The Rigveda or Rig Veda (, , from ऋच्, "praise"Derived from the root "to praise", cf. Dhātupātha 28.19. Monier-Williams translates Rigveda as "a Veda of Praise or Hymn-Veda". 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.Antonio de Nicholas (2003), Meditations Through the Rig Veda: Four-Dimensional Man, New York: Authors Choice Press, , p. 273 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.
The Rigveda is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text. Its early layers are among the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Most scholars believe that the sounds and texts of the Rigveda have been orally transmitted with precision since the 2nd millennium BCE, through methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity,: "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" though the dates are not confirmed and remain contentious until concrete evidence surfaces. 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 1500 and 1000 BCE, although a wider approximation of 19001200 BCE has also been given.
The text is layered, consisting of the Samhita, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads. The Rigveda Samhita is the core text and is a collection of 10 books (s) with 1,028 hymns (s) in about 10,600 verses (called , eponymous of the name Rigveda). In the eight booksBooks 2 through 9that were composed the earliest, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology, rites required to earn the favour of the gods, as well as praise them.Werner, Karel (1994). A Popular Dictionary of Hinduism. Curzon Press. . The more recent books (Books 1 and 10) in part also deal with philosophical or speculative questions, virtues such as dāna (charity) in society,C Chatterjee (1995), , Journal of Human Values, Vol 1, No 1, pp. 312;Original text translated in English: The Rig Veda, Mandala 10, Hymn 117, Ralph T. H. Griffith (Translator); questions about the origin of the universe and the nature of the divine,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: and other metaphysical issues in their hymns.Antonio de Nicholas (2003), Meditations Through the Rig Veda: Four-Dimensional Man, New York: Authors Choice Press, , pp. 6469;Jan Gonda (1975), A History of Indian Literature: Veda and Upanishads, Volume 1, Part 1, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, , pp. 134135.
The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to the most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer. The Rigveda's preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European. 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.Lester Kurtz (2015), Gods in the Global Village, SAGE Publications, , p. 64, Quote: "The 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda are recited at initiations, weddings and funerals...."
Dating and historical context
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. Philological estimates tend to date the bulk of the text to the second half of the second millennium BCE. Being composed in an early Indo-Aryan language, the hymns must post-date the Indo-Iranian separation, dated to roughly 2000 BCE. 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 (1350 BCE), which also mention the Vedic gods such as Varuna, Mitra and Indra."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 Some scholars have suggested that the Rig Veda was composed on the banks of a river in Haraxvaiti province in southern Afghanistan (Persian: Harahvati; Sanskrit: Sarasvati; possibly the Helmand or Arghandab). Other evidence also points to a composition date close to 1400 BCE.Kochar, Rajesh (2000), The Vedic People: Their History and Geography, Orient Longman Rigveda and River Saraswati: class.uidaho.edu The earliest texts were composed in the 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.
The Rigvedas 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 and 1000 BCE. According to Michael Witzel, the codification of the Rigveda took place at the end of the Rigvedic period between and 1000 BCE, in the early Kuru kingdom. Asko Parpola argues that the Rigveda was systematized around 1000 BCE, at the time of the Kuru kingdom.
No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that the oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition.
Historical and societal context The Rigveda is far more archaic than any other Indo-Aryan text. For this reason, it was in the centre 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, (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." "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." deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times, 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..." often associated with the early Andronovo culture of . "The identification of the Andronovo culture as Indo-Iranian is commonly accepted by scholars."
The Rigveda offers no direct evidence of social or political systems in the Vedic era, whether ordinary or elite. 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. Social stratification seems embryonic, then and later a social ideal rather than a social reality. The society was semi-nomadic and pastoral with evidence of agriculture since hymns mention plow and celebrate agricultural divinities. There was division of labor and a complementary relationship between kings and poet-priests but no discussion of a relative status of social classes. 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 1.179.12), 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. Elaborate and aesthetic hymns on wedding suggest rites of passage had developed during the Rigvedic period. There is little evidence of dowry and no evidence of sati in it or related Vedic texts.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
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; however, there is no discussion of rice cultivation. The term áyas (metal) occurs in the Rigveda, but it is unclear which metal it was.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. Iron is not mentioned in Rigveda, something scholars have used to help date Rigveda to have been composed before 1000 BCE. Hymn 5.63 mentions "metal cloaked in gold", suggesting that metalworking had progressed in the Vedic culture.