The Rig Veda Blog
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 Rigveda's Accidental Census: What Its Personal Names Give Away
The Rigveda's hymns were carefully shaped. The personal names inside them were not. Read the poets, patrons and outsiders by name and a different society appears: one with foreign donors, joke names, blind bards and women who exist only as grammatical operations on a husband.
The Price of Praise: The Dānastuti and the Gift Economy of the Rigveda
At the end of dozens of Rigvedic hymns the poets stop praising gods and start counting cattle. These 'praise of the gift' verses record what a patron paid for a song, and they are among the most revealing lines in the whole collection.