to Jamison and Brereton hymns 9 112 and 9 113 poetically state what everyone humans and all living beings really want is gain or an easy life even a water drop has a goal namely simply to seek Indra These hymns present the imagery of being in heaven as freedom joy and satisfaction a theme that appears in the Hindu Upanishads to characterize their teachings of self realization 109 Monism debate While the older hymns of the Rigveda reflect sacrificial ritual typical of polytheism 110 its younger parts specifically mandalas 1 and 10 have been noted as containing monistic or henotheistic speculations 110 Nasadiya Sukta 10 129 There was neither non existence nor existence then Neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond What stirred Where In whose protection There was neither death nor immortality then No distinguishing sign of night nor of day That One breathed windless by its own impulse Other than that there was nothing beyond Darkness there was at first by darkness hidden Without distinctive marks this all was water That which becoming by the void was covered That One by force of heat came into being Who really knows Who will here proclaim it Whence was it produced Whence is this creation Gods came afterwards with the creation of this universe Who then knows whence it has arisen Whether God s will created it or whether He was mute Perhaps it formed itself or perhaps it did not Only He who is its overseer in highest heaven knows Only He knows or perhaps He does not know Rigveda 10 129 Abridged Tr Kramer Christian 20 This hymn is one of the roots of Hindu philosophy 111 A widely cited example of such speculations is hymn 1 164 46 They call him Indra Mitra Varuna Agni and he is heavenly nobly winged Garutman To what is One sages give many a title they call it Agni Yama Matarisvan Rigveda 1 164 46 Translated by Ralph Griffith 112 113 Max Muller notably introduced the term henotheism for the philosophy expressed here avoiding the connotations of monotheism in Judeo Christian tradition 113 114 Other widely cited examples of monistic tendencies include hymns 1 164 8 36 and 10 31 115 116 Other scholars state that the Rigveda includes an emerging diversity of thought including monotheism polytheism henotheism and pantheism the choice left to the preference of the worshipper 117 and the Nasadiya Sukta 10 129 one of the most widely cited Rigvedic hymns in popular western presentations Ruse 2015 commented on the old discussion of monotheism vs henotheism vs monism by noting an atheistic streak in hymns such as 10 130 118 Examples from Mandala 1 adduced to illustrate the metaphysical nature of the contents of the younger hymns include 1 164 34 What is the ultimate limit of the earth What is the center of the universe What is the semen of the cosmic horse What is the ultimate source of human speech 1 164 34 Who gave blood soul spirit to the earth How could the unstructured universe give origin to this structured world 1 164 5 Where does the sun hide in the night Where do gods live 1 164 6 What where is the unborn support for the born universe 1 164 20 a hymn that is widely cited in the Upanishads as the parable of the Body and the Soul Two birds with fair wings inseparable companions Have found refuge in the same sheltering tree One incessantly eats from the fig tree the other not eating just looks on 22 Reception in HinduismShruti The Vedas as a whole are classed as shruti in Hindu tradition This has been compared to the concept of divine revelation in Western religious tradition but Staal argues that it is nowhere stated that the Veda was revealed and that shruti simply means that what is heard in the sense that it is transmitted from father to son or from teacher to pupil 119 The Rigveda or other Vedas do not anywhere assert that they are apauruṣeya and this reverential term appears only centuries after the end of the Vedic period in the texts of the Mimamsa school of Hindu philosophy 119 120 121 The text of the Rigveda suggests it was composed by poets human individuals whose names were household words in the Vedic age states Staal 119 The authors of the Brahmana literature discussed and interpreted the Vedic ritual Sanskrit grammarians Main article Vyakaraṇa Yaska 4th c BCE a lexicographer was an early commentator of the Rigveda by discussing the meanings of difficult words In his book titled Nirukta Yaska asserts that the Rigveda in the ancient tradition can be interpreted in three ways from the perspective of religious rites adhiyajna from the perspective of the deities adhidevata and from the perspective of the soul adhyatman 122 The fourth way to interpret the Rigveda also emerged in the ancient times wherein the gods mentioned were viewed as symbolism for legendary individuals or narratives 122 It was generally accepted that creative poets often embed and express double meanings ellipses and novel ideas to inspire the reader 122 Medieval Hindu scholarship By the period of Puranic Hinduism in the medieval period the language of the hymns had become almost entirely unintelligible and their interpretation mostly hinged on mystical ideas and sound symbolism 123 124 125 According to the Puranic tradition Ved Vyasa compiled all the four Vedas along with the Mahabharata and the Puranas Vyasa then taught the Rigveda samhita to Paila who started the oral tradition 126 An alternate version states that Shakala compiled the Rigveda from the teachings of Vedic rishis and one of the manuscript recensions mentions Shakala 126 Madhvacharya a Hindu philosopher of the 13th century provided a commentary of the first 40 hymns of the Rigveda in his book Rig Bhashyam note 9 In the 14th century Sayana wrote an exhaustive commentary on the complete text of the Rigveda in his book Rigveda Samhita note 10 This book was translated from Sanskrit to English by Max Muller in the year 1856 H H Wilson also translated this book into English as Rigveda Sanhita in the year 1856 Both Madvacharya and Sayanacharya studied at the Sringeri monastery A number of other commentaries bhaṣya s were written during the medieval period including the commentaries by Skandasvamin pre Sayana roughly of the Gupta period Udgitha pre Sayana Venkata Madhava pre Sayana c 10th to 12th centuries and Mudgala after Sayana an abbreviated version of Sayana s commentary 127 full citation needed Some notable commentaries from Medieval period include Title Commentary Year Language NotesRig Bhashyam Madhvacharya 1285 Sanskrit Commentary on the first 40 hymns of the Rigveda The original book has been translated to English by Prof K T Pandurangi accessible hereRigveda Samhita Sayaṇacarya 1360 Sanskrit Sayaṇacarya a Sanskrit scholar wrote a treatise on the Vedas in the book Vedartha Prakasha Meaning of Vedas made as a manifest The Rigveda Samhita is available here This book was translated from Sanskrit to English by Max Muller in the year 1856 H H Wilson also translated this book into English as Rigveda Sanhita in the year 1856 Arya Samaj and Aurobindo movements In the 19th and early 20th centuries reformers like Swami Dayananda Saraswati founder of the Arya Samaj and Sri Aurobindo founder of Sri Aurobindo Ashram discussed the philosophies of the Vedas According to Robson Dayananda believed there were no errors in the Vedas including the Rigveda and if anyone showed him an error he would maintain that it was a corruption added later 128 According to Dayananda and Aurobindo the Vedic scholars had a monotheistic conception 129 Sri Aurobindo gave commentaries general interpretation guidelines and a partial translation in The secret of Veda 1946 note 11 Sri Aurobindo finds Sayana s interpretation to be ritualistic in nature and too often having inconsistent interpretations of Vedic terms trying to fit the meaning to a narrow mold Accorording to Aurobindo if Sayana s interepretation were to be accepted it would seem as if the Rig Veda belongs to an unquestioning tradition of faith starting from an original error 130 Aurobindo attempted to interpret hymns to Agni in the Rigveda as mystical 129 Aurobindo states that the Vedic hymns were a quest after a higher truth define the Rta basis of Dharma conceive life in terms of a struggle between the forces of light and darkness and sought the ultimate reality 129 Contemporary Hinduism nbsp The hymn 10 85 of the Rigveda includes the Vivaha sukta above Its recitation continues to be a part of Hindu wedding rituals 131 132 The Rigveda in contemporary Hinduism has been a reminder of the ancient cultural heritage and point of pride for Hindus with some hymns still in use in major rites of passage ceremonies but the literal acceptance of most of the textual essence is long gone 133 134 Musicians and dance groups celebrate the text as a mark of Hindu heritage through incorporating Rigvedic hymns in their compositions such as in Hamsadhvani and Subhapantuvarali of Carnatic music and these have remained popular among the Hindus for decades 133 According to Axel Michaels most Indians today pay lip service to the Veda and have no regard for the contents of the text 135 According to Louis Renou the Vedic texts are a distant object and even in the most orthodox domains the reverence to the Vedas has come to be a simple raising of the hat 133 According to Andrea Pinkney the social history and context of the Vedic texts are extremely distant from contemporary Hindu religious beliefs and practice and the reverence for the Vedas in contemporary Hinduism illustrates the respect among the Hindus for their heritage 133 Hindu nationalism See also 10 000 years of Hinduism The Rig Veda plays a role in the modern construction of a Hindu identity portraying Hindus as the original inhabitants of India The Rigveda has been referred to in the Indigenous Aryans and Out of India theory Dating the Rig Veda as contemporaneous or even preceding the Indus Valley civilisation an argument is made that the IVC was Aryan and the bearer of the Rig Veda 136 137 Indian nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak in his Orion Or Researches Into The Antiquity Of The Vedas 1893 has concluded that the date of composition of the Rigveda dates at least as far back as 6000 4000 BCE based on his astronomical research into the position of the constellation Orion 138 These theories are controversial and not accepted or propagated in mainstream scholarship 139 140 TranslationsThe Rigveda is considered particularly difficult to translate owing to its length poetic nature the language itself and the absence of any close contemporary texts for comparison 141 142 Staal describes it as the most obscure distant and difficult for moderns to understand As a result he says it is often misinterpreted with many early translations containing straightforward errors or worse used as a peg on which to hang an idea or a theory 143 119 Another issue is technical terms such as mandala conventionally translated book but more literally rendered cycle 119 144 Karen Thomson author of Ancient Sanskrit Online 145 and editor of the Metrically Restored Text Online at the University of Texas at Austin argues as linguists in the nineteenth century had done Friedrich Max Muller Rudolf von Roth William Dwight Whitney Theodor Benfey John Muir Edward Vernon Arnold that the apparent obscurity derives from the failure to discard a mass of assumptions about ritual meaning inherited from Vedic tradition 146 147 The first published translation of any portion of the Rigveda in any European language was into Latin by Friedrich August Rosen working from manuscripts brought back from India by Colebrooke In 1849 Max Muller published his six volume translation into German the first printed edition and most studied 148 149 note 12 H H Wilson was the first to make a translation of the Rig Veda into English published from 1850 88 151 Wilson s version was based on a commentary of the complete text by Sayaṇa a 14th century Sanskrit scholar which he also translated note 13 Translations have since been made in several languages including French and Russian 148 Karl Friedrich Geldner completed the first scholarly translation in the 1920s which was published after his death 148 Translations of shorter cherrypicked anthologies have also been published such as those by Wendy Doniger in 1981 and Walter Maurer in 1986 although Jamison and Brereton say they tend to create a distorted view of the text 148 In 1994 Barend A van Nooten and Gary B Holland published the first attempt to restore the entirety of the Rigveda to its poetic form systematically identifying and correcting sound changes and sandhi combinations which had distorted the original metre and meaning 152 153 Some notable translations of the Rig Veda include Title Commentary Translation Year Language NotesRigvedae specimen Friedrich August Rosen 148 1830 Latin Partial translation with 121 hymns London 1830 Also known as Rigveda Sanhita Liber Primus Sanskrite Et Latine ISBN 978 1 275 45323 4 Based on manuscripts brought back from India by Henry Thomas Colebrooke Rig Veda oder die heiligen Lieder der Brahmanen Max Muller 148 1849 German Partial translation published by W H Allen and Co London and later F A Brockhaus Leipzig In 1873 Muller published an editio princeps titled The Hymns of the Rig Veda in the Samhita Text He also translated a few hymns in English Nasadiya Sukta Ṛig Veda Sanhita A Collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns H H Wilson 148 1850 88 English Published as 6 volumes by N Trubner amp Co London Rig veda ou livre des hymnes A Langlois 1870 French Partial translation Re printed in Paris 1948 51 ISBN 2 7200 1029 4 Der Rigveda Alfred Ludwig 1876 German Published by Verlag von F Tempsky Prague Rig Veda Hermann Grassmann 1876 German Published by F A Brockhaus LeipzigRigved Bhashyam Dayananda Saraswati 1877 9 Hindi Incomplete translation Later translated into English by Dharma Deva Vidya Martanda 1974 The Hymns of the Rig Veda Ralph T H Griffith 148 1889 92 English Revised as The Rig Veda in 1896 Revised by J L Shastri in 1973 Griffith s philology was outdated even in the 19th century and questioned by scholars 148 Der Rigveda in Auswahl Karl Friedrich Geldner 148 1907 German Published by Kohlhammer Verlag Stuttgart Geldner s 1907 work was a partial translation he completed a full translation in the 1920s which was published after his death in 1951 148 This translation was titled Der Rig Veda aus dem Sanskrit ins Deutsche Ubersetzt Harvard Oriental Studies vols 33 37 Cambridge Massachusetts 1951 7 Reprinted by Harvard University Press 2003 ISBN 0 674 01226 7 Hymns from the Rigveda A A Macdonell 1917 English Partial translation 30 hymns Published by Clarendon Press Oxford Series of articles in Journal of the University of Bombay Hari Damodar Velankar 148 1940s 1960s English Partial translation Mandala 2 5 7 and 8 Later published as independent volumes Rig Veda Hymns to the Mystic Fire Archived 8 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine Sri Aurobindo 1946 English Partial translation published by N K Gupta Pondicherry Later republished several times ISBN 978 0 914955 22 1 RigVeda Samhita Pandit H P Venkat Rao LaxmanAcharya and a couple of other Pandits 1947 Kannada Sources from Saayana Bhashya SkandaSvami Bhashya Taittareya Samhita Maitrayini Samhita and other Samhitas The Kannada translation work was commissioned by Maharaja of Mysore Jayachama Rajendra Wodeyar The translations were compiled into 11 volumes Rig Veda Ramgovind Trivedi 1954 HindiEtudes vediques et paṇineennes Louis Renou 148 1955 69 French Appears in a series of publications organized by the deities Covers most of the Rigveda but leaves out significant hymns including the ones dedicated to Indra and the Asvins ऋग व द स ह त Shriram Sharma 1950s HindiHymns from the Rig Veda Naoshiro Tsuji 1970 Japanese Partial translationRigveda Izbrannye Gimny Tatyana Elizarenkova 148 1972 Russian Partial translation extended to a full translation published during 1989 1999 Rigveda Parichaya Nag Sharan Singh 1977 English Hindi Extension of Wilson s translation Republished by Nag Delhi in 1990 ISBN 978 81 7081 217 3 Rig Veda Archived 8 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine M R Jambunathan 1978 80 Tamil Two volumes both released posthumously Rigveda Teremteshimnuszok Creation Hymns of the Rig Veda Laszlo Forizs hu 1995 Hungarian Partial translation published in Budapest ISBN 963 85349 1 5 The Rig Veda Wendy Doniger O Flaherty 1981 English Partial translation 108 hymns along with critical apparatus Published by Penguin ISBN 0 14 044989 2 A bibliography of translations of the Rig Veda appears as an Appendix Rigved Subodh Bhasya Pandit Shripad Damodar Satwalekar 1985 Hindi Marathi The Finest Translation Ever of the Rig Veda Given meaning of each word words then gave the bhava arth Published by Swadhyay Mandal Pinnacles of India s Past Selections from the Rgveda Walter H Maurer 1986 English Partial translation published by John Benjamins The Rig Veda Bibek Debroy Dipavali Debroy 1992 English Partial translation published by B R Publishing ISBN 978 0 8364 2778 3 The work is in verse form without reference to the original hymns or mandalas Part of Great Epics of India Veda series also published as The Holy Vedas The Holy Vedas A Golden Treasury Pandit Satyakam Vidyalankar 1983 EnglishṚgveda Saṃhita H H Wilson Ravi Prakash Arya and K L Joshi 2001 English 4 volume set published by Parimal ISBN 978 81 7110 138 2 Revised edition of Wilson s translation Replaces obsolete English forms with more modern equivalents e g thou with you Includes the original Sanskrit text in Devanagari script along with a critical apparatus Ṛgveda for the Layman Shyam Ghosh 2002 English Partial translation 100 hymns Munshiram Manoharlal New Delhi Rig Veda Michael Witzel Toshifumi Goto 2007 German Partial translation Mandala 1 and 2 The authors are working on a second volume Published by Verlag der Weltreligionen ISBN 978 3 458 70001 2 ऋग व द Govind Chandra Pande 2008 Hindi Partial translation Mandala 3 and 5 Published by Lokbharti AllahabadThe Hymns of Rig Veda Tulsi Ram 2013 English Published by Vijaykumar Govindram Hasanand DelhiThe Rigveda Stephanie W Jamison and Joel P Brereton 2014 English 3 volume set published by Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 937018 4 Funded by the United States National Endowment for the Humanities in 2004 154 Rigveda Samhita Prasanna Chandra Gautam 2014 2016 English Hindi Sanskrit Text with Word To Word Meaning and English Translation and Hindi Translation with Mahesh Chandra Gautam Also contains Essence of a verse See alsoKesin Ascetic wanderer with mystical powers described in the Vedic Sanskrit hymns Mayabheda Sanskrit word meaning the breaching or removal of Avidya ignorance Notes a b c d It is certain that the hymns of the Rig Veda post date Indo Iranian separation of c 2000 BCE and probably that of the relevant Mitanni documents of c 1400 BCE Philological estimates tend to date the bulk of the text to the second half of the second millennium Max Muller the hymns of the Rig Veda are said to date from 1500 B C 155 The EIEC s v Indo Iranian languages p 306 gives 1500 1000 BCE Flood and Witzel both mention c 1500 1200 BCE 12 156 Anthony mentions c 1500 1300 BCE 13 Thomas Oberlies Die Religion des Rgveda 1998 p 158 based on cumulative evidence sets a wide range of 1700 1100 BCE 15 Oberlies 1998 p 155 gives an estimate of 1100 BCE for the youngest hymns in book 10 157 Witzel 1995 p 4 mentions c 1500 1200 BCE According to Witzel 1997 p 263 the whole Rig Vedic period may have lasted from c 1900 BCE to c 1200 BCE the bulk of the RV represents only 5 or 6 generations of kings and of the contemporary poets of the Puru and Bharata tribes It contains little else before and after this snapshot view of contemporary Rgvedic history as reported by these contemporary tape recordings On the other hand the whole Rgvedic period may have lasted even up to 700 years from the infiltration of the Indo Aryans into the subcontinent c 1900 B C at the utmost the time of collapse of the Indus civilization up to c 1200 B C the time of the introduction of iron which is first mentioned in the clearly post gvedic hymns of the Atharvaveda According to Edgar Polome the Hittite language Anitta text from the 17th century BCE is older This text is about the conquest of Kanesh city of Anatolia and mentions the same Indo European gods as in the Rigveda 8 The associated material has been preserved from two sakhas or schools known as Sakalya and Baṣkala The school specific commentaries are known as Brahmanas Aitareya brahmana and Kaushitaki brahmana Aranyakas Aitareya aranyaka and Kaushitaki aranyaka and Upanishads partly excerpted from the Aranyakas Bahvrca brahmana upanishad Aitareya upanishad Samhita upanishad Kaushitaki upanishad The horse ashva cattle sheep and goat play an important role in the Rigveda There are also references to the elephant Hastin Varana camel Ustra especially in Mandala 8 ass khara rasabha buffalo Mahisa wolf hyena lion Simha mountain goat sarabha and to the gaur in the Rigveda 46 The peafowl mayura the goose hamsa and the chakravaka Tadorna ferruginea are some birds mentioned in the Rigveda Semi myphical divinely inspired maharishis are believed to have composed the Rigvedic hymns The main contributors were Angiras Kanva Vasishtha and Vishvamitra Among the other celebrated authors are Atri Bhrigu Kashyapa Gritsamada Agastya Bharadvaja as well as female sages Lopamudra and Ghosha In a few cases more than one rishi is given signifying lack of certainty Witzel The original collection must have been the result of a strong political effort aiming at the re alignment of the various factions in the tribes and poets clans under a post Sudas Bharata hegemony which included at least sections of their former Puru enemies and some other tribes 51 Witzel To sum up as has been discussed in detail elsewhere Early Sanskritization the new Kuru dynasty of Parik it living in the Holy Land of Kuruk etra unified most of the Rigvedic tribes brought the poets and priests together in the common enterprise of collecting their texts and of reforming the ritual 53 The total number of verses and meter counts show minor variations with the manuscript 65 See Rig Bhashyam See Rigveda Samhita See 1 The birch bark text from which Muller produced his translation is held at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune India 150 See Rigveda Samhita References Construction of the Vedas VedicGranth Org Archived from the original on 17 July 2021 Retrieved 3 July 2020 Derived from the root ṛc to praise cf Dhatupatha 28 19 Monier Williams translates Rigveda as a Veda of Praise or Hymn Veda a b c Witzel 1997 pp 259 264 Antonio de Nicholas 2003 Meditations Through the Rig Veda Four Dimensional Man New York Authors Choice Press ISBN 978 0 595 26925 9 p 273 a b H Oldenberg Prolegomena 1888 Engl transl New Delhi Motilal 2004 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 p 3 Edwin F Bryant 2015 The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali A New Edition Translation and Commentary Farrar Straus and Giroux pp 565 566 ISBN 978 1 4299 9598 6 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 6 October 2019 Edgar Polome 2010 Per Sture Ureland ed Entstehung von Sprachen und Volkern glotto und ethnogenetische Aspekte europaischer Sprachen Walter de Gruyter p 51 ISBN 978 3 11 163373 2 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 6 October 2019 Wood 2007 Hexam 2011 p chapter 8 Dwyer 2013 a b Flood 1996 p 37 a b Anthony 2007 p 454 a b Witzel 2019 p 11 Incidentally the Indo Aryan loanwords in Mitanni confirm the date of the Rig Veda for ca 1200 1000 BCE The Rig Veda is a late Bronze age text thus from before 1000 BCE However the Mitanni words have a form of Indo Aryan that is slightly older than that Clearly the Rig Veda cannot be older than ca 1400 and taking into account a period needed for linguistic change it may not be much older than ca 1200 BCE a b Oberlies 1998 p 158 Lucas F Johnston Whitney Bauman 2014 Science and Religion One Planet Many Possibilities Routledge p 179 Werner Karel 1994 A Popular Dictionary of Hinduism Curzon Press ISBN 0 7007 1049 3 a b c Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 4 7 9 a b C Chatterjee 1995 Values in the Indian Ethos An Overview Journal of Human Values Vol 1 No 1 pp 3 12 Original text translated in English The Rig Veda Mandala 10 Hymn 117 Ralph T H Griffith Translator a b c Original Sanskrit Rigveda 10 129 Archived 25 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine Wikisource Translation 1 F Max Muller 1859 A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature Williams and Norgate London pp 559 565 Translation 2 Kenneth Kramer 1986 World Scriptures An Introduction to Comparative Religions Paulist Press p 21 ISBN 978 0 8091 2781 8 Translation 3 David Christian 2011 Maps of Time An Introduction to Big History University of California Press pp 17 18 ISBN 978 0 520 95067 2 Translation 4 Robert N Bellah 2011 Religion in Human Evolution Harvard University Press pp 510 511 ISBN 978 0 674 06309 9 Examples Verse 1 164 34 What is the ultimate limit of the earth What is the center of the universe What is the semen of the cosmic horse What is the ultimate source of human speech Verse 1 164 34 Who gave blood soul spirit to the earth How could the unstructured universe give origin to this structured world Verse 1 164 5 Where does the sun hide in the night Where do gods live Verse 1 164 6 What where is the unborn support for the born universe Verse 1 164 20 a hymn that is widely cited in the Upanishads as the parable of the Body and the Soul Two birds with fair wings inseparable companions Have found refuge in the same sheltering tree One incessantly eats from the fig tree the other not eating just looks on Rigveda Book 1 Hymn 164 Wikisource See translations of these verses Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 a b Antonio de Nicholas 2003 Meditations Through the Rig Veda Four Dimensional Man New York Authors Choice Press ISBN 978 0 595 26925 9 pp 64 69 Jan Gonda 1975 A History of Indian Literature Veda and Upanishads Volume 1 Part 1 Otto Harrassowitz Verlag ISBN 978 3 447 01603 2 pp 134 135 Klaus Klostermaier 1984 Mythologies and Philosophies of Salvation in the Theistic Traditions of India Wilfrid Laurier University Press p 6 ISBN 978 0 88920 158 3 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 3 February 2016 Lester Kurtz 2015 Gods in the Global Village SAGE Publications ISBN 978 1 4833 7412 3 p 64 Quote The 1 028 hymns of the Rigveda are recited at initiations weddings and funerals Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 5 6 Mallory 1989 a b c d e Witzel 2003 pp 68 69 The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted without the use of script in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalized early on This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures it is in fact something like a tape recording of ca 1500 500 BCE Not just the actual words but even the long lost musical tonal accent as in old Greek or in Japanese has been preserved up to the present On the other hand the Vedas have been written down only during the early second millennium CE while some sections such as a collection of the Upanishads were perhaps written down at the middle of the first millennium while some early unsuccessful attempts indicated by certain Smriti rules forbidding to write down the Vedas may have been made around the end of the first millennium BCE As a possible date ad quem for the RV one usually adduces the Hittite Mitanni agreement of the middle of the 14th cent B C which mentions four of the major Rgvedic gods mitra varuNa indra and the nAsatya azvin M Witzel Early Sanskritization Origin and development of the Kuru state Archived 5 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine The Vedic People Their History and Geography Rajesh Kochar 2000 Orient Longman ISBN 81 250 1384 9 Rigveda and River Saraswati class uidaho edu Archived 5 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine Asko Parpola 2015 The Roots of Hinduism The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization Oxford University Press p 149 ISBN 978 0 19 022693 0 Oldenberg 1894 tr Shrotri p 14 The Vedic diction has a great number of favourite expressions which are common with the Avestic though not with later Indian diction In addition there is a close resemblance between them in metrical form in fact in their overall poetic character If it is noticed that whole Avesta verses can be easily translated into the Vedic alone by virtue of comparative phonetics then this may often give not only correct Vedic words and phrases but also the verses out of which the soul of Vedic poetry appears to speak Bryant 2001 130 131 The oldest part of the Avesta is linguistically and culturally very close to the material preserved in the Rigveda There seems to be economic and religious interaction and perhaps rivalry operating here which justifies scholars in placing the Vedic and Avestan worlds in close chronological geographical and cultural proximity to each other not far removed from a joint Indo Iranian period Mallory 1989 p 36 Probably the least contested observation concerning the various Indo European dialects is that those languages grouped together as Indic and Iranian show such remarkable similarities with one another that we can confidently posit a period of Indo Iranian unity Mallory 1989 The identification of the Andronovo culture as Indo Iranian is commonly accepted by scholars a b c d e f g Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 57 59 a b Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 6 7 Michael Witzel 1996 Little Dowry No Sati The Lot of Women in the Vedic Period Journal of South Asia Women Studies Vol 2 No 4 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 40 180 1150 1162 Chakrabarti D K The Early Use of Iron in India 1992 Oxford University Press argues that it may refer to any metal If ayas refers to iron the Rigveda must date to the late second millennium at the earliest a b Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 p 5 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 p 744 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 50 57 a b Frits Staal 2008 Discovering the Vedas Origins Mantras Rituals Insights Penguin pp 23 24 ISBN 978 0 14 309986 4 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 19 October 2019 Franklin C Southworth 2016 Hock Hans Henrich Bashir Elena eds The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia pp 241 374 doi 10 1515 9783110423303 004 ISBN 978 3 11 042330 3 Among others Macdonell and Keith and Talageri 2000 Lal 2005 Michael Witzel 2012 George Erdosy ed The Indo Aryans of Ancient South Asia Language Material Culture and Ethnicity Walter de Gruyter pp 98 110 with footnotes ISBN 978 3 11 081643 3 Quote p 99 Although the Middle Late Vedic periods are the earliest for which we can reconstruct a linguistic map the situation even at the time of the Indua Civilisation and certainly during the time of the earliest texts of the Rigveda cannot have been very different There are clear indications that the speakers of Rigvedic Sanskrit knew and interacted with Dravidian and Munda speakers a b Witzel 1997 p 262 Witzel 1997 p 261 Witzel 1997 pp 261 266 a b Witzel 1997 p 263 Witzel 1997 p 263 264 Witzel 1997 p 265 Keith Arthur Berriedale 1920 Rigveda Brahmanas the Aitareya and Kauṣitaki Brahmaṇas of the Rigveda Cambridge Mass Harvard University Press p 44 George Erdosy 1995 pp 68 69 a b c d Pincott Frederic 1887 The First Maṇḍala of the Ṛig Veda Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Cambridge University Press 19 4 598 624 doi 10 1017 s0035869x00019717 S2CID 163189831 Archived from the original on 6 September 2019 Retrieved 12 March 2020 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 10 11 Barbara A Holdrege 2012 Veda and Torah Transcending the Textuality of Scripture State University of New York Press pp 229 230 ISBN 978 1 4384 0695 4 George Erdosy 1995 pp 68 69 180 189 Gregory Possehl amp Michael Witzel 2002 pp 391 393 Bryant 2001 pp 66 67 Kireet Joshi 1991 The Veda and Indian Culture An Introductory Essay Motilal Banarsidass pp 101 102 ISBN 978 81 208 0889 8 A history of Sanskrit Literature Arthur MacDonell Oxford University Press Appleton amp Co p 56 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 p 74 a b F Max Muller 1891 Physical Religion Longmans amp Green pp 373 379 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 6 October 2019 K Meenakshi 2002 Making of Paṇini In George Cardona Madhav Deshpande Peter Edwin Hook eds Indian Linguistic Studies Festschrift in Honor of George Cardona Motilal Banarsidass p 235 ISBN 978 81 208 1885 9 The oldest manuscript in the Pune collection dates to the 15th century The Benares Sanskrit University has a Rigveda manuscript of the 14th century Older palm leaf manuscripts are rare Witzel 1997 p 259 footnote 7 Wilhelm Rau 1955 Zur Textkritik der Brhadaranyakopanisad ZDMG 105 2 p 58 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 p 18 Witzel 2003 p 69 The RV has been transmitted in one recension the sakha of Sakalya while others such as the Baṣkala text have been lost or are only rumored about so far Maurice Winternitz History of Sanskrit Literature Revised English Translation Edition 1926 vol 1 p 57 says that Of the different recensions of this Saṃhita which once existed only a single one has come down to us He adds in a note p 57 note 1 that this refers to the recension of the Sakalaka School Sures Chandra Banerji A Companion To Sanskrit Literature Second Edition 1989 Motilal Banarsidass Delhi pp 300 301 says that Of the 21 recensions of this Veda that were known at one time we have got only two viz Sakala and Vaṣkala Maurice Winternitz History of Sanskrit Literature Revised English Translation Edition 1926 vol 1 p 283 Mantras of khila hymns were called khailika and not ṛcas Khila meant distinct part of Rgveda separate from regular hymns all regular hymns make up the akhila or the whole recognised in a sakha although khila hymns have sanctified roles in rituals from ancient times Hermann Grassmann had numbered the hymns 1 through to 1028 putting the valakhilya at the end Griffith s translation has these 11 at the end of the eighth mandala after 8 92 in the regular series cf Preface to Khila section by C G Kashikar in Volume 5 of Pune Edition of RV in references These Khilani hymns have also been found in a manuscript of the Sakala recension of the Kashmir Rigveda and are included in the Poone edition equalling 40 times 10 800 the number of bricks used for the uttaravedi the number is motivated numerologically rather than based on an actual syllable count Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 p 16 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 13 14 Barbara A West 2010 Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania Infobase p 282 ISBN 978 1 4381 1913 7 Archived from the original on 27 July 2023 Retrieved 12 May 2016 Michael McDowell Nathan Robert Brown 2009 World Religions at Your Fingertips Penguin p 208 ISBN 978 1 101 01469 1 Archived from the original on 20 January 2023 Retrieved 12 May 2016 Rigveda UNESCO Memory of the World Programme Archived from the original on 17 January 2014 cf Editorial notes in various volumes of Pune Edition see references John Collinson Nesfield 1893 A Catalogue of Sanscrit MSS Existing in Oudh Discovered Oct Dec 1874 Jan Sept 1875 1876 1877 1879 1885 1887 1890 pp 1 27 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 7 October 2019 Rigvedasamhita Rigvedasamhita Padapatha and Rigvedasamhitabhashya Archived 13 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine Memory of the World Register UNESCO 2006 page 2 Quote One manuscript written on birch bark is in the ancient Sharada script and the remaining 29 manuscripts are written in the Devanagari script All the manuscripts are in Sanskrit language Julius Eggeling 1887 Vedic manuscripts Catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts in the library of the India office Part 1 of 7 India Office London OCLC 492009385 Arthur Coke Burnell 1869 Catalogue of a Collection of Sanskrit Manuscripts Trubner pp 5 8 A copy of the Rigveda samhita Books 1 to 3 in Tamil Grantha script is preserved at the Cambridge University Sanskrit Manuscript Library MS Or 2366 This talapatra palm leaf manuscript was likely copied sometime between mid 18th and late 19th century Ṛgveda Saṃhita MS Or 2366 Archived 7 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine University of Cambridge UK A B Keith 1920 Rigveda Brahmanas Harvard Oriental Series Vol 25 Harvard University Press p 103 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 7 October 2019 Colin Mackenzie Horace Hayman Wilson 1828 Mackenzie Collection A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts and Other Articles Illustrative of the Literature History Statistics and Antiquities of the South of India Asiatic Press pp 1 3 Witzel 1997 p 284 Rigvedasamhita Rigvedasamhita Padapatha and Rigvedasamhitabhashya Archived 13 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine Memory of the World Register UNESCO 2006 page 3 Quote A particularly important manuscript in this collection is the one from Kashmir written on birch bark in the Sharada script No 5 1875 76 Avari 2007 p 77 a b c d e James Hastings Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics at Google Books Vol 7 Harvard Divinity School TT Clark pp 51 56 a b Antonio de Nicholas 2003 Meditations Through the Rig Veda Four Dimensional Man New York Authors Choice Press ISBN 978 0 595 26925 9 pp 273 274 Edmund Gosse Short histories of the literatures of the world p 181 at Google Books New York Appleton p 181 Robert Hume Mundaka Upanishad Thirteen Principal Upanishads Oxford University Press pp 374 375 F Max Muller 1884 The Upanishads Part 2 Mundaka Upanishad Oxford University Press pp 38 40 Edited with an English translation by M Haug 2 vols Bombay 1863 An edition in Roman transliteration with extracts from the commentary has been published by Th Aufrecht Bonn 1879 Paul Deussen Sixty Upanishads of the Veda Volume 1 Motilal Banarsidass ISBN 978 81 208 1468 4 pp 7 14 Paul Deussen Sixty Upanishads of the Veda Volume 1 Motilal Banarsidass ISBN 978 81 208 1468 4 pp 21 23 a b c d Witzel 2003 pp 69 70 a b Witzel 2003 p 71 Nadkarni M V 2014 Ethics for our Times Essays in Gandhian Perspective 2nd ed Oxford University Press pp 205 206 ISBN 978 0 19 908935 2 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 8 October 2019 Nadkarni M V 2011 Ethics in Hinduism Ethics For Our Times Essays in Gandhian Perspective Oxford University Press pp 211 239 doi 10 1093 acprof oso 9780198073864 003 0010 ISBN 978 0 19 807386 4 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 1586 1587 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 1363 1366 a b see e g Jeaneane D Fowler 2002 Perspectives of Reality An Introduction to the Philosophy of Hinduism Sussex University Press ISBN 978 1 898723 93 6 pp 38 45 GJ Larson RS Bhattacharya and K Potter 2014 The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Volume 4 Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 60441 1 pp 5 6 109 110 180 The Rig Veda Mandala 1 Hymn 164 Wikisource the free online library En wikisource org 14 April 2012 Archived from the original on 6 May 2019 Retrieved 10 March 2017 a b Stephen Phillips 2009 Yoga Karma and Rebirth A Brief History and Philosophy Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0 231 14485 8 p 401 Garry Trompf 2005 In Search of Origins 2nd Edition Sterling ISBN 978 1 932705 51 5 pp 60 61 Thomas Paul Urumpackal 1972 Organized Religion According to Dr S Radhakrishnan Georgian University Press ISBN 978 88 7652 155 3 pp 229 232 with footnote 133 Franklin Edgerton 1996 The Bhagavad Gita Cambridge University Press Reprinted by Motilal Banarsidass ISBN 978 81 208 1149 2 pp 11 12 Elizabeth Reed 2001 Hindu Literature Or the Ancient Books of India Simon Publishers ISBN 978 1 931541 03 9 pp 16 19 a strong traditional streak that by Western standards would undoubtedly be thought atheistic hymn 10 130 can be read to be in an atheistic spirit Michael Ruse 2015 Atheism Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 933458 2 p 185 a b c d e Frits Staal 2009 Discovering the Vedas Origins Mantras Rituals Insights Penguin ISBN 978 0 14 309986 4 pp xv xvi D Sharma 2011 Classical Indian Philosophy A Reader Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0 231 13399 9 pp 196 197 Jan Westerhoff 2009 Nagarjuna s Madhyamaka A Philosophical Introduction Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 538496 3 p 290 a b c Harold G Coward 1990 p 106 Frederick M Smith 1994 Puranaveda in Laurie L Patton ed Authority Anxiety and Canon Essays in Vedic Interpretation Archived 7 September 2023 at the Wayback Machine SUNY Press p 99 Arthur Llewellyn Basham 1989 in Kenneth G Zysk The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism Archived 7 September 2023 at the Wayback Machine Oxford University Press p 7 Ram Gopal 1983 The History and Principles of Vedic Interpretation Archived 7 September 2023 at the Wayback Machine Concept Publishing Company ch 2 pp 7 20 a b Roshen Dalal 2014 The Vedas An Introduction to Hinduism s Sacred Texts Penguin Books pp 16 17 See also the glossary on Vyasa ISBN 978 81 8475 763 7 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 6 October 2019 edited in 8 volumes by Vishva Bandhu 1963 1966 Salmond Noel A 2004 Dayananda Saraswati Hindu iconoclasts Rammohun Roy Dayananda Sarasvati and Nineteenth Century Polemics Against Idolatry Wilfrid Laurier University Press pp 114 115 ISBN 978 0 88920 419 5 a b c The Political Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo by V P Varma 1960 Motilal Banarsidass p 139 ISBN 978 81 208 0686 3 Sri Aurobindo 1998 p 20 21 N Singh 1992 The Vivaha Marriage Samskara as a Paradigm for Religio cultural Integration in Hinduism Archived 24 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine Journal for the Study of Religion Vol 5 No 1 pp 31 40 Swami Vivekananda 2005 Prabuddha Bharata Or Awakened India Prabuddha Bharata Press pp 362 594 ISBN 9788178231808 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 24 October 2018 a b c d Andrea Pinkney 2014 Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia Editors Bryan Turner and Oscar Salemink Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 63503 5 pp 31 32 Jeffrey Haines 2008 Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 60029 3 p 80 Axel Michaels 2004 Hinduism Past and Present Princeton University Press p 18 Archived 4 May 2023 at the Wayback Machine see also Julius Lipner 2012 Hindus Their Religious Beliefs and Practices Routledge p 77 Archived 4 May 2023 at the Wayback Machine and Brian K Smith 2008 Hinduism p 101 Archived 13 May 2023 at the Wayback Machine in Jacob Neusner ed Sacred Texts and Authority Wipf and Stock Publishers N Kazanas 2002 Indigenous Indo Aryans and the Rigveda Journal of Indo European Studies Vol 30 pp 275 289 N Kazanas 2000 A new date for the Rgveda in G C Pande Ed Chronology and Indian Philosophy special issue of the JICPR Delhi N D Kazanas 2001 Indo European Deities and the Rgveda Journal of Indo European Studies Vol 30 pp 257 264 ND Kazanas 2003 Final Reply Journal of Indo European Studies Vol 31 pp 187 189 Edwin Bryant 2004 The Quest for the Origins of the Vedic Culture Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 516947 8 Tilak Bal Gangadhar 2 June 2008 Orion Or Researches Into The Antiquity Of The Vedas Kessinger Publishing LLC ISBN 978 1 4365 5691 0 Agrawal D P 2002 Comments on Indigenous IndoAryans Journal of Indo European Studies Vol 30 pp 129 135 A Parpola 2002 Comments on Indigenous Indo Aryans Journal of Indo European Studies Vol 30 pp 187 191 Michael Witzel The Pleiades and the Bears viewed from inside the Vedic texts EVJS Vol 5 1999 issue 2 December Elst Koenraad 1999 Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate Aditya Prakashan ISBN 978 81 86471 77 7 Bryant Edwin and Laurie L Patton 2005 The Indo Aryan Controversy Routledge Curzon ISBN 978 0 7007 1463 6 Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 3 76 John J Lowe 2015 Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit The Syntax and Semantics of Adjectival Verb Forms Oxford University Press p 329 ISBN 978 0 19 870136 1 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 13 October 2016 Frits Staal 2009 Discovering the Vedas Origins Mantras Rituals Insights Penguin ISBN 978 0 14 309986 4 p 107 A A MacDonnel 2000 print edition India s Past A Survey of Her Literatures Religions Languages and Antiquities Asian Educational Services ISBN 978 81 206 0570 1 p 15 Thomson Karen Slocum Jonathan Ancient Sanskrit Online Linguistics Research Center University of Texas at Austin Archived from the original on 16 July 2006 Retrieved 17 February 2023 Karen Thomson 2016 Speak for itself how the long history of guesswork and commentary on a unique corpus of poetry has rendered it incomprehensible PDF Times Literary Supplement Jan 8 3 Archived PDF from the original on 29 January 2022 Retrieved 29 January 2022 review of Jamison and Brereton The Rigveda The Earliest Religious Poetry of India OUP 2014 Karen Thomson 2009 A still undeciphered text how the scientific approach to the Rigveda would open up Indo European studies PDF Journal of Indo European Studies 37 1 47 Archived PDF from the original on 11 January 2022 Retrieved 30 January 2022 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Stephanie W Jamison tr amp Joel P Brereton tr 2014 pp 19 20 Rig Veda Sanhita Vol 1 Dspace wbpublibnet gov in 8080 21 March 2006 Archived from the original on 10 February 2017 Retrieved 10 March 2017 Collection Items Rig veda Sanhita British Library Archived from the original on 10 September 2021 Retrieved 10 September 2021 Wilson H H Ṛig Veda Sanhita A Collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns 6 vols London 1850 88 reprint Cosmo Publications 1977 B van Nooten and G Holland Rig Veda A metrically restored text Cambridge Harvard Oriental Series 1994 Karen Thomson and Jonathan Slocum 2006 Online edition of van Nooten and Holland s metrically restored text University of Texas https lrc la utexas edu books rigveda RV00 Archived 4 July 2022 at the Wayback Machine neh gov Archived 1 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 22 March 2007 Muller F Max 1883 India What Can It Teach Us London Longmans Green amp Co p 202 Archived from the original on 7 July 2023 Retrieved 7 September 2023 Witzel 1995 p 4 Oberlies 1998 p 155 BibliographyEditions The Rigveda The Earliest Religious Poetry of India Vol 1 3 Translated by Stephanie W Jamison Joel P Brereton New York Oxford University Press 2014 ISBN 978 0 19 937018 4 Stephanie W Jamison tr Joel P Brereton tr 2014 The Rigveda The Earliest Religious Poetry of India 3 volume set Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 937018 4 Archived from the original on 7 September 2023 Retrieved 6 October 2019 Stephanie W Jamison tr Joel P Brereton tr 2014a The Rigveda The Earliest Religious Poetry of India Vol 1 Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 972078 1 editio princeps Friedrich Max Muller The Hymns of the Rigveda with Sayana s commentary London 1849 75 6 vols 2nd ed 4 vols Oxford 1890 92 Theodor Aufrecht 2nd ed Bonn 1877 Sontakke N S 1933 Rgveda Samhita Srimat Sayanacharya virachita bhaṣya sameta Sayanacharya commentary First ed Vaidika Samsodhana Maṇḍala The editorial board for the First Edition included N S Sontakke Managing Editor V K Rajvade M M Vasudevasastri and T S Varadarajasarma B van Nooten und G Holland Rig Veda a metrically restored text Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies Harvard University Harvard University Press Cambridge Massachusetts and London England 1994 Rgveda Samhita Text in Devanagari English translation Notes and indices by H H Wilson Ed W F Webster originally in 1888 Published Nag Publishers 1990 11A U A Jawaharnagar Delhi 7 Commentary Sayana 14th century ed Muller 1849 75 German translation ed Muller original commentary of Sayana in Sanskrit based on 24 manuscripts ed Sontakke et al published by Vaidika Samsodhana Mandala Pune 2nd ed 1972 in 5 volumes Rgveda Samhita Srimat sayanacharya virachita bhaṣya sameta ed by Sontakke et al published by Vaidika Samsodhana Mandala Pune 9 1972 in 5 volumes It is original commentary of Sayana in Sanskrit based on over 60 manuscripts Sri Aurobindo 1998 The Secret of veda PDF Sri Aurobindo Ashram press archived PDF from the original on 22 September 2020 retrieved 27 July 2020 Sri Aurobindo Hymns to the Mystic Fire Commentary on the Rig Veda Lotus Press Twin Lakes Wisconsin ISBN 0 914955 22 5 Rig Veda Hymns to the Mystic Fire Sri Aurobindo INDEX Archived 6 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine Raimundo Pannikar 1972 The Vedic Experience University of California PressPhilology Harold G Coward 1990 The Philosophy of the Grammarians in Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Volume 5 Editor Karl Potter Princeton University Press ISBN 978 81 208 0426 5 Vashishtha Narayan Jha A Linguistic Analysis of the Rgveda Padapatha Sri Satguru Publications Delhi 1992 Bjorn Merker Rig Veda Riddles In Nomad Perspective Mongolian Studies Journal of the Mongolian Society XI 1988 Oberlies Thomas 1998 Die Religion des Rgveda Wien a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Oldenberg Hermann 1894 Hymnen des Rigveda 1 Teil Metrische und textgeschichtliche Prolegomena Berlin 1888 please add Wiesbaden 1982 Die Religion des Veda Berlin 1894 Stuttgart 1917 Stuttgart 1927 Darmstadt 1977 Vedic Hymns The Sacred Books of the East Vol l 46 ed Friedrich Max Muller Oxford 1897 Adolf Kaegi The Rigveda The Oldest Literature of the Indians trans R Arrowsmith Boston Ginn and Co 1886 2004 reprint ISBN 978 1 4179 8205 9 Mallory J P et al 1989 Indo Iranian Languages in Encyclopedia of Indo European Culture Fitzroy Dearborn published 1997 Historical Anthony David W 2007 The Horse The Wheel And Language How Bronze Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World Princeton University Press Avari Burjor 2007 India The Ancient Past London Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 35616 9 Bryant Edwin 2001 The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture The Indo Aryan Migration Debate Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 513777 4 Dwyer Rachel 2013 What Do Hindus Believe Granta Books ISBN 978 1 84708 940 3 Flood Gavin D 1996 An Introduction to Hinduism Cambridge University Press George Erdosy 1995 The Indo Aryans of Ancient South Asia Language Material Culture and Ethnicity Walter de Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 014447 5 Hexam Irving 2011 Understanding World Religions An Interdisciplinary Approach Wilfrid Laurier Univ Press ISBN 978 0 310 31448 6 Gregory Possehl Michael Witzel 2002 Vedic In Peter N Peregrine Melvin Ember eds Encyclopedia of Prehistory Springer ISBN 978 1 4684 7135 9 Lal B B 2005 The Homeland of the Aryans Evidence of Rigvedic Flora and Fauna amp Archaeology New Delhi Aryan Books International Talageri Shrikant The Rigveda A Historical Analysis 2000 ISBN 81 7742 010 0 Witzel Michael 1995 Early Sanskritization Origin and Development of the Kuru state PDF EJVS vol 1 no 4 archived from the original PDF on 20 February 2012 Witzel Michael 1997 The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools The Social and Political Milieu PDF in Michael Witzel ed Inside the Texts Beyond the Texts New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas Harvard Oriental Series Opera Minora vol 2 Cambridge Harvard University Press pp 257 348 archived PDF from the original on 4 August 2020 retrieved 22 September 2015 Witzel Michael 2003 Vedas and Upanisads In Flood Gavin ed The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism Blackwell Publishing ISBN 978 0 631 21535 6 Witzel Michael 2019 Beyond the Flight of the Falcon In Thapar Romila ed Which of Us are Aryans Rethinking the Concept of Our Origins Aleph ISBN 978 93 88292 38 2 Wood Michael 2007 The Story of India Hardcover BBC Worldwide ISBN 978 0 563 53915 5External links nbsp Sanskrit Wikisource has original text related to this article Original Sanskrit text in Devanagari nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Original Sanskrit text in ASCII transliteration nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Rigveda nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rig Veda Text For links to translations see Translations The Rig Veda The complete Rig Veda in English translation at holybooks com Devanagari and transliteration experimental online text at sacred texts com ITRANS Devanagari transliteration online text and PDF several versions prepared by Detlef Eichler Transliteration metrically restored Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine online text at Linguistics Research Center Univ of Texas The Hymns of the Rigveda Editio Princeps by Friedrich Max Muller large PDF files of book scans Two editions London 1877 Samhita and Pada texts and Oxford 1890 92 with Sayana s commentary Works by or about Rigveda at Internet ArchiveDictionary Rigvedic Dictionary by Hermann Grassmann online database uni koeln de Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Rigveda amp oldid 1174291793, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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