RigVeda
The Rigveda, a compound of "praise, verse “and Veda "knowledge" is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns dedicated to the gods. It is counted among the four Hindu canonical sacred texts known as the Vedas. Based on philological and linguistic evidences, the Rigveda was composed roughly between 1700–1100 BCE (the early Vedic period) in the Sapta Sindhu region (a land of seven great rivers) which is now believed to be the region around Punjab, putting it among the world's oldest religious texts in continued use, as well as among the oldest texts of any language. There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities between the Rigveda and the early Iranian Avesta, deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times, often associated with the early culture of ca. 2000 BC.
Today, this text is revered by Hindus around the world. Its verses are recited at prayers, religious functions and other auspicious occasions.
Text
The Rigveda consists of 1,028 hymns (or 1,017 discounting the hymns 8.49–8.59) in Vedic Sanskrit, many of which are intended for various sacrificial rituals. This long collection of short hymns is mostly devoted to the praise of the gods. It is organized in 10 books, known as Mandalas. Each mandala consists of hymns, called, literally, "well recited, eulogy"), which in turn consist individual verses called, plural. The Mandalas are by no means of equal length or age: The "family books", mandalas 2-7, are considered the oldest part of the Rigveda, being the shortest books, arranged by length, accounting for 38% of the text. RV 8 and RV 9, likely comprising hymns of mixed age, account for 15% and 9%, respectively.
Preservation
The text in its surviving form was redacted in the Iron Age (c. 9th to 7th century BCE). The fixed text was preserved for more than a millennium by oral tradition alone and was probably not put in writing until the Gupta period. It is preserved by two major ("branches", i. e. schools or recessions), Considering its great age, the text is spectacularly well preserved and uncorrupted, the two recessions being practically identical, so that scholarly editions can mostly do without a critical apparatus. Associated to be the Aitareya-Brahmana. This includes the Khilani and has the Kausitaki-Brahmana associated to it.
This compilation or redaction included the arrangement in books as well as orthoepic changes, such as regularization of Sandi. It took place centuries after the composition of the earliest hymns, about co-eval to the redaction of the other Vedas.
From the time of its redaction, the text has been handed down in two versions: The Samhitapatha has all Sanskrit rules of sandhi applied and is the text used for recitation. The Padapatha has each word isolated in its pausa form and is used for memorization. The Padapatha is, as it were, a commentary to the Samhitapatha, but the two seem to be about co-eval.
Each Book (Maṇḍala) is divided into which some modern publishers often omit (each contains many hymns or suktas).An alternative scheme is into Aṣṭaka (eighths), (chapter) and Varga (class). Some publishers give both classifications in a single edition.
Hermann Grossman had numbered the hymns 1 through to 1028, putting the at the end. It has become common practice now-a-days to regard all 11 hymns as integral part of the Rigveda, but only 1017 hymns, putting in the category of mantras of hymns were called and not (Khila meant distinct 'part' of Rigveda separate from regular hymns; all regular hymns make up the akhila or the whole recognised in a, although khila hymns have sanctified roles in rituals from ancient times), while the includes 8 of these hymns among regular hymns, making a total of 1025 regular hymns .The entire 1028 hymns of the Rigveda, in the 1877 edition of Afresh, contain a total of 10,552 verses, or 39,831 Padas. The Shatapatha Brahmana gives the number of syllables to be 432,000, 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.
Contents
The chief gods of the Rigveda are Indra, a heroic god who is praised for having slain his enemy Vrtra, Agni, the sacrificial fire, and Soma, the sacred potion, or the plant it is made from. Other prominent gods are Mitra-Varuna and us has (the dawn). Also invoked are Savitr, Vishnu, Rudra, Pushan, Brihaspati, Brahmanaspati, as well as deified natural phenomena such as Dyaus Pita (the sky), Prithivi (the earth), Surya (the sun), Vayu (the wind), Apas (the waters), Parjanya (the rain), Vac (the word), many rivers (notably the Sapta Sindhu, and the Sarasvati River). Groups of deities are the Ashvins, the Maruts, the Adityas, the Vishvadevas (the all-gods). It contains various further minor gods, persons, concepts, phenomena and items, and fragmentary references to possible historical events, notably the struggle between the early Vedic people (known as Vedic Aryans, a subgroup of the Indo-Aryans) and their enemies, the Dasa.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. Hymns 1.154 to 1.156 are addressed to Vishnu.
Mandala 3 comprises 62 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra. The verse 3.62.10 has great importance in Hinduism as the Gayatri Mantra.
Mandala 5 comprises 87 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra, the Visvadevas (gods of the world), 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 family.
Mandala 6 comprises 75 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra. Most hymns in this book are attributed to the family of Angirasas.
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 maitravaurṇi.
Mandala 8 comprises 103 hymns to different gods. Hymns 8.49 to 8.59 are the apocryphal. Most hymns in this book are attributed to the family.
Mandala 9 comprises 114 hymns, entirely devoted to Soma Pavamana, the plant of the sacred potion of the Vedic religion.
Mandala 10 comprises 191 hymns, to Agni and other gods. 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 significance in Hindu tradition. It also contains the
Rishis
Each hymn of the Rigveda is traditionally attributed to a specific rishi, and the "family books" (2-7) are said to have been composed ("heard") by one family of rishis each. The main families, listed by the number of verses ascribed to them are:
Angirasas: 3619 (especially Mandala 6)Kanvas: 1315 (especially Mandala 8) Vasishthas: 1267 (Mandala 7) Vaishvamitras: 983 (Mandala 3) Atris: 885 (Mandala 5) Bhrgus: 473 Kashyapas: 415 (part of Mandala 9) Grtsamadas: 401 (Mandala 2) Agastyas: 316
Manuscripts
There are 30 manuscripts of Rigveda at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, collected in the 19th century by Georg , Franz Kiel horn 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 them is dated to 1464.
Of these 30 manuscripts, 9 contain the samhita text, 5 have the padapatha in addition. 13 contain Sayana's commentary. At least 5 manuscripts (MS. no. 1/A1879-80, 1/A1881-82, 331/1883-84 and 5/ I) have preserved the complete text of the Rigveda. MS no. 5/1875-76, written on birch bark in bold Sharada, was used by for his edition of the Rigveda with Sayana’s commentary.
Max used 24 manuscripts, while the Pune Edition used over five dozen manuscripts, but the editors of Pune Edition could not procure many manuscripts used by Max and by Bombay Edition, as well as from some other sources; hence the total number of extant manuscripts must surpass perhaps eighty at least .
Hindu tradition
According to Indian tradition, the Rig-Veda hymns were collected by Paila under the guidance of, who formed the Rigveda Samhita as we know it. According to the, the number of syllables in the Rigveda is 432,000, equaling the number of muhurtas (1 day = 30 muhurtas) in forty years. This statement stresses the underlying philosophy of the Vedic books that there is a connection (bandhu) between the astronomical, the physiological, and the spiritual.
Thehe authors of the literature described and interpreted the Rigvedic ritual. Yaska was an early commentator of the Rigveda. In the 14th century, wrote Dating and historical reconstruction
The Rigveda's core is accepted to date to the late Bronze Age, making it the only example of Bronze Age literature with an unbroken tradition. Its composition is usually dated to roughly between 1700–1100 BC. The text in the following centuries underwent pronunciation revisions and standardization . This redaction would have been completed around the 7th century BC. Writing appears in India around the 5th century BC in the form of the Brahmi script, but texts of the length of the Rigveda were likely not written down until much later, the oldest surviving manuscript dating to the 11th century. While written manuscripts were used for teaching in medieval times, they were written on bark or palm leaves, which decomposed quicker in the tropical climate, until the advent of the printing press from the 16th century. The hymns were thus preserved by oral tradition for up to a millennium from the time of their composition until the redaction of the Rigveda, and the entire Rigveda was preserved in shakhas for another 2,500 years from the time of its redaction until the edition princeps by, a collective feat of preservation unparalleled in any other known society.
Puranic literature names Vidagdha as the author of the Padapatha. Other scholars argue that Sthavira Shakalya of the Aitareya Aranyaka is the padakara of the RV. After their composition, the texts were preserved and codified by a vast body of Vedic priesthood as the central philosophy of the Iron Age Vedic civilization.
The Rigveda describes a mobile, nomadic culture, with horse-drawn chariots and metal (bronze) weapons. The geography described is consistent with that of the Punjab: Rivers flow north to south, the mountains are relatively remote but still reachable (Soma is a plant found in the mountains, and it has to be purchased, imported by merchants). Nevertheless, the hymns were certainly composed over a long period, with the oldest elements possibly reaching back to times close to the split of Proto-Indo-Iranian (around 2000 BC). Thus there is some debate over whether the boasts of the destruction of stone forts by the Vedic Aryans and particularly by Indra refer to cities of the Indus Valley civilization or whether they hark back to clashes between the early Indo-Aryans with the BMAC in what is now northern Afghanistan and southern Turkmenistan (separated from the upper Indus by the Hindu Kush mountain range, and some 400
km distant). In any case, while it is highly likely that the bulk of the Rigvedic hymns were composed in the Punjab, even if based on earlier poetic traditions, there is no mention of either tigers or rice in the Rigveda (as opposed to the later Vedas), suggesting that Vedic culture only penetrated into the plains of India after its completion. Similarly, it is assumed that there is no mention of iron although the term ayas (metal) occurs in the Rig Veda. [14] The Iron Age in northern India begins in the 12th century BC with the Black and Red Ware (BRW) 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 as well: Dyaus-Pita is cognate with Greek Zeus, Latin Jupiter (from deus-pater), and Germanic Tyr; while Mitra is cognate with Persian Mithras; also, Ushas with Greek Eos and Latin Aurora; and, less certainly, Varuna with Greek Uranos. Finally, both Latin ignis and Russian ogon, are cognate with Agni - meaning "fire”.Flora and fauna in the Rigveda
The horse (ashva) and cattle play an important role in the Rigveda. There are also references to the elephant (Hastin, Varana), camel (Ustra, especially in Mandala 8), buffalo (Mahisa), lion (Simha) and to the gaur in the Rigveda. The peafowl (mayura) and the chakravaka (Anas casarca) are birds mentioned in the Rigveda.
Vedantic and Hindu reformist views
Since the 19th and 20th centuries, some reformers like Swami Dayananda, founder of the "Arya Samaj" and Sri Aurobindo have attempted to re-interpret the Vedas to conform to modern and established moral and spiritual norms. They moved the Vedantic perception of the Rigveda from the original ritualistic content to a more symbolic or mystical interpretation. For example, instances of animal sacrifice were not seen by them as literal slaughtering, but as transcendental processes.
The Sarasvati river, lauded in RV 7.95 as the greatest river flowing from the mountain to the sea is sometimes equated with the Ghaggar-Hakra river, which went dry perhaps before 2600 BC or certainly before 1900 BC. Others argue that the Sarasvati was originally the Helmand in Afghanistan. These questions are tied to the debate about the Indo-Aryan migration (termed "Aryan Invasion Theory") vs. the claim that Vedic culture together with Vedic Sanskrit originated in the Indus Valley Civilisation (termed "Out of India theory"), a topic of great significance in Hindu nationalism, addressed for example by Amal Kiran and Shrikant G. Talageri. Sub hash Kak has claimed that there is an astronomical code in the organization of the hymns. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, also based on astronomical alignments in the Rigveda, in his "The Orion" (1893) claimed presence of the Rigvedic culture in India in the 4th millennium BC, and in his "Arctic Home in the Vedas" (1903) even argued that the Aryans originated near the North Pole and came south during the Ice Age.
