The Rig Veda: An Anthology

“When they divided the Man, into how many parts did they apportion him? What do they call his mouth, his two arms and thighs and feet? His mouth became the Brahmin, his arms were made into the Warrior, his thighs the People, and from his feet the servants were born.” 

This creation hymn, known as the Purusa-Sukta, describes the origin of the world as the gods dismembering of primordial giant Purusa in a sacrifice. The dismemberment of the primordial Man simultaneously establishes the physical universe, the structure of human society, and the verse forms used by the poet-priests. As the first sacrifice, the dividing of Purusa ordains the ritual laws governing the religious practices of Vedic society. In these verses, the poet refers to the four classes of ancient Indian society: priests, warriors, farmers and herdsmen, and servants. This four-fold division of society predates the more elaborate and structured caste system of classical Hinduism.

"May your eye go to the sun, your life’s breath to the wind. Go to the sky or to earth, as is your nature, or go to the waters, if that is your fate.”

In this funeral hymn, the poet prays that the deceased man may return to the natural world and his body parts disperse to the elements according to their origin. At the same time, the liturgy suggests the dead receives a new body when he reaches his ancestors in the afterlife.

“One who looked did not see speech, and another who listens does not hear it. It reveals itself to someone as a loving wife, beautifully dressed, reveals her body to her husband.” 

In this hymn on the origins of sacred speech, the poet distinguishes between false, fruitless speech and the beauty of truthful speech. Truthful speech is a revelation of hidden beauty, like the disrobing of a loving wife, which reveals a hidden treasure of ecstatic awareness to her beloved. The simile suggests that the divine truth conveyed by sacred speech is not simply a cognitive phenomenon grasped by the mind, but a mystical vision delighting the heart and soul.

“I move with the Rudras, with the Vasus, with the Adityas and all the gods. I carry both Mitra and Varuna, both Indra and Agni, and both of the Asvins.” 

As the embodiment and agent of truth, speech assumes a cosmic and metaphysical dimension. Here, speech declares in the first person its identification with the gods and with the source of all creation. The gods’ speech is inherently truthful, a manifestation of their essential nature as deities.

“I turn toward our cause here your sacrificial attention, gods, your divine thought that is disposed toward sacrifice and worthy of sacrifice. Let the great cow give us milk in thousands of streams of milk, as if she were walking in a meadow.” 

The poet-priest invokes the gods during the Soma ritual as he prepares the sacred drink. He prays for the gods’ inspiration, represented as the milk of divine vision, overflowing from the cosmic cow. The milk also symbolizes the inspiring power of Soma, which is regularly identified with butter, honey, and rain, and milk.

“Inspired with poetry I have fashioned this hymn of praise for you whose very nature is power, as the skilled artist fashions a chariot.”

In this hymn to the fire god Agni, the poet claims divine inspiration for his poetic vision, reflecting the power of Agni as the patron of poet-priests and priest of the gods. The chariot is a common Vedic symbol for sacrifice and the hymns accompanying sacrificial ritual; like a chariot, sacrifice and hymn carry mankind’s offerings to the gods. The simile compares the poet’s verbal artistry with the skill of the chariot-maker, one of several tropes for the poet-priest in the Rig Veda.

“Inflame me like a fire kindled by friction; make us see far; make us richer, better. For when I am intoxicated with you, Soma, I think myself rich.” 

The poet addresses the sacred drink, Soma, praying for its euphoric effects, which include the feeling of power and expansiveness, a sense of immortality, and visionary out-of-body experiences. Soma is often associated metaphorically with honey, butter, water, and milk; here the poet relates the intoxicating drink and its effects to fire. The simile expresses the recurring connection between the two important sacrificial substances, embodied by the gods Soma and Agni.

“Where the inextinguishable light shines, the world where the sun was placed, in that immortal, unfading world, O Purifier, place me.”

In this hymn to Soma, the poet asks the sacred drink to transport him to the incorruptible world of the gods. The image of a light-suffused realm of immortality anticipates later Upanishadic descriptions of the mystical realization of the self, the unification of the individual soul with Brahman, the source of all Being.

“Fluttering as he brought it down, the bird swift as thought shot forth on the wide path; swiftly the eagle came with the honey of Soma and won fame for that.” 

The myth of Soma’s abduction from heaven embraces a theme common in Indo-European mythology: the theft of the elixir of immortality. The theme also occurs in the Greek myth of Prometheus, whose theft of fire from the gods incurs divine punishment. In this hymn, an eagle carries to earth the sacred beverage loved by the gods.

“Let me now sing the heroic deeds of Indra, the first that the thunderbolt-wielder performed. He killed the dragon and pierced an opening for the waters; he split open the bellies of mountains.” 

Indra’s first great heroic feat is killing the demon Vrtra and releasing the waters held captive by the dragon. Dismembering Vrtra, Indra brings forth the sun, sky and dawn, and frees the waters (or rain) for human use. The killing of the dragon is a creation myth about the establishment of cosmic and social order; the hymn concludes by praising Indra as the king of all living beings who encircles the world like the rim of a wheel. 

“I cannot come out by that path; these are bad places to go through. I will come out cross-wise, through the side. Many things yet undone I must do; one I will fight, and one I will question.” 

Indra, held within his mother’s womb for a thousand months, refuses to be born the normal way and forces himself out through her side. A common motif in the birth (or conception) of Indian heroes, like the Buddha, the unnatural birth does not kill Indra’s mother. Prophesying his heroic destiny, Indra anticipates killing Vrtra and asks Vishnu for assistance. The two contrasting actions, fighting and speaking, represent opposing attitudes of war and peace.

“Even the sky and earth bow low before him, and the mountains are terrified of his hot breath; he who is known as the Soma-drinker, with the thunderbolt in his palm; he, my people, is Indra.” 

In this verse, the poet praises the might of Indra, the preeminent war god of Vedic culture. Closely related to other Indo-European warrior and storm deities, such as the Norse god Thor, Indra wields a mace or a thunderbolt (the latter reflecting his aspect as a storm-god). Indra is closely associated with Soma, consuming abundant quantities of the sacred drink, which fuels his heroic exploits and grandiloquent boasting.

”Like a dancing girl, she puts on bright ornaments; she uncovers her breast as a cow reveals her swollen udder. Creating light for the whole universe, Dawn has opened up the darkness as cows break out from their enclosed pen.” 

In this hymn, a series of similes that convey the natural qualities of daybreak as well as the psychological and emotional effects that accompany it, represent Dawn. Cows, one of the most common symbols in the Rig Veda, represent the ruddy clouds appearing out of darkness at early morning, as well as abundance, fertility, and vital nourishment. As in many Vedic hymns, erotic imagery mediates the human, natural, divine, and ritual worlds, signifying transformation, beauty, fecundity, and the realm of the sacred.

“As you, Indra, struck down the sunlight-demon’s magic spells that were turning beneath the sky, then Atri with the fourth incantation found the sun that had been hidden by the darkness pitted against the sacred order.” 

One of the few mythic narratives about the sun in the Rig Veda describes its imprisonment or abduction by the sunlight-demon Asura and its rescue by Indra and Atri. In this hymn dedicated to Indra, the poet implores the god to attend the Soma sacrifice by recalling his cooperation with the sage Atri in another sacred task—restoring the cosmic order by returning the sun to heavens and destroying the evil magic of the Asura. Atri represents the archetypal poet-priest whose utterance pierces mystery, reveals the truth, and rebalances the cosmos; the singer of the hymn hopes to assimilate the magical power of sacred language.

“Sky and earth, these two who are good for everyone, hold the Order and bear the poet of space. Between the two goddesses, the two bowls that give birth magnificently, the pure sun god moves according to the laws of nature.” 

Sky and Earth, the cosmic parents, are a divine pair indicated by a singular noun in Sanskrit. Usually imagined as male and female, in this hymn they also appear as two goddesses or sisters, the womb-like bowls of heaven and earth that face each other and give birth to all things. They are the parents of the sun, the “poet of space” by virtue of his association with Agni. 

“For the emperor I will sing a splendid, deep prayer, one that will be dear to the famous Varuna who struck apart the earth and spread it beneath the sun as the priest who performs the slaughter spreads out the victim’s skin.” 

In this opening verse of a hymn dedicated to Varuna, the king of the gods, the poet refers to one of the deity’s famous deeds—the separation of earth and sky. He compares this act of archetypal creation to the poet-priest flaying the sacrificial victim’s skin. The simile implies that the creation of the cosmos was the original sacrificial act and that the sacrifice performed by the priest is a ritual repetition of the act of creation.

“Let the weapon of Rudra veer from us; let the great malevolence of the dreaded god go past us. Loosen the taut bows for the sake of our generous patrons, O bountiful one, have mercy on our children and grandchildren.” 

The poet seeks to appease the fearsome Rudra, father of the Maruts, a wild, unpredictable, and violent god. Rudra is often placated with euphemistic epithets, such as “the bountiful one” or “the kind one,” transferred to Siva in later Hinduism. Though often malevolent, Rudra is also a healer and dispenser of medicine, lending a rich ambivalence to this Vedic deity.   

“Let me now sing the heroic deeds of Visnu, who has measured apart the realms of earth, who propped up the upper-dwelling place, striding far as he stepped forth three times.” 

Visnu, a relatively minor deity in the Rig Veda, often appears in alliance with Indra in the text. His main act is the three great strides by which he demarcates the earth and heavens. The seeming incongruity of requiring three steps to split the cosmos into two levels is resolved in this hymn’s fourth verse where Varuna supports the earth and sky as a mediating third element. Each of his divine footsteps leaves an inexhaustible source of honey, which symbolizes the knowledge, love, and presence of the god in the created world. 

“They who have the ocean as their eldest flow out of the sea, purifying themselves, never resting. Indra, the bull with the thunderbolt, opened a way for them; let the waters, who are goddesses, help me here and now.” 

In this hymn, the waters are invoked as a sacred, life-giving, and healing power. The ocean is the cosmic ocean from which they originated, and the waters themselves are associated with Varuna, god of the moral and cosmic order. The poet refers to Indra’s great deed of freeing the waters from their imprisonment in the mountain, which made their life-sustaining power available to mankind. As in many Vedic hymns, a refrain invoking the god(s) and imploring their mercy or aid concludes the verse.

“Like Brahmins at the over-night sacrifice who speak around the full bowl of Soma, so you frogs around a pool celebrate the day of the year when the rains come.” 

Hymn 7.103 is based on a cleverly constructed pun comparing the singing of frogs during the breeding season to the chanting of priests at the start of the rainy period. The description of the frogs’ activities in each verse applies equally well to the Brahmins’ priestly activities as they gather and echo each other during the Soma sacrifice. Both begin their vocalizations after a lengthy period (or “vow”) of silence, both assemble in or around a pool of sacred liquid, and both are active at night. Some scholars have seen the hymn as satirizing the ritual performances of “competing” priests in the Vedic priesthood. 

“Desire for Yama has come upon me, Yami, the desire to lie with him upon the same bed. Let me open my body to him as a wife to a husband.” 

In this conversation hymn, Yami urges her twin brother Yama, the first mortal man, to impregnate her. She claims that the primal gods, Sky and Earth, have sanctified the incestuous relation. Yama repels her advances by appealing to Varuna, the god who presides over moral conduct and punishes violators of the sacred law. He contends that such an immoral act would be an affront to their father, the sun, and to their divine pedigree. The names “Yama” and “Yami” are the masculine and feminine forms of the Sanskrit word for “twin.” 

“What use to me are these words of yours? I have left you, like the first of the dawns. Go home again, Pururavas. I am hard to catch and hold, like the wind.”

In another conversation poem, the water-nymph Urvasi rejects her husband Pururavas’ pleas to return to her. Their dialogue refers to a mythical context not contained in the hymn: After Pururavas breaks a promise to not let his wife see him naked, she abandons him and returns to live with her semi-divine companions. The hymn deftly portrays marital disagreement and the cold-heartedness of a disaffected wife who refuses all her spouse’s appeals for reconciliation, including the threat of suicide. 

“Let Prajapati create progeny for us; let Aryaman anoint us into old age. Free from evil signs, enter the world of your husband. Be good luck for our two-legged creatures and good luck for our four-legged creatures."

The marriage of Soma and Surya, the daughter of the sun, is the divine prototype for human marriages. A hymn describing the archetypal bride and her union with Soma formed part of the Vedic wedding liturgy, and includes formulaic verses like this one. The benediction accompanied the anointing of the couple with oil to bring good fortune and promote fertility. Prajapati is the primordial “Lord of Creatures,” the creator god; Aryaman is an Aditya who presides over hospitality and the domestic realm.