Rig Veda

Impact

The Rig Veda and the sacrificial rituals it prescribed were the foundation of the Vedic religion that preceded it and had a profound influence on the Hindu tradition that followed. By the time of the Mahabharata, between 300 BCE and 300 CE, a wide array of clans, guilds, and tribes were being absorbed into the Vedic class system, resulting in a complex hierarchy of hereditary social groups that formed the basis of the modern caste system. The ideology of “The Hymn of the Cosmic Man” was part of a system of Brahmin rules of purity and pollution that governed divisions of labor, marriage, and who could eat with whom. The Rig Veda was also the source of many later intellectual developments. Determining the exact specifications and proper times for performing the Vedic rituals demanded the rigorous application of geometry and astronomy, giving birth to the sciences in ancient India. And as they speculated on the meaning of the sacrifice in more and more esoteric ways, the Brahmins began to develop schools of philosophy, including Yoga and the mystical traditions of the Upanishads.