The Rig Veda
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Selection or partial work
- Authorship:
- Anonymous or composite
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 3 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~110,000 words · 504 passages
Cite this work
- APARig Veda. (n.d.). The Rig Veda. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/rig-veda/the-rig-veda
- MLARig Veda. The Rig Veda. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/rig-veda/the-rig-veda.
- ChicagoRig Veda. The Rig Veda. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/rig-veda/the-rig-veda.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The Rigveda, the oldest text of India and among the oldest in the world: one thousand and twenty-eight hymns in Vedic Sanskrit, transmitted orally with a precision that is hard to credit.
Context and history
It was composed around the second millennium BC and preserved for centuries without writing, memorised by priestly families using cross-recitation techniques that made any error detectable: the text we read is probably more faithful than that of many medieval European manuscripts. The hymns are invocations to Agni, Indra, Varuna, Soma and others, for fire rituals. What strikes the modern reader is their strangeness: they are texts of a culture we have no way of reconstructing whole, and many passages are obscure even to the ancient Indian commentators. The famous hymn 10.129, on the origin of the world, ends by saying that perhaps not even the god who watches it from above knows.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
7 They anointed'^ the Man, the sacrifice® born at the beginning, upon the sacred grass.® With bim the gods, Sadhyas,^® and sages sacrificed. 8 From that sacrifice® in which everything was offered, the melted fat^ was collected, and he^ made it into those beasts who live in the air, in the forest, and in villages. 7 From that sacrifice in which everything was offered, the verses and chants were born, the metres were born from it, and from it the formulas were born.^ 10 Horses were born from it, and those other animals that have two rows of teeth;i^ cows were born from it, and from It goats and sheep were born. CREATION 11 When they divided the Man, into how many parts did they apporOdh him? What do they call his mouth, his two arms and thighs and feet? , 12 His mouth became the Brahmin; his arms were made mto the Warrior, his thighs the People, and from his feet the Servants were born.^® 1} The moon was bom from his mind; from his eye the sun was bom. Indra and Agm came from his mouth, and from'his vital breath the Wmd was born. 14 From his navel the middle realm of space arose; from his head the sky evolved. From his two feet came the earth, and the quarters of the sky from his ear. Thus they set the worlds m order. ij There were seven enclosmg-sticks^'^ for him, and thrice seven fuel-sticks, when the gods, spreadmg the sacrifice, bound the Man as the sacrifiaal beast. 16 With the sacrifice the gods sacrificed to the sacrifice,^® These were the first ritual laws.^® These very powers reached the dome of the sky where dwell the Sadhyas,^® the anaent gods.…