Rig Veda

Published on 10th April, 2022, in Mid-day. The Rig Vedic hymns were composed over 3,000 years ago, most probably by children of men who migrated into India with horses from Central Asia, and married local women. The hymns mostly reveal the valours of the fathers, but occasionally the longings of the mother. The marriage hymn tells us about a girl called Surya, who is fetched by the Ashwins and taken to her husband. We learn how the woman already has had three husbands: Soma, Agni and Gandharva, before receiving her fourth husband. Does it mean women had four husbands, a pre-Vedic practice frowned upon by ..

Published on 19th December, 2021, in Mid-day. The horse is not native to the Indian subcontinent. It has been the most prized import from the northwestern regions, from Arabia, Central Asia and from Eurasia. This is why the kings who live in the Northwest part of India, in Gandhara and Madra were referred to as Ashwapati, in the Ramayana and Mahabharata. By contrast, the kings of India were called Gajapati because they were known for exporting elephants. So, India exported elephants and imported horses. Genetic studies have revealed that the horse was domesticated around 4,000 years ago. Until now, it was difficult to prove when ..

Published on 18th February, 2018, in Mumbai Mirror. So the Rig Veda is a collection of over a thousand finely crafted hymns (mantras) distributed over 10 chapters known as mandalas, written in a very old form of Sanskrit. Each hymn (sukta) praises a deity, the most prominent of whom were Indra, Agni and Soma, gods who we are barely familiar with today. The Indra of the Vedas is very different from the Indra of the Puranas: he is not the one who rides the white skinned Airavata and fears loss of his status as king of the celestial devas. He is a warrior who battles ..