Ṛgveda ऋग्वेद

What it is

The Ṛgveda is the oldest of the four Vedas and one of the oldest texts in any living tradition. It holds 1,028 hymns (sūktas) with about 10,552 verses in early Vedic Sanskrit. For more than three thousand years it has been passed on by chanting, teacher to student, with such care for every syllable and accent that the text has hardly changed. UNESCO recognises this tradition of Vedic chanting as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

How it is arranged

The hymns are arranged in ten books called maṇḍalas. Books 2 to 7, the "family books", each belong to one lineage of seers, such as Viśvāmitra (book 3) and Vasiṣṭha (book 7). Book 9 is devoted entirely to Soma. Books 1 and 10 gather hymns from many seers and include most of the great questioning hymns. Every hymn is remembered together with its seer (ṛṣi), the deity it addresses (devatā) and its metre (chandas).

What it teaches

Most hymns praise and invite the devas: Agni, the sacred fire and messenger between people and gods, who opens the collection; Indra, who releases the waters; Soma; Varuṇa and Mitra, guardians of ṛta, the true order of the world; Uṣas, the dawn; and Sūrya, the sun. The hymns ask for rain, cattle, children, long life and friendship, and they praise generosity. Some go further and ask how anything came to be: the Hymn of Creation (10.129), the Hymn of the Cosmic Person (10.90) and the Golden Germ (10.121). The Gāyatrī mantra (3.62.10) and the closing call to unity (10.191) are still recited every day.

What it can mean in your life

The Ṛgveda teaches a way of looking at the world with gratitude: dawn, fire, rain and rivers are not taken for granted but greeted and thanked. Its idea of ṛta asks us to live in tune with truth and order, in speech and in deed. It is also honest about mystery: the Hymn of Creation ends by wondering whether even the highest one knows how the world began. And its last hymn asks people to meet with one purpose and one heart. Its verses still accompany daily prayer, weddings and the last rites of millions of people.

Where to begin

Start with a handful of hymns rather than from page one: 1.1, the first hymn, to Agni; 3.62.10, the Gāyatrī mantra; 1.113, a hymn to the dawn; 10.129, the Hymn of Creation; and 10.191, the hymn of unity. Read slowly and aloud if you can, use the word-by-word meanings, and listen to the chanting: these hymns were made to be heard.

Origins and dating

In the tradition the Vedas are śruti, "what was heard": seers perceived the hymns rather than composed them, and they have no human author. Historians generally date the composition of most hymns to roughly 1500–1000 BCE, in the north-west of the Indian subcontinent. The text was kept alive orally for many centuries before it was written down.

Passages to start with

• Ṛgveda 1.1.1: The first verse: praise of Agni, the fire.
• Ṛgveda 3.62.10: The Gāyatrī mantra, a prayer for an awakened mind.
• Ṛgveda 1.113.1: The seer Kutsa greets the dawn.
• Ṛgveda 10.129.1: The Hymn of Creation: "Then there was neither being nor non-being."
• Ṛgveda 10.191.2: Meet together, speak together: the call to unity.