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.
No articles match your search. Clear →
A Bull, a Log, and the Woman Holding the Reins
One hymn in the Rigveda's tenth book reports a race. The team is a bull and a block of wood, the driver is a woman named Mudgalānī, and the bull urinates halfway down the track. Three thousand years of commentators have argued about what on earth is going on.
The Gods Who Came to Collect: Debt in the Rig Veda
Twenty verses of the Rig Veda use the word ṛṇa, debt. Victorian translators turned most of them into sin and guilt. Restore the ledger and a harder world appears: creditor gods, a king named Debt-Collector, and a poet begging not to be billed for his brother's arrears.