Rigveda

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

Rigveda
Rigveda (padapāṭha) manuscript in Devanāgarī, early 19th century. After a scribal benediction (śrīgaṇéśāyanamaḥ oṁ), 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.
Information
ReligionHistorical Vedic religion
Hinduism
LanguageVedic Sanskrit
Periodc. 1500–1000 BCE[note 1] (Vedic period)
Chapters10 mandalas
Verses10,552 mantras[1]
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The Rigveda or Rig Veda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद, IAST: ṛgveda, from ऋच्, "praise"[2] and वेद, "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]

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 required to earn the favour of the gods,[17] as well as praise them.[18][19] The more recent books (Books 1 and 10) in part also deal with philosophical or speculative questions,[19] virtues such as dāna (charity) in society,[20] questions about the origin of the universe and the nature of the divine,[21][22] and other metaphysical issues in their hymns.[23]

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.[24][25]


Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ "Construction of the Vedas". 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. ^ 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. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, p. 3.
  7. ^ Bryant, Edwin F. (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. Archived from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  8. ^ Polomé, Edgar (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. Archived from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  9. ^ Wood 2007.
  10. ^ Hexam 2011, p. chapter 8.
  11. ^ Dwyer 2013.
  12. ^ Flood 1996, p. 37.
  13. ^ Anthony 2007, p. 454.
  14. ^ 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. ^ Oberlies 1998, p. 158.
  16. ^ Lucas F. Johnston, Whitney Bauman (2014). Science and Religion: One Planet, Many Possibilities. Routledge. p. 179.
  17. ^ Bauer, Susan Wise (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome (1st ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-393-05974-8.
  18. ^ Werner, Karel (1994). A Popular Dictionary of Hinduism. Curzon Press. ISBN 0-7007-1049-3.
  19. ^ a b Stephanie W. Jamison (tr.) & Joel P. Brereton (tr.) 2014, pp. 4, 7–9.
  20. ^ 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);
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference 3translations was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ 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)
  23. ^ 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.
  24. ^ 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.
  25. ^ 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...."