Indra, The Supreme Deity of Rig Veda

Indra of Rigveda, 2023

This book proposes a decipherement from adhyatma perspective of an important part of Rigveda --- hymns to Indra.

18th World Sanskrit Conference (On Line), 9-13 Jan. 2023., 2023

The descriptions, elicited from the Rig Veda about the ritual drink Soma, bear remarkable similarities to the drink of the ancient Greek Mysteries named Kykeon, which had as basic component the wine. We have to take into account that both drinks derive from cults appertained to the wider family of a Solar cult, whose main center, during the prehistoric period, was the area extending from the Mediterranean, Eurasia, Middle East to the Indus Valley. The Solar cult, having the Sun as symbol of God, is been developed around the axis of a divine drama, that is the sacrificial death and resurrection of God, indicated by the annual cycle of the Sun and its four stations, the two solstices and the two equinoxes. Thus, Soma as wine, conveys a theological symbolism which dictates the soteriology of the Solar cult, as it is articulated in the Rig Veda, regarding to its prepara-tion process and to its final composition. This hypothesis, in this paper, is supported by ancient Greek texts, by archeological findings in the Middle East and by the interpretation of the term Soma through its indo-european etymological root, together with the semantic analysis of its epithets.

Hymns to Mitra and Varuna in the Rigveda, 2011

1 The Secret of the Veda, p. 518 2 The active cosmic Truth of things diffused and arranged in their mutability and divisibility of Time and Space veils the eternal and unchanging Truth of which it is a manifestation. 3 The eternal Truth is the goal of the divine Light which arises in us and journeys upward into higher and higher heavens through the shining upper ocean. 4 The entire plenitude of the divine wealth in its outpourings of knowledge, force and joy. 5 The One, the Deva veiled by his form of the divine Sun. Cf. Isha Upanishad, "That splendour which is thy fairest form, O Sun, that let me behold. The Purusha who is there and there, He am I." 6 Tad ekam, tat satyam-phrases always carefully misinterpreted by the commentators. 7 Devavīti, devatāti.

The contributions that Asko Parpola has made to the study of the earliest phases of South Asian culture are varied but invariably stimulating. As a small tribute to his scholarly energy and to his leadership in our discipline, I offer this survey of that most outstanding of the Vedic gods, Indra, as he appears in the Sanskrit epics.

Owing to the sheer volume of the hymns in the Rig Veda, an attempt to analyze the entire anthology would prove to be a project of epic proportions. This is why Wendy Doniger's compilation of 108 select hymns from the Rig Veda is the primary text for this paper. This paper will firstly elaborate on why this anthology was chosen as the primary text for this paper. Following this will be a section that offers a context in place and time to the composition of the Rig Veda. This will be followed by an analysis of the nature and tone of the hymns. Secondly, this paper shall analyze the ancient formless deity that is sacred speech and her worthiness of being a sacrifice. What follows then is an exploration of the Vedic custom of sacrifice. Finally, this paper will draw a parallel between death and sacrifice. The Rig Veda is an anthology of 1028 of the oldest hymns recorded in the history of the Indian subcontinent, and perhaps in the world. Each of these hymns contains on average about 10 verses. In the Introduction to her translation of the Rig Veda, Wendy Doniger writes that the true meaning of the Rig Veda is " hidden [as it is] behind the thorny wall of an ancient cryptic language ". The language of composition of the Rig Veda is an ancient form of the Sanskrit that is known today. The Rig Veda is composed in an ancient Indo-Aryan language that is generally obsolete in this current day. The hymns in this anthology are often obscure and hard to understand even though the language is simple and direct. The obscurity lies not in the words themselves, but rather in the ideas that they represent. Often, the hymns present ideas of formless entities, by using metaphors and parallelisms that are hard to visualize and comprehend as they are presented. Then later hymns will present the same entity or deity with the use of a whole other set of metaphors thereby obfuscating the already amorphous idea of that entity or deity. For instance, hymn 7.103 about the Frogs has a multitude of different, sometimes contrasting, levels of meaning. The juxtaposition of the Brahmins and the frogs, the comparisons drawn between the frogs and cows, the unusual nature of the metaphors and similes used, and the complicated imagery of the hymn require multiple readings to even gather some kind of meaning from it. Moreover, a lot of the voice of a language is lost when it is translated into another. Thus, phrases and ideas that were commonplace in the time and place of the composition of the Rig Veda in that archaic Sanskrit tongue, lose the nuances that are indigenous to the tongue in which they were composed.

Bhāratam Janam is a self-designation as 'metalcaster folk' in the ancient history of India from ca. 6500 BCE. The expression is used by Rishi Visvamitra in Rigveda: viśvāmitrasya rakṣati brahmedam bhāratam janam RV 3.053.12. See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/12/vedic-asurta-based-on-svarsur-sun-and.html Vedic asūrta based on svàr/sūr ‘sun’ and Mlecchita vikalpa. Itihaasa of Asur/Bharatiyo metalcasters. I have embedded 40 images of gold, variety electrum ore which can be rendered as a plant metaphor, consistent with all references to Soma in ancient Veda text corpora. These images are consistent with reference to an attribute of Soma in the Rigveda as asurya varnam: RV 9.71.2 pra krstihéva susa eti róruvad, asuryàm varnam ni rinite asya tám /jáhati vavrim pitúr etiniskrtam, upaprútam krnute nirnijam tana, प्र कृष्टिहेव शूष एति रोरुवद असुर्यं वर्णं नि रिणीते अस्य तम् जहाति वव्रिम् पितुर एति निष्कृतम् उपप्रुतं कृणुते निर्णिजं तना (RV 9.71.2) Translation: The powerful (Soma) advances with a roar like a slayer of men; he puts forth that asura-slaying tint of his; he abandons bodily infirmity; the food goes to the prepared (altar); he assumes a form advancing to the outstretched (filter). [asura-slaying tint: i.e., green; or varn.am means 'protecting strength'; the food: i.e., the Soma; pituh = juice or food; tana_ = in the filter outstretched by the sheep-skin]. For a commentary by Kuiper on this rica and problems of interpretation of an ancient text, see Annex. I am quoting Kuiper extensively in view of the importance attached to the gloss varnam in Rigveda which is interpreted as 'color' by Sayana in this rica RV 9.71.2. Color is an important characteristic that renders Georges Pinault's ancu (Tocharian) ~~ amśu (Rigveda) concordance a valid framework in philology to unravel the contacts between Rigvedic people and Tusharas as traders in Soma in Rigvedic times. Pinault's views are discussed in this monograph. I suggest that ancu is Meluhha cognate of Rigveda amśu and in early use by Meluhha speakers referred to 'iron (metal ore)' from which Soma, 'electrum, gold-silver amalgam' was processed in Agnistoma atiratra prayers by Rigvedic people. This means that Meluhha (mleccha) speakers were an integral part of Rigvedic culture, as dasyu (daha, 'people'), though prone to mispronunciations and ungrammatical phonetic forms in vernacular, 'parole'. Soma in Rigveda is NOT a drink or edible product, Soma is food for Deva and hence, a metaphor, praying for favors from the divinities to bestow the worshipper with Soma, wealth. The metaphor, Soma, tad devaanaam annam, tam devaa bhakshyanti (in Chandogya Upanishad) should be interpreted as adoration of divinities who process Soma as food. Rigveda is emphatic with a double negative, that no one who knows Soma, never drinks it.

he Rigveda is the oldest Sanskrit text, consisting of over one thousand hymns dedicated to various divinities of the Vedic tradition. Orally composed and orally transmitted for several millennia, the hymns display remarkable poetic complexity and religious sophistication. As the culmination of the long tradition of Indo-Iranian oral-formulaic praise poetry and the first monument of specifically Indian religiousity and literature, the Rigveda is crucial to the understanding both of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian intellectual and aesthetic prehistory and of the rich flowering of Indic religious expression and Indic high literature that were to follow. This new translation represents the first complete scholarly translation into English in over a century and utilizes the results of the intense research of the last century on the language and the ritual system of the text. The focus of this translation is on the poetic techniques and structures utilized by the bards and on the ways that the poetry intersects with and dynamically expresses the ritual underpinnings of the text.

“Structures, Events and Ritual Practice in the Rg-Veda : The Gharma and Atri’s Rescue by the Aśvins.” In: Language, Ritual and Poetics in Ancient India and Iran: Studies in honor of Shaul Migron (ed. David Shulman) : 87-135. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 2010. In the recent translation published by Jamison and Brereton, Jamison mentions the present study but does not adress any of the arguments (The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India. Vols. I-III. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). The problems in Jamison's interpretation of hymns such as RV 8.73 and in the translation of hiména in RV 8.73.3 as "with snow" rather than "during the winter" remain therefore unresolved. This paper deals with a complex problem of interpretation regarding an event referred to in various brief statements dispersed in the Rg-Veda (RV): Atri’s rescue by the twin gods, the Aśvins. What makes it so difficult to resolve is the simultaneous involvement of several problem areas, each bearing a number of variables and uncertain factors. Interpretational decisions in one area have immediate implications for the others, so that if we insist on regularity and structure in one area, we must, so it seems, accept some irregularity in another, and vice versa. The first area is language. We would like to see structure and regularity in the morphology, syntax and semantics of the relevant passages. However, we must take into account that a poet may make intentional deviations from the standard in order to achieve certain effects. Next, there is myth. Here, again, we would like to see harmony and regularity in the statements found in diverse hymns in the Rg-Veda, and we would like to be able to reconstruct a relatively unitary underlying story or myth on their basis. But here, again, a poet may modify a received story or deviate from a standard myth – assuming the poet refers to an event on the basis of story or myth, and not on the basis of having been directly involved in it. These are the two areas on which interpreters of the RV have focused their attention in the last century and half or so, also with regard to Atri and the Aśvins. A third relevant area, that of ritual practice, has largely been neglected in this context. A critical reconsideration of all three areas and their interrelationships will lead to a new interpretation and evaluation of the Rg-Vedic story of Atri and the Aśvins. This article discusses critically earlier interpretations, including the one proposed by Stephanie Jamison in her well-researched and stimulating study The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. Within a strictly RV context this interpretation remains incoherent and it cannot be maintained unless by invoking statements from much later texts, especially the Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa.

Flash article n. 13, July 2022

“Dialogic Space: Bilingual Literary Journal of Khalisani Mahavidyalaya”, Volume-1, December 2012. ISSN 2347-8195, 2012