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 Goddess Who Is Her Own Hymn: Vāc and the Self-Praise of Speech in Rigveda 10.125
In one short hymn of the Rigveda, the goddess Speech praises herself in the first person, claiming to carry the gods and pervade the cosmos. A close reading of RV 10.125 and the long afterlife of deified Vāc.
Cartographers of the Vedas: Two Centuries of Scholarship on the Rigvedic River Names
From Christian Lassen in 1847 to satellite imagery in the 2010s. A history of the scholarly project to identify the rivers named in the Nadistuti (Rigveda 10.75) and to map them onto the modern landscape of north-west South Asia.
Women in the Rig Veda: Rishikas, Goddesses, and What the Hymns Actually Say
About 30 hymns of the Rig Veda are traditionally attributed to women composers — the *Rishikas*. The Veda also names a complete pantheon of goddesses, including Vāc Āmbhṛṇī whose Devī Sūkta (10.125) is one of the most striking first-person hymns in any ancient literature.
Vedic Geography: Where the Rig Veda Was Actually Composed
The Rig Veda is a deeply geographical text. Its hymns name rivers, mountains, plains and cardinal directions with a consistency that lets us pin its composition to a specific region — the Saptasindhu, the 'Land of the Seven Rivers' in what is today Punjab, Haryana, and eastern Pakistan.
The Lost Sarasvati: Satellite Imagery, Geology and the Rig Veda's Sacred River
The Sarasvati is praised in roughly 50 Rig Vedic hymns as a mighty perennial river flowing from mountain to sea. By the Brāhmaṇas she had vanished. Satellite imagery, sediment cores and isotope geochemistry now let us reconstruct what happened.