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 Tenth Month: How the Rig Veda Talks About Being Born
The Rig Veda uses the word for womb about seventy times and the word for embryo about a hundred, almost always to describe fire, dawn or the sky. In four short hymns it drops the metaphor and speaks about an actual woman in labour, and those verses are the plainest lines in the book.
A Hundred and Seven Homes: The Rigveda's Forgotten Physician
One Rigvedic poet lists his family: he writes verse, his mother grinds grain, his father is a doctor. Medicine is the trade the Rigveda almost never gets credit for, and the hymn that preserves it is one of the strangest things in the collection.