Rig Veda

The earliest stratum of Indian literature, called the Vedas, consists of four books: the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, and the Atharva Veda. Of these, the Rig Veda is the oldest and longest. As the word rig means “verse” and the word veda means “knowledge,” the Rig Veda, composed in poetic verse, is considered the source of all sacred knowledge.

Consisting of 1,028 metrical hymns, the Rig Veda was composed in roughly two stages. Books 2–9, the core of the text, were composed between 1700 and 1500 BCE, while books 1 and 10 were composed around 1200 BCE. The hymns of the Rig Veda cover a wide range of topics. Some of them praise the virtues of the Vedic gods, the most important of which were Indra, king of the gods; Mitra-Varuna, the pair of gods who enforced oaths and maintained cosmic order; and Agni, the deified sacrificial fire and the priest of the gods. Other hymns contain instructions on how to perform the rituals that were at the center of the Vedic religion, while still others are magic spells, accounts of the creation of the universe, or paeans to worldly things like gambling.

Beginning around 800 BCE, Brahmin priests began to supplement the Rig Veda and the other Vedas with commentarial texts called Brahmanas that explain the meanings of the rituals and elaborate on the rules for performing them. The Brahmanas later gave way to mystical and speculative philosophical texts called the Upanishads. Taken together, the four Vedas, the Brahmanas, and the Upanishads make up the class of texts called shruti, or “heard.” Unlike smriti, or “remembered” texts (the class including all other Indian scripture), shruti were considered infallible, eternal, and revealed to men rather than composed by them.

Around 500 BCE new religious movements like Buddhism and Jainism challenged the authority of the Vedas and the Brahmin priests who had exclusive access to them. The influence of Buddhism combined with the growing popularity of religious practice centered on devotion and sectarianism caused the traditions associated with the Rig Veda to go into decline. Classical Hinduism maintained the authority of the Vedas, but their actual content became less important than other texts like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the two great Sanskrit epics. Sectarian gods like Vishnu and Shiva (who were only minor players in the Rig Veda) supplanted Indra and Agni, and the expensive and elaborate Vedic sacrifices ceased to be performed. In the present day, small groups of Brahmins continue to memorize the Rig Veda and perform the household rites, and although it is rarely read, the Rig Veda functions as a symbol of modern Hinduism’s continuity with a religion practiced more than three thousand years ago.