Rigveda

01Heard, then handed down

The rishis did not compose the Rigveda. They saw it. Each sukta carries the name of its seer, its devata and its metre, and a Vedic student learns all three before he chants a line. Six of the ten mandalas belong to single families of seers: Gritsamada in the second, Vishvamitra in the third, Vamadeva in the fourth, Atri in the fifth, Bharadvaja in the sixth, Vasishtha in the seventh. The Vishnu Purana tells how Maharshi Vyasa, at the close of the Dvapara Yuga, divided the one Veda into four and gave the Rigveda to his disciple Paila.

02Mandala, sukta, rik

The Shakala Samhita is counted in two ways. By mandala it has ten books, each made of suktas (hymns), each sukta of riks (verses). By ashtaka, the way students learn it by heart, it has eight ashtakas of eight adhyayas each, cut into short vargas of about five riks that can be learned at one sitting. The Anukramanis, the old indexes of Shaunaka and the Sarvanukramani of Katyayana, list for every sukta its rishi, its devata and its chhandas. Most riks are in three metres: gayatri of three eight-syllable lines, trishtubh of four lines of eleven, jagati of four lines of twelve. Women seers stand among the rishis too: Lopamudra, Ghosha, and Vak Ambhrini of the Devi Sukta.

03What the hymns hold

Agni is the priest who carries the offering, so he is praised first. Indra wins back the waters from Vritra. Varuna watches over rita, the order by which the sun rises and rivers run. The whole ninth mandala is sung to Soma Pavamana, the purifying Soma. Rudra is praised as the fierce archer and as the healer who holds the best of medicines, and the Tryambaka mantra (7.59.12) is still chanted for him every day. The tenth mandala carries the Purusha Sukta (10.90) and the Nasadiya Sukta (10.129) on what was before creation.

04The great suktas

A handful of hymns are known in every Vedic household. The Purusha Sukta (10.90) sees the Purusha with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes and a thousand feet, who covers the earth on every side and stands ten fingers beyond it; from his offering came the riks, the samans and the worlds. The Nasadiya Sukta (10.129) tells of the time when there was neither being nor non-being, and ends by asking whether even the One who watches from the highest heaven knows. The Hiranyagarbha Sukta (10.121) asks at every verse, to which deva shall we offer worship? In the Vak Sukta (10.125) the Devi of speech says, I move with the Rudras and the Vasus. The last hymn of all (10.191) prays that we walk together and speak together.

05In the sandhya and the samskaras

At the upanayana a boy receives the Gayatri (3.62.10), seen by Maharshi Vishvamitra, from his father or acharya, the two of them covered by one cloth. From that day he repeats it at the three sandhyas, at dawn, noon and dusk. The Tryambaka mantra of Vasishtha (7.59.12) is chanted to Bhagwan Shiva and beside the sick. At a wedding the priest recites the Vivaha Sukta (10.85), the marriage of Surya, daughter of Savitar, with Soma. The hymns to Yama (10.14 to 10.18) are said at the last rites. In the month of Shravana, Rigvedi Brahmins change the sacred thread at the Upakarma and begin the year's study afresh. In many homes the Purusha Sukta is chanted in the puja of Bhagwan Vishnu, one verse with each offering.

06Five shakhas and their books

The Charanavyuha names five shakhas of the Rigveda: Shakala, Bashkala, Ashvalayana, Shankhayana and Mandukeya. The Shakala Samhita is the one chanted today, by Rigvedi families of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu, and by the Nambudiris of Kerala in their own manner. Around the Samhita stands the rest of this Veda. The Aitareya Brahmana and Aitareya Aranyaka belong to it, and so do the Kaushitaki (Shankhayana) Brahmana and Aranyaka. The Aitareya and Kaushitaki Upanishads sit inside those two Aranyakas. The Ashvalayana and Shankhayana Shrauta and Grihya Sutras lay down how a Rigvedi priest performs the great yajnas and the household rites.

07Kept by the voice

For thousands of years the Rigveda lived without paper. Families of Vedic Brahmins learned it in the samhita patha, then broke it word by word in the pada patha, then wove the words back in krama, jata and ghana patha, where every pair is chanted forwards and backwards. A single slipped syllable shows at once. Only the Shakala shakha survives complete. UNESCO recognised this chanting as intangible heritage of humanity in 2003. Pathashalas at Kanchipuram, Sringeri, Varanasi and Thrissur still train boys this way, eight to twelve years for one Veda.

08Sayana and the commentators

Skandasvamin and Venkata Madhava wrote on the Rigveda, but the commentary every reader meets is Sayanacharya's, written in the fourteenth century under the Vijayanagara kings Bukka and Harihara II, with his brother Madhava Vidyaranya guiding the work. Sayana explains each mantra as it is used in the yajna. Swami Dayananda Saraswati later wrote a Rigveda bhashya of his own in Sanskrit and Hindi, and Sri Aurobindo read the hymns for their inner, spiritual sense in The Secret of the Veda.

09How the acharyas read it

For Advaita, the Rigveda's own line ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti (1.164.46) says early what the Upanishads teach at length: one Brahman, called by many names. Madhvacharya wrote a bhashya on the first forty suktas of the first mandala, reading every name, Agni and Indra among them, as finally naming Bhagwan Vishnu, and Jayatirtha wrote on his work. Vaishnavas hold dear the Vishnu Sukta (1.154), where Vishnu measures the worlds in three strides, the deed the Puranas tell as the Vamana avatara. Shaivas cherish the Rudra hymns (1.114, 2.33, 7.59). The Mimamsakas read the Veda for its commands about the yajna; the Vedantins read it as the ground on which the Upanishads stand.

10Manuscripts and the printed Samhita

Palm leaf and paper came only as a help to memory, and Vedic teachers still trust the voice first. Thirty Rigveda manuscripts kept at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune were inscribed in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2007. Friedrich Max Müller printed the first full Samhita with Sayana's bhashya between 1849 and 1874, from manuscripts carried to Europe. The Vaidika Samshodhana Mandala at Pune later brought out the standard Indian edition with Sayana (1933–1951). Shripad Damodar Satavalekar's Swadhyaya Mandal at Pardi printed clear, low-priced texts that a family could keep at home and chant from.

What it contains

1. 1
   Mandala 1

   191 suktas by many seers, opening with Madhuchchhandas's hymn to Agni (1.1). Here are the hymns of Shunahshepa (1.24–30), the Vishnu Sukta of the three strides (1.154), and the riddle hymn of Dirghatamas (1.164) with its line ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti. It closes with the hymns of Agastya, among them his dialogue with Lopamudra (1.179).

2. 2
   Mandala 2

   43 suktas of Rishi Gritsamada and his family. Its hymn 2.12 answers every verse with the refrain sa janasa indrah, he, O people, is Indra. The hymn to Rudra (2.33) asks him to keep his anger far and to heal with his medicines.

3. 3
   Mandala 3

   62 suktas of Maharshi Vishvamitra's family. In 3.33 Vishvamitra speaks with the rivers Vipash and Shutudri, and they lower their waters to let the Bharatas cross. The Gayatri mantra is 3.62.10.

4. 4
   Mandala 4

   58 suktas of Rishi Vamadeva. In 4.26 he declares, I was Manu and I was Surya, a line the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad quotes as the cry of one who knows Brahman. The hymn 4.58 praises the stream of ghee and the bull with four horns.

5. 5
   Mandala 5

   87 suktas of the Atri family, with many hymns to Mitra-Varuna and the Maruts. In 5.40 Atri brings back the sun after Svarbhanu has hidden it in darkness.

6. 6
   Mandala 6

   75 suktas of Maharshi Bharadvaja's family, many to Agni and Indra. The rik agna a yahi vitaye (6.16.10) stands first in the Samaveda. The last hymn (6.75) blesses the warrior's armour, bow, quiver and chariot.

7. 7
   Mandala 7

   104 suktas of Maharshi Vasishtha's family. Hymn 7.18 tells of King Sudas and the battle of the ten kings, and 7.86 to 7.89 are Vasishtha's prayers to Varuna for forgiveness. The Tryambaka (Mahamrityunjaya) mantra is 7.59.12.

8. 8
   Mandala 8

   103 suktas, mostly of the Kanva and Angirasa families, many in the strophic pragatha form of paired verses. It includes the 11 Valakhilya hymns (8.49–59), counted in the total but kept apart in the recitation.

9. 9
   Mandala 9

   114 suktas, every one to Soma Pavamana as the Soma is pressed and flows through the woollen strainer. They were gathered here from seers of many families, in the order they are used at the Soma yajna.

10. 10
    Mandala 10

    191 suktas on the widest range of themes. It holds the Purusha Sukta (10.90), the Nasadiya (10.129), the Hiranyagarbha (10.121) and the Vak Sukta (10.125), the Vivaha Sukta (10.85), the funeral hymns to Yama (10.14–18), and the dialogues of Pururavas and Urvashi (10.95) and of Sarama and the Panis (10.108). It ends with the Samjnana Sukta (10.191), the prayer for unity.

Famous verses

अग्निमीळे पुरोहितं यज्ञस्य देवमृत्विजम्। होतारं रत्नधातमम्॥

I praise Agni, the household priest, the divine minister of the yajna, the hotar who calls the devas, the richest giver of treasures.Rigveda 1.1.1

तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि। धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्॥

We meditate on the adorable radiance of the divine Savitar. May he inspire our minds.Rigveda 3.62.10 (Gayatri mantra)

एकं सद्विप्रा बहुधा वदन्त्यग्निं यमं मातरिश्वानमाहुः॥

Truth is one; the wise speak of it in many ways, calling it Agni, Yama, Matarishvan.Rigveda 1.164.46

सहस्रशीर्षा पुरुषः सहस्राक्षः सहस्रपात्। स भूमिं विश्वतो वृत्वात्यतिष्ठद्दशाङ्गुलम्॥

The Purusha has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. He covers the earth on every side and stands ten fingers beyond it.Rigveda 10.90.1 (Purusha Sukta)

नासदासीन्नो सदासीत्तदानीं नासीद्रजो नो व्योमा परो यत्।

Then there was neither non-being nor being; there was no realm of air, nor the sky beyond it.Rigveda 10.129.1 (Nasadiya Sukta)