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 God Inside the Slaughtered Horse: Reading the Aśvamedha Hymns (RV 1.162–1.163)
Two Rigvedic hymns, RV 1.162 and 1.163, narrate the killing of a horse and then insist the horse does not die. Read together, they open onto an Indo-European ritual older than India, a royal theater of sovereignty, and a quiet anatomy lesson hidden in a sacred poem.
Apām Napāt, the Child of the Waters: A God of Fire Born from the Flood
One Rigvedic hymn, RV 2.35, praises a golden god who shines without fuel at the bottom of the waters. Apām Napāt is the strangest figure in the Vedic pantheon, and the key to a fire-in-water myth older than India itself.
The Body That Became the World: Reading the Puruṣa Sūkta (RV 10.90)
A late Rigvedic hymn imagines the universe built from a dismembered giant, and in one verse derives the four social classes from his body. Here is what the text actually says, why scholars date it late, and how it preserves a creation myth older than Sanskrit.
Of the Same Age, in the Same Nest: The Maruts and the Indo-European War-Band
The Maruts are the Rigveda's storm troop: dozens of young men of one age, armed, loud, and devoted to Indra. A line of scholarship reads them as the divine mirror of a real institution, the Indo-European youth war-band. The reading is powerful, and its history is uncomfortable.
How to Kill a Dragon: Vṛtra and a Sentence Older Than Sanskrit
Three Vedic words, áhann áhim, encode a sentence that survives in Hittite, Greek, and Norse. The Vṛtra myth is not just Indra's story; it is the oldest plot the Indo-Europeans carried with them.
The Falcon That Stole the Drink of the Gods: Reading the Śyena Myth of Rigveda 4.26-27
Two hymns in the fourth book of the Rigveda tell how a falcon flew to the highest heaven, snatched the gods' soma past an armed guardian, and lost a single feather to an arrow. The same story turns up in Iran, Scandinavia, and Greece.
The God You Pray Away: Rudra, the Archer Who Heals, and the Long Prehistory of Śiva
Rudra gets only three hymns in the Rigveda, yet he is the most carefully handled god in the collection. The poets praise his arrows so he will aim them elsewhere, and call him kind so he will become so. This is how a feared archer turned into Śiva.
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.
Vedic Gods Across the Indo-European World: From Dyaus Pitar to Zeus
Dyaus Pitar = Zeus = Jupiter. Uṣas = Eos = Aurora. Indra slaying Vṛtra = Apollo slaying Python = Thor and Jörmungandr. How comparative philology reconstructs the religion of the Proto-Indo-Europeans — with the Rig Veda as the most conservative witness.