Unit 8 · The Vedas

Open an English Rig Veda and the first line praises fire. Hymn after hymn follows, more than a thousand in all. The Rig Veda is the oldest of the four Vedas. Hindus count it among the most sacred of their texts.

The Rig Veda holds 1,028 hymns, arranged in ten books. Each book is called a mandala, which means circle. Books 2 through 7 are called the family books, because tradition links each one to a family of poet-seers. Book 10 is thought to be one of the latest.

Scholars date most of the hymns to about 1500–1000 BCE, though they debate the exact range. Many Hindus hold a traditional view that the Vedas are eternal and were not made by any human author. In this view, the seers, or rishis, heard the hymns rather than composed them.

Both views agree on one thing. The Rig Veda is very old, and it was first passed down by mouth. It was written down much later. The oldest surviving manuscripts are about a thousand years old or less.

A Rig Veda hymn might describe the dawn as a woman in bright clothes. Another might compare prayers to cows streaming toward a calf. These are poems, full of images. Scholars admire their skill and their puzzles.

The hymns were also working words. Priests chanted them during the yajna, the fire ritual. Offerings of ghee, grain and the drink called soma were poured into the fire. The hymns praised the gods and asked for rain, cattle, children, long life and victory.

Most hymns follow set meters, or patterns of syllables. The meters helped with memory and with chanting. The same hymn can be read today as poetry in a college class and chanted as sacred sound at a Hindu wedding.

In the 1890s, an English scholar named Ralph T.H. Griffith finished a complete English Rig Veda. He had taught in Benares (Varanasi). His Hymns of the Rigveda came out in volumes, with a revised edition in 1896.

Griffith wrote in an old-fashioned English style, with words like thou and hath. Some of his choices are now out of date, and modern translators often disagree with him. Still, his work is free to read and quote because it is in the public domain.

Newer translations exist. Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton published a full modern translation in 2014. Readers often compare translations, because each one shows a different way of reading the old Sanskrit.

Picture a Vedic priest pouring ghee into a flame. Where does the offering go? The hymns answer: Agni carries it. Agni is both the fire on the altar and a god. His name means fire.

The hymns call Agni a priest, a guest in every home and a messenger between people and the gods. He is born each time the priests rub fire-sticks together. About 200 hymns of the Rig Veda are addressed to him.

Agni remains part of Hindu life. At a Hindu wedding, the couple walks around a sacred fire. Many Hindus see Agni as a witness to their vows. Fire is also part of the funeral rites of many Hindu families.

One famous hymn tells how Indra fought a serpent named Vritra. Vritra had held back the waters. Indra struck him with his thunderbolt, and the rivers rushed free (Rig Veda 1.32). Indra receives more hymns than any other god.

Varuna is different. He is linked to the sky and the waters, and he watches over rita, the right order of the world. Hymns to Varuna often ask forgiveness for wrongdoing. Rita is an early idea related to later ideas of dharma.

Later Hindu traditions gave these gods smaller roles. Vishnu, Shiva and Devi became central. Indra still appears in the epics and Puranas as king of the gods. Scholars trace how worship changed over many centuries.

Every morning, Ushas arrives. The hymns picture her as a young woman, shining, driving a bright chariot. She wakes sleepers, sends workers to their tasks and reveals the world again. About twenty hymns praise her.

The dawn hymns are full of feeling. They notice that Ushas is old and young at once, returning each day while people grow older. Many readers find in them both joy and a sense of time passing.

Scholars often point to the Ushas hymns when they talk about the Rig Veda as literature. They show how closely the poets watched nature. Ushas is one of several goddesses in the Vedas, along with Sarasvati, a river goddess.

Every morning, millions of Hindus repeat the same short verse. It is the Gayatri mantra, from Rig Veda 3.62.10. It is named for its meter, the gayatri. It is addressed to Savitar, the sun as the one who stirs life.

A mantra is a sacred word or verse. Hindus believe mantras have power when spoken correctly. Traditionally, the Gayatri was taught to boys of certain groups at a coming-of-age rite called the sacred thread ceremony.

Many Hindus today, girls and boys alike, learn and recite the Gayatri. Some reform movements, like the Arya Samaj, taught it widely. You can hear it sung in temples, homes and music recordings around the world.

Most creation stories tell what happened. Rig Veda 10.129, often called the Nasadiya hymn, asks instead. It begins before there was being or non-being. There was no air, no sky, no death and no night.

The hymn says that out of darkness, desire arose, and from it came the world. Then it turns to questions. Who really knows how it happened? The gods came later than the world, so how could they know?

The last verse wonders if even the one who watches from highest heaven knows, or perhaps does not. Hindu thinkers, scholars and scientists have admired this humility. Some readers see it as deep faith, and others as honest doubt.

Rig Veda 10.90 describes a cosmic being, Purusha, offered in a great sacrifice. From his body the world is made. The hymn says four groups of people came from his mouth, arms, thighs and feet.

These four groups, the varnas, are priests, rulers and warriors, traders and farmers, and servants. Later texts built on this idea, and it became linked with caste, a system of birth-based groups. Caste has caused great harm and unfair treatment over many centuries.

Readers respond in many ways. Some scholars think the verse was added late. Many Hindu reformers, such as Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi, rejected birth-based ranking. B.R. Ambedkar, a leader born into a group treated as untouchable, criticized this hymn sharply. India’s constitution outlaws untouchability.

How old is the Rig Veda? Most scholars say its hymns were composed in the northwest of South Asia, about 1500–1000 BCE. They base this on the language, which is close to old Iranian texts, and on places and things the hymns mention.

Some Hindu scholars and writers argue for much older dates. Many Hindus hold that the Vedas are eternal and so have no date of composition at all. The traditional view speaks of when the Vedas were revealed and arranged, not invented.

There are also debates about where the Vedic people came from. Most scholars think the language arrived from outside South Asia. Others disagree. This course describes these views and does not decide between them. Using "c." for dates reminds us that they are estimates.

Picture a Vedic ritual with four kinds of priests. One recites hymns of praise. One sings. One handles the offerings while speaking short formulas. One watches over the whole rite. Each priest relies on a different Veda.

The Rig Veda is the book of praise hymns. The Sama Veda sets many of those verses to melodies for singing. The Yajur Veda holds the formulas spoken while doing the ritual. The Atharva Veda has hymns and charms for everyday life, such as healing, protection and peace at home.

The Atharva Veda was accepted as a Veda later than the other three, and some older texts speak of only three Vedas. Today Hindus generally count four. Together they are the core of shruti, the texts Hindus regard as heard or revealed.

Think of a house with four floors, built over many generations. Each Veda is like that. The oldest floor is the Samhita, the collection of hymns or formulas. When people say Rig Veda, they often mean just its Samhita.

Next come the Brahmanas. These are prose texts that explain the rituals and what they mean. Then the Aranyakas, or forest books, which think about the ritual in deeper and more hidden ways.

The last layer is the Upanishads. They ask about the self and ultimate reality. Because they come at the end, they are called Vedanta, the end of the Veda. Scholars date this whole growth from about 1500 BCE to about 500 BCE or later.

A Hindu teacher might hold up two books. One is a Veda. The other is the Ramayana. She explains that Hindus often place them in two groups. The Vedas are shruti, heard. The Ramayana is smriti, remembered.

Smriti texts include the epics, the Puranas and law books. Many Hindus see them as having human authors, like Valmiki and Vyasa, and as explaining the Vedas’ teachings. In the traditional ranking, shruti has the highest authority.

In daily life, though, smriti often matters more to many people. Far more Hindus know the Ramayana and the Gita than the Vedic hymns. The Gita is smriti, yet many Hindus honor it as highly as the Upanishads.

Priests build a fire altar of bricks in a set shape. They light the fire and chant from the Vedas. They pour ghee, grain and other offerings into the flames. This is the yajna, the central Vedic ritual.

The Vedic texts say the gods receive offerings through Agni, the fire. The Brahmanas explain that the ritual helps keep the world in good order. Large public rites could last many days and need many priests.

Large yajnas are rare today, but some are still held. A smaller home fire rite, often called homa or havan, is common. Families in Illinois may hold a havan to bless a new house or begin a new venture.

At a Hindu wedding, the bride and groom take seven steps together around a sacred fire. This is called saptapadi. A priest chants Vedic verses. Many couples make a promise at each step. Some wedding verses come from Rig Veda book 10.

The wedding is one of the samskaras, rites that mark stages of life. Other samskaras include naming a baby, a child’s first solid food, a sacred thread ceremony and funeral rites. Many of them use Vedic mantras.

Families adapt these rites. In the United States, a wedding may be shortened, explained in English or held in a hotel ballroom. Yet the fire and the Sanskrit verses often remain at the center.

The Upanishads sometimes treat ritual in a new way. Instead of an outer fire, they speak of an inner one, like breath or thought. The Aranyakas began this turn toward inner meaning.

The Bhagavad Gita, too, speaks of sacrifice broadly. It says any work done without selfishness can be an offering. In Gita 9.26, Krishna says he accepts even a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water offered with love.

Some later schools, like Mimamsa, defended the Vedic ritual as the heart of dharma. Others stressed knowledge or bhakti. Hindu practice today includes all of these. A family may hold a havan and also sing devotional songs.

Today we write important words down. For many centuries, Vedic priests did the opposite. They kept the Vedas in memory. Some texts even warned against learning them from a book. This is oral transmission.

Scholars think writing came into use in India long after the Rig Veda was composed. Even once people wrote, the chanted Veda stayed the true one for many teachers. The oldest surviving Rig Veda manuscripts date from about 1000 years ago or later.

Oral learning was hard. A student often lived with a teacher, a guru, for years. The student listened, repeated and practiced every day. Many families passed the same Veda down over dozens of generations.

Take the words a b c d. In the plain recitation, the samhita patha, you say a b c d. In the pada patha, you say each word separately. In the krama patha, you say overlapping pairs: ab, bc, cd.

Harder methods braid the words. In the jata patha, you say ab, ba, ab, then bc, cb, bc. The hardest, the ghana patha, forms long chains forward and backward. Tradition counts eleven methods in all.

Because each word is said in several patterns, a mistake in one pattern shows up against the others. Reciters also keep pitch accents, marked by raising or lowering the voice. Scholars see these methods as a remarkable way of guarding a text.

For many centuries, Vedic learning was closely guarded. Law books like the Manusmriti said it was for the three upper varnas, and mostly for boys. Women and people of lower groups were often shut out.

There were exceptions. The Upanishads name women thinkers such as Gargi and Maitreyi. Still, the general rule kept many people from learning the Vedas. Scholars and Hindu teachers today discuss this history openly.

In the 1800s and 1900s, reformers pushed for change. The Arya Samaj, founded by Swami Dayananda Saraswati in 1875, taught the Vedas to women and to people of all castes. Today many Hindu women chant the Vedas, and some serve as priests.

In 2003, UNESCO recognized the tradition of Vedic chanting as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity. It later joined UNESCO’s list of the world’s intangible heritage.

Some Vedic schools in India still train students the old way. Other students now learn online or from recordings. Temples in the United States hold classes where children learn Vedic verses like the Gayatri mantra.

Scholars keep studying the Vedas too. They compare recordings with manuscripts and older descriptions. For many Hindus, though, the Vedas are above all sacred sound, to be heard and chanted with care.