It consists of 1,017 hymns (1,028 including the apocryphal valakhīlya hymns 8.49–8.59) composed in Vedic Sanskrit, many of which are intended for various sacrifical rituals. These are contained in 10 books, known as Mandalas. This long collection of short hymns is mostly devoted to the praise of the gods. However, it also contains fragmentary references to historical events, notably the struggle between the early Vedic people (known as Vedic Aryans, a subgroup of the Indo-Aryans) and their enemies, the Dasa.
The chief gods of the Rigveda are Agni, the sacrificial fire, Indra, a heroic god that is praised for having slain his enemy Vrtra, and Soma, the sacred potion, or the plant it is made from. Other prominent gods are Mitra, Varuna and Ushas (the dawn). Also invoked are Savitar, Vishnu, Rudra, Pushan, Brihaspati, Brahmanaspati, Dyaus Pita (the sky), Prithivi (the earth), Surya (the sun), Vayu (the wind), Parjanya (the rain), Vac (the word), the Maruts, the Asvins, the Adityas, the Rbhus, the Vishvadevas (the all-gods) as well as various further minor gods, persons, concepts, phenomena and items.
Some of the names of gods and goddesses found
in the Rigveda are found amongst other
Indo-European people as well: Dyaus-Pita is
cognate with Greek Zeus, Latin Jupiter (from
deus-pater), and Germanic Tyr; while Mitra is
cognate with Persian Mithra; also, Ushas with
Greek Eos and Latin Aurora; and, less certainly,
Varuna with Greek Uranos. Finally, Agni is
cognate with Latin ignis and Russian ogon, both
meaning "fire".
The Rigveda is far more archaic than any other
Indo-Aryan text preserved. For this reason, it
has been in the center of attention of western
scholarship from the times of Max Müller. The
Rigveda records an early stage of Vedic
religion, still closely tied to the
pre-Zoroastrian Persian religion. It is thought
that Zoroastrianism and Vedic Hinduism evolved
from an earlier common religious Indo-Iranian
culture.
Scholars usually date the Rigveda to the 2nd
millennium BC both linguistically and on grounds
of its references to late bronze age culture.
The Rigveda describes a mobile, nomadic culture,
with horse-drawn chariots and metal (bronze)
weapons. According to some scholars the
geography described is consistent with that of
the Punjab (Gandhara): Rivers flow north to
south, the mountains are relatively remote but
still reachable (Soma is a plant found in the
mountains, and it has to be purchased, imported
by merchants). D.B. Kasar identifies the
Sahyadri mountains in Maharashtra with rivers
Vedganga, Pravara, Vashisthi, Neera, Sindphana
as a possible location, though this claim is not
widely accepted.
The text is commonly held to have been completed
between 1500 BC and 1200 BC, or the early period
of the Gandhara Grave culture. After their
composition, the texts were preserved and
codified by a vast body of Vedic priesthood as
the central philosophy of the Iron Age Vedic
civilization.
Nevertheless, the hymns were certainly composed
over a long period, with the oldest elements
possibly reaching back into Indo-Iranian times,
or the early 2nd millennium BC. Thus there is
some debate over whether the boasts of the
destruction of stone forts by the Vedic Aryans
and particularly by Indra refer to cities of the
Indus Valley civilization or whether they hark
back to clashes between the early Indo-Aryans
with the BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological
Complex) culture centuries earlier, in what is
now northern Afghanistan and southern
Turkmenistan (separated from the upper Indus by
the Hindu Kush mountain range, and some 400 km
distant). In any case, while it is highly likely
that the bulk of the Rigveda was composed in the
Punjab, even if based on earlier poetic
traditions, there is no mention of either tigers
or rice in the Rigveda (as opposed to the later
Vedas), suggesting that Vedic culture only
penetrated into the plains of India after its
completion. Similarly, there is no mention of
iron. The Iron Age in northern India begins in
the 12th century BC with the Black and Red Ware
(BRW) culture. This is a widely accepted
timeframe for the beginning codification of the
Rigveda (i.e. the arrangement of the individual
hymns in books, and the fixing of the
samhitapatha (by applying Sandhi) and the
padapatha (by dissolving Sandhi) out of the
earlier metrical text), and the composition of
the younger Vedas. This time probably coincides
with the early Kuru kingdom, shifting the center
of Vedic culture east from the Punjab into what
is now Uttar Pradesh.
Some, mostly Indian, writers have used alleged
astronomical references in the Rigveda to date
it to as early as the 4th millennium BC.
Mainstream scholarship widely rejects these
interpretations as pseudoscientific (e.g. Witzel,
1999).
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