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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Homage Rules the Gods: The Rigveda's Strangest Offering
In the Rigveda, namas is not a feeling and not a greeting. It is a thing poets carry to the fire alongside firewood and butter, a substance that holds up the earth and sky, cancels sin, and gets paid to a handful of gambling nuts.
A Hundred Jars from a Horse's Hoof: The Rigveda's Other Intoxicant
The Rigveda devotes an entire book to soma. It mentions surā, the grain beer people actually drank, in seven verses, and two of those are disputed. The silence turns out to be the most informative thing about it.
Only the Sound Is Heard: The Rig Veda's God With No Shape
The Rig Veda gives the first cup of soma not to Indra but to the wind, a god its own poets say has never been seen. The hymns to Vāyu and Vāta show what Vedic thought did with a power detectable only by its effects.
The Twins on the Treaty Tablet: The Aśvins and the Indo-European Divine Horsemen
A clay tablet from northern Syria, written around 1350 BCE, swears an oath by gods named Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra, and the Nāsatya. The last pair are the Aśvins, the Rigveda's horse-riding twin rescuers, and they are also the best surviving witness to a myth Indo-Europeans told before any of these languages existed.
Varuna: The Watchful God and the Invention of Cosmic Guilt
Varuna is the only Rigvedic god who makes his worshippers feel guilty. A close reading of his hymns, his thousand-eyed surveillance network, his noose, and the strange arc from supreme cosmic sovereign to minor water deity.
Dasas, Dasyus, and the Question of the Other: Who Were the Rigveda's Enemies?
The Rigveda names its opponents Dasas and Dasyus, but who were they? This article traces the textual evidence, the linguistic cognates, and 150 years of scholarly debate to show what we actually know and where the gaps remain.
The Rig Veda and the Avesta: Shared Indo-Iranian Heritage of Hindus and Zoroastrians
The Rig Veda and the Zoroastrian Avesta are sister texts. Their languages, gods, rituals and even individual poetic lines preserve a common Indo-Iranian heritage that predates the split into Vedic and Iranian religion.