The Rigveda

"One of the four Vedas , the Rigveda is the oldest Sanskrit text. Over time, it has come to be celebrated not only as a religious text, but as finely crafted literature. It is a rich and unique work containing over a thousand hymns to deities including Agni, the divine embodiment of the ritual fire; Indra with his mythology of great victories over enemies both mortal and divine; and Ushas, the divine beauty of dawn. There are also hymns to ritual elements, as well as more unexpected objects of praise (anyone who has been to India in the monsoon will appreciate the hymn to frogs). Timeless human concerns also get their due, as in the wedding hymn and the gambler’s lament. Much of the Rigveda is enigmatic, with a strong belief in the power of the word to make the ritual acts effective. There are hymns that meditate on the mysteries of the cosmos and the wonders of the world, that reflect on the relationship between humans and the divine, and more intimate expressions of deep devotion. Readers get a sense of a search for a balance between this life and the afterlife. With all the oldest books, it is difficult to date their origin because they would first have been transmitted orally. This is especially the case with the Rigveda , which was composed to be recited in rituals and transmitted entirely orally for a very long time. A final collection and redaction probably took place around 1000 BCE. Over time, the text was committed to writing, but the Rigveda is still carefully memorised and recited by Vedic priests today. Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton worked for decades to publish a magnificent three-volume English translation in 2014. Alternatively, you could go for their The Rigveda: A Guide to read more about it, and/or Wendy Doniger’s 1981 translation The Rig Veda , which has a selection of 108 of the hymns. The Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda is linguistically close to Avestan, the Old Iranian language of the earliest sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. With roots in a long Indo-European poetic tradition, the Rigveda and the Gathas of Old Avestan mirror each other both in age and style, and the Gathas are also well worth exploring."