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 Prop Under the Sky: What Dharma Meant Before It Meant Duty
In the Rigveda, dharma is not a moral code. It is a load-bearing noun, the physical thing that keeps heaven and earth from collapsing into each other. It appears sixty-three times, mostly in the youngest hymns, and one translator rendered it seven different ways in a single book.
Karma Was a Verb First: What the Rigveda Actually Says About What You Do
The Rigveda uses the word karman thirty-six times and never once means what you think. Its ethical vocabulary comes from the workshop, not the courtroom: the word for a good deed is sukṛtá, 'well-made'. And in one verse, a dying man is told to go meet the deposit he left in heaven.
The Sky That Does Not Fall: Astronomy and Cosmology in the Rigveda
Three thousand years before Newton, a Rigvedic poet looked up and asked why the sun, unbound and unsupported, does not fall out of the sky. This is what the oldest layer of Indian thought actually knew about measuring time, mapping the heavens, and where it all came from.
Varuna: The Watchful God and the Invention of Cosmic Guilt
Varuna is the only Rigvedic god who makes his worshippers feel guilty. A close reading of his hymns, his thousand-eyed surveillance network, his noose, and the strange arc from supreme cosmic sovereign to minor water deity.
What the Rigveda Says About Nature: Rivers, Fire, Dawn, and the Cosmic Order of Ṛta
The Rigveda is the oldest surviving record of how a literate culture saw the natural world. A close reading of its rivers, its fire-sciences, its dawn observations, and the principle of ṛta that holds them together.