The Rig Veda: An Anthology

The hymns in these two chapters shed light on the physical, verbal, and social aspects of Vedic sacrificial ritual. Fraternities of poet-priests, each with a distinct role in the rite, performed sacrifices on behalf of a patron, typically a member of the social elite. The power of ritualistic speech to invoke the gods successfully and win their favor was crucially important, and the priests’ mastery of sacred utterance was essential. In the context of ritual, sacred speech is a transformative force; it embodies truth (rta; also translated as “order”) as a dynamic, metaphysical power. The hymns also demonstrate the obscure allusions of Vedic poetry and its system of associations linking the human, divine, and natural worlds. The logic of Vedic sacrifice depends upon this web of metaphorical substitution, which, by uniting the ritual and cosmic worlds, enables the poet-priest to exert control over the cosmic dimension through manipulation of ritual.

The poems in the Rig Veda are liturgical texts meant to accompany ritual, and sophisticated literary art. As liturgy, the language of Vedic hymns was felt to have an activating power that could influence the gods. The hymns combine several types of speech acts—including riddles, performance, descriptions, invocations, prayers, warnings— but their main aim is to praise the god(s) to whom they are addressed and encourage the divine recipient(s) to provide favors as repayment for the praise. This system of reciprocity is the underlying social and religious ideology of the Rig Veda, structuring the interactions of humans and gods, and poets and their wealthy patrons.

Reciprocity forms the basis of Vedic sacrifice; the gods (hopefully) bestow wealth and long life on the worshipper in return for the oblation, while the patron rewards the poet-priest for his literary and sacerdotal expertise. Invoking the gods’ presence at the sacrifice, the priest hopes an epiphany will occur; that is, the gods will visibly manifest at the consecrated sacrificial ground. Vedic hymns thus typically invite the gods to attend the sacrifice following an initial dedication praising the deities. The sacrifice must be performed perfectly—to please the deities, the victim must be dismembered and burned according to a strict decorum and without mutilation. The Rig Veda distinguishes four branches of the priesthood performing the ritual: One group invokes the gods, another sings in an assigned meter, the Brahmin ensures that no mistakes are committed during the rite, and the fourth group of priests measures out the sacrificial ground.

Ritual should replicate mythical events such as the origin of the gods and the universe and symbolize the cosmological structure of the world in the religious context of the worshipper. The hymn on the origins of sacred speech (10.71) concerns the priest’s mastery of sacred language; it invests creative power in the priest’s utterance by recalling the ancient poets’ naming of the world. Through their divine wisdom and love, the ancestral sages discovered the secret names of things, names that reveal the true essences of objects. Language is not a system of arbitrary description grounded by convention; the sacred word reveals and invokes truth—to know the name of a thing is to know its truth. Naming is a ritually creative act: To invoke the name Indra is to access the essential identity of the god. Just as the ancient sages gave names to the objects of the world according to their true nature, the Vedic poet claims the power to penetrate the mysteries of existence and influence the cosmos through inspired speech. The divine, creative nature of language emerges in 10.125, where personified Speech identifies itself with Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the entire pantheon. Speech is both logos and a social marker: “Whom I love, I make awesome; I make him a sage, a wise man, a Brahmin,” it declares (63).

To be ritually effective, and to please the gods who relish novelty, the poet must display deep knowledge of the everyday, cosmic, and ritual realms. The Vedic poet habitually uses metaphor and simile to reveal the connections between the human, ritual, and divine worlds. Metaphors in Vedic literature are not mere poetic ornament—they disclose a special knowledge of cosmic correspondences. The poet shares this knowledge with his audience; understanding Vedic poetry depends on grasping this system of associations, substitutions, or circumlocutions.

In Vedic poetry, metaphors and similes intertwine with each other through a process of association, creating a condensed fabric of figurative imagery. This elaborate system of identifications and associations forms the mental universe of Vedic poetry, establishing order and continuity between the human and non-human realms. The sacrifice is, simultaneously: a ship or chariot that carries the oblation from the human world to the afterlife or to the gods; a loom on which the priest weaves his verbal art; a plough that turns the soil for the planting of a seed; and a womb prepared for insemination. The pressing of the leaves of the Soma plant and the preparation of the sacred drink is a sacrificial act likened to yoking oxen, grooming a horse, and sexual intercourse. Soma is at times a bull, a cow, urine, semen, the fertilizing rain, the clear water of inspiration, the navel of Order, and a newborn child. Mixing Soma with milk as part of the Soma ritual is like the bull running toward the cows. The ruddy rays of light at dawn are also like cows; Dawn appears as “the mother of cows.” A prominent and polysemous symbol in the Vedas, the cow, by virtue of its nourishing milk, can symbolize the goddess of Speech, the fountain of divine knowledge, or inspiration. The sun is frequently compared to the ritual fire, and the ritual ground is often seen as a mini-cosmos.

While animal sacrifice does not figure prominently in the Rig Veda, the horse sacrifice was an ostentatious and dramatic ritual performed by a king. Hymn 1.162 describes the sacrifice in gory detail, while omitting its most outlandish feature—simulated intercourse between the queen and the slaughtered horse just after its dispatch. Associated with Indra, the rider of the solar horse, the royal horse is linked to cosmological elements; its mane, for instance, corresponds with the sun’s rays. The priests offer the sacrificed horse’s ribs to the sun, moon, planets, and constellations; and its journey to the gods in the afterlife is like the sun traversing the sky.