Journeys into Vedic Thought
Long-form, researched essays on the deities, language, ritual and history of the Rig Veda. All free to read.
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The Soma Problem: What Did the Vedic Poets Actually Drink?
Mandala 9 of the Rigveda devotes 114 hymns to a single plant pressed, filtered and drunk at sacrifice. For over a century scholars have tried to identify it. The candidates include a psychoactive mushroom, a harmal shrub, ephedra, and cannabis. The hymns themselves may be the best evidence we have.
The Boundless Mother: Aditi and the Adityas
Aditi is named for what she is not: a-diti, 'un-bound,' the limitless. A sourced reading of the Vedic mother-goddess whose very name is a negation, and her sovereign sons.
Patron of Lost Things: Pushan, the Vedic God of Roads
Pushan finds what is lost, guards travellers, knows every path, and eats only gruel because he has no teeth. A sourced look at the Rig Veda's gentlest and oddest god.
The Archer Who Heals: Rudra in the Rig Veda
Rudra shoots disease from a distance and, in the same breath, is begged for the medicines that cure it. A sourced reading of the Rig Veda's most dangerous and most ambivalent god.
Croaking Like Priests: The Frog Hymn (RV 7.103)
A whole Rig Veda hymn is addressed to frogs, who chant after the first rains 'like Brahmins at a sacrifice.' A sourced reading of Vedic satire, humour and the riddle.
A World Without Blue: Colour Words in the Rig Veda
The Rig Veda has rich words for bright, ruddy and golden, but no settled word for 'blue.' A sourced look at Vedic colour vocabulary and what it does and does not tell us about perception.
The Spoked Wheel: How Chariots Help Date the Rig Veda
The Rig Veda is full of fast, light, spoke-wheeled chariots. That single piece of technology is one of the strongest clues to when and where the hymns were composed.
The Dog Who Talked Back: Sarama and the Panis (RV 10.108)
Before any human messenger, the Rig Veda sends a dog. In RV 10.108 Sarama crosses a river for Indra and argues with the cattle-thieving Panis. A sourced reading of an overlooked myth.
The First to Die: Yama and the Vedic Afterlife (RV 10.14)
Yama was the first human to die, and so became king of the dead. A sourced reading of the Rig Veda's funeral hymn, the two four-eyed dogs, and the bright world of the fathers.
Varuna and the Order of Things: Sin and Rita in the Rig Veda
Varuna watches through unseen spies, binds the guilty with his noose, and guards rita, the order of the cosmos. A sourced reading of the Rig Veda's most moral god.
The Maruts: A Storm Set to Verse
The Maruts are the Rig Veda's storm-troop, a band of young gods who shake the mountains and bring the rain. A sourced reading of their hymns and their poetics of weather.
The Cow as Currency: Cattle and Wealth in the Rig Veda
In the Rig Veda the word for a battle can literally mean 'a search for cows.' A sourced look at cattle as wealth, measure and metaphor in the Vedic economy.