Rigveda
The Rigveda or Rig Veda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts known as the Vedas. 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, 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, 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 with 1,028 hymns in about 10,600 verses. 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. The more recent books in part also deal with philosophical or speculative questions, virtues such as dāna in society, questions about the origin of the universe and the nature of the divine, and other metaphysical issues in their hymns.
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, making it probably the world's oldest religious text in continued use.
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, which also mention the Vedic gods such as Varuna, Mitra and Indra. Some scholars have suggested that the Rig Veda was composed on the banks of a river in Haraxvaiti province in southern Afghanistan. Other evidence also points to a composition date close to 1400 BCE. 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, deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times, often associated with the early Andronovo culture of.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, Godhā, Ghoṣā Kākṣīvatī, Romaśā, Lopāmudrā, Viśvavārā Ātreyī, Śacī Paulomī, Śaśvatī Āṅgirasī. 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.
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 occurs in the Rigveda, but it is unclear which metal it was. 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.
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. However, about 300 words in the Rigveda are neither Indo-Aryan nor Indo-European, states the Sanskrit and Vedic literature scholar Frits Staal. Of these 300, manysuch as kapardin, kumara, kumari, kikatacome from Munda or proto-Munda languages found in the eastern and northeastern region of India, with roots in Austroasiatic languages. The others in the list of 300such as mleccha and nirhave Dravidian roots found in the southern region of India, or are of Tibeto-Burman origins. A few non-Indo-European words in the Rigvedasuch as for camel, mustard and donkeybelong to a possibly lost Central Asian language. 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.
Text
Composition
The "family books" 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.Tradition associates a rishi with each of the Rigveda. Most sūktas are attributed to single composers; for each of them the Rigveda includes a lineage-specific hymn. In all, 10 families of rishis account for more than 95 per cent of the s.
| Book | Clan | Region |
| 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, by members of the early Kuru tribe, when the centre of Vedic culture moved east from the Punjab into what is now Uttar Pradesh. 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. 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. This collection was re-arranged and expanded in the Kuru kingdom, reflecting the establishment of a new Bharata-Puru lineage and new srauta rituals.The fixing of the Vedic chant and of the padapatha, occurred during the later Brahmana period, in roughly the 6th century BCE.
The surviving form of the Rigveda is based on an early Iron Age collection that established the core 'family books' 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 and orthoepic changes to the Vedic Sanskrit such as the regularization of sandhi.