Rigveda Quotes

Truth is one, but the wise men know it as many; God is one, but we can approach Him in many ways.

There is no happiness for him who does not travel, Rohita! Thus we have heard. Living in the society of men, the best man becomes a sinner… therefore, wander!… The fortune of him who is sitting, sits; it rises when he rises; it sleeps when he sleeps; it moves when he moves. Therefore, wander!

Truth is one; sages call it by various names. (Rig Veda)

Rigveda: Book No 1. Hyme No. 164 verse 46: “Truth, one and the same be, Wise describe it differently

To what is One, sages give many a title they call it Agni, Yama, Mātariśvan. एकं सद विप्रा बहुधा वदन्त्यग्निं यमं मातरिश्वानमाहुः || 1:164:46 (ekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadantyaghniṃ yamaṃ mātariśvānamāhuḥ)

Does rough weather choose men over women? Does the sun beat on men, leaving women nice and cool?' Nyawira asked rather sharply. 'Women bear the brunt of poverty. What choices does a woman have in life, especially in times of misery? She can marry or live with a man. She can bear children and bring them up, and be abused by her man. Have you read Buchi Emecheta of Nigeria, Joys of Motherhood? Tsitsi Dangarembga of Zimbabwe, say, Nervous Conditions? Miriama Ba of Senegal, So Long A Letter? Three women from different parts of Africa, giving words to similar thoughts about the condition of women in Africa.' 'I am not much of a reader of fiction,' Kamiti said. 'Especially novels by African women. In India such books are hard to find.' 'Surely even in India there are women writers? Indian women writers?' Nyawira pressed. 'Arundhati Roy, for instance, The God of Small Things? Meena Alexander, Fault Lines? Susie Tharu. Read Women Writing in India. Or her other book, We Were Making History, about women in the struggle!' 'I have sampled the epics of Indian literature,' Kamiti said, trying to redeem himself. 'Mahabharata, Ramayana, and mostly Bhagavad Gita. There are a few others, what they call Purana, Rig-Veda, Upanishads … Not that I read everything, but …' 'I am sure that those epics and Puranas, even the Gita, were all written by men,' Nyawira said. 'The same men who invented the caste system. When will you learn to listen to the voices of women?

Who really knows, and who can swear, How creation came, when or where! Even gods came after creation's day, Who really knows, who can truly say When and how did creation start? Did He will it? Or did He not? Only He, up there, knows, maybe; Or perhaps, not even He

Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti

The truth is one, the wise call it by many names.

Rigveda had been virtually unknown until Coeurdeveaux, a French Jesuit missionary, discovered it in Benares in 1767 and had it translated.

But he, Siddhartha, was not a source of joy for himself, he found no delight in himself. Walking the rosy paths of the fig tree garden, sitting in the bluish shade of the grove of contemplation, washing his limbs daily in the bath of repentance, sacrificing in the dim shade of the mango forest, his gestures of perfect decency, everyone's love and joy, he still lacked all joy in his heart. Dreams and restless thoughts came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from the stars of the night, melting from the beams of the sun, dreams came to him and a restlessness of the soul, fuming from the sacrifices, breathing forth from the verses of the Rig-Veda, being infused into him, drop by drop, from the teachings of the old Brahmans.

Yoga was originated in India around 5500 BCE. Vedas were written during 1500 to 1200 BCE and the Patanjali's yoga sutra was written around 500 BCE.

He wondered if he would live to see the blossom on his apple trees and felt an answering pop inside himself. Ah, so it would not be long now. It began to snow lightly, the last flakes to fall before the spring. He put on his wedding finery, the clothes he had worn so long ago when he married his beloved Pamposh, and which he had kept all this time wrapped in tissue paper in a trunk. As a bridegroom he went outdoors and the snowflakes caressed his grizzled cheeks. His mind was alert, he was ambulatory and nobody was waiting for him with a club. He had his body and his mind and it seemed he was to be spared a brutal end. That at least was kind. He went into his apple orchard, seated himself cross-legged beneath a tree, closed his eyes, heard the verses of the Rig-Veda fill the world with beauty and ceased upon the midnight with no pain.

In the Rig-Veda, the most ancient of Indian religious texts, a duck lays golden eggs on a nest built on the head of a thief, and the Finnish epic Kalevala describes a duck building a nest on the body of Ilmator (daughter of air) as she lies in the sea. The duck lays eggs that fall and crack open, the yolk forming earth and the rest the heavens, sun, moon, stars, and the clouds.

Aurobindo’s orientation has yielded important new insights into the thought of the Vedic seers (rishi), who “saw” the truth. He showed a way out of the uninspiring scholarly perspective, with its insistence that the Vedic seers were “primitive” poets obsessed with natural phenomena like thunder, lightning, and rain. The one-dimensional “naturalistic” interpretations proffered by other translators missed out on the depth of the Vedic teachings. Thus Sūrya is not only the visible material Sun but also the psychological-spiritual principle of inner luminosity. Agni is not merely the physical fire that consumes the sacrificial offerings but the spiritual principle of purifying transformation. Parjanya does not only stand for rain but also the inner “irrigation” of grace. Soma is not merely the concoction the sacrificial priests poured into the fire but also (as in the later Tantric tradition) the magical inner substance that transmutes the body and the mind. The wealth prayed for in many hymns is not just material prosperity but spiritual riches. The cows mentioned over and over again in the hymns are not so much the biological animals but spiritual light. The Panis are not just human merchants but various forces of darkness. When Indra slew Vritra and released the floods, he not merely inaugurated the monsoon season but also unleashed the powers of life (or higher energies) within the psyche of the priest. For Indra also stands for the mind and Vritra for psychological restriction, or energetic blockage. Aurobindo contributed in a major way to a thorough reappraisal of the meaning of the Vedic hymns, and his work encouraged a number of scholars to follow suit, including Jeanine Miller and David Frawley.2 There is also plenty of deliberate, artificial symbolism in the hymns. In fact, the figurative language of the Rig-Veda is extraordinarily rich, as Willard Johnson has demonstrated.3 In special sacrificial symposia, the hymn composers met to share their poetic creations and stimulate each other’s creativity and comprehension of the subtle realities of life. Thus many hymns are deliberately enigmatic, and often we can only guess at the solutions to their enigmas and allegorical riddles. Heinrich Zimmer reminded us: The myths and symbols of India resist intellectualization and reduction to fixed significations. Such treatments would only sterilize them of their magic.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were herdsmen. And we have significant evidence that they believed that the afterlife (at least one of them) was a blissful pasture full of cattle. In Hittite to “go to the meadow” was an expression that meant “to die.” In the Rig-Veda, the land to which Yama has shown us the way is called a cattle-pasture (gavyuti). Similarly, one title of the Iranian Yima was “He who has good herds.

Según el modelo mencionado por vez primera en el Rigveda, existen cuatro castas fundamentales, con diversas subdivisiones. Estas son: los brâhmana, o casta sacerdotal, dedicados al culto y a la enseñanza; los kshatriya o casta guerrera, militares y administradores; los vaishya, que son agricultores y comerciantes principalmente; y los shûdra, que incluyen artesanos y los dedicados a aquellos oficios de servicio a los demás. Aunque este sistema tenía naturaleza gremial, acabó convirtiéndose en hereditario y se le adjudicaron niveles según el prestigio de los diversos oficios. Paralelamente se establecen mayores deberes para las castas más altas, exigiéndoseles un más alto nivel de pureza y religiosidad.

The texts of the Bible, of the Iliad and Odyssey, and of the Rig-veda and Avesta, as we have them, have been modified, edited, and redacted by compilers and redactors with varied motives and diverse points of view. Not so our Sumerian literature; it has come down to us as actually inscribed by the ancient scribes of four thousand years ago, unmodified and uncodified by later compilers and commentators.

अभ॑यं मि॒त्रादभ॑यम॒मित्रा॒दभ॑यं ज्ञा॒तादभ॑यं पु॒रो यः। अभ॑यं॒ नक्त॒मभ॑यं दिवा नः॒ सर्वा॒ आशा॒ मम॑ मि॒त्रं भ॑वन्तु ॥ O God ! make me fearless . Fearless from friends, fearless from enemies, fearless from known people and from unknown things. Make me fearless at day and at night . Make me fearless for every moment i live. I should have friends everywhere there should be no place which i should be afraid of.

Hence, again, Devaki, "the infinite," who begets day, or the sun, is the dawn,73 the same as Aditi: Devaki, the virgin mother of Crishna, was also called Aditi, which, in the Rig-Veda, is the name for the Dawn.... Devaki is Aditi; Aditi is the Dawn; the Dawn is the Virgin Mother; and the Saviour of mankind, who is born of Aditi, is the Sun. Indra, worshipped in some parts of India as a crucified god, is represented in the Vedic hymns as the son of Dahana, who is Daphne, a personification of the dawn ....

All about Yoga Beauty Health.Yoga is a gathering of physical, mental, and otherworldly practices or teaches which started in antiquated India. There is a wide assortment of Yoga schools, practices, and objectives in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Among the most surely understood sorts of yoga are Hatha yoga and Rāja yoga. The birthplaces of yoga have been theorized to go back to pre-Vedic Indian conventions; it is said in the Rigveda however in all probability created around the 6th and fifth hundreds of years BCE,in antiquated India's parsimonious and śramaṇa developments. The order of most punctual writings depicting yoga-practices is indistinct, varyingly credited to Hindu Upanishads. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali date from the main portion of the first thousand years CE, however just picked up noticeable quality in the West in the twentieth century. Hatha yoga writings risen around the eleventh century with sources in tantra Yoga masters from India later acquainted yoga with the west after the accomplishment of Swami Vivekananda in the late nineteenth and mid twentieth century. In the 1980s, yoga wound up noticeably well known as an arrangement of physical exercise over the Western world.Yoga in Indian conventions, be that as it may, is more than physical exercise; it has a reflective and otherworldly center. One of the six noteworthy standard schools of Hinduism is likewise called Yoga, which has its own epistemology and transcendentalism, and is firmly identified with Hindu Samkhya reasoning. Beauty is a normal for a creature, thought, protest, individual or place that gives a perceptual ordeal of delight or fulfillment. Magnificence is examined as a major aspect of style, culture, social brain research, theory and human science. A "perfect delight" is an element which is respected, or has includes broadly ascribed to excellence in a specific culture, for flawlessness. Grotesqueness is thought to be the inverse of excellence. The experience of "magnificence" regularly includes a translation of some substance as being in adjust and amicability with nature, which may prompt sentiments of fascination and passionate prosperity. Since this can be a subjective ordeal, it is frequently said that "excellence is entirely subjective. Health is the level of practical and metabolic proficiency of a living being. In people it is the capacity of people or groups to adjust and self-oversee when confronting physical, mental, mental and social changes with condition. The World Health Organization (WHO) characterized wellbeing in its more extensive sense in its 1948 constitution as "a condition of finish physical, mental, and social prosperity and not simply the nonappearance of sickness or ailment. This definition has been liable to contention, specifically as lacking operational esteem, the uncertainty in creating durable wellbeing procedures, and on account of the issue made by utilization of "finish". Different definitions have been proposed, among which a current definition that associates wellbeing and individual fulfillment. Order frameworks, for example, the WHO Family of International Classifications, including the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), are usually used to characterize and measure the parts of wellbeing. yogabeautyhealth.com

We drank the soma, we became immortal, we reached the light

The Vedas may be full of hymns and religious invocations, but they also tell stories, speculate about the world and – true to the argumentative propensity already in view – ask difficult questions. A basic doubt concerns the very creation of the world: did someone make it, was it a spontaneous emergence, and is there a God who knows what really happened? As is discussed in Essay 1, the Rigveda goes on to express radical doubts on these issues: ‘Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? … perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not – the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows – or perhaps he does not know.’ These doubts from the second millennium BCE would recur again and again in India’s long argumentative history, along with a great many other questions about epistemology and ethics (as is discussed in Essay 1). They survive side by side with intense religious beliefs and deeply respectful faith and devotion.

Who knows for certain? No one knows whence creation arose; and whether god has or has not made it. He who surveys it from the lofty skies, only he knows--or perhaps he knows not.

The language in which the revealed Hindu texts are composed, namely, Sanskrit, has a neuter gender in addition to the masculine and feminine. In fact, the ultimate reality, the Supreme God of Hindus, is often described as neutral gender. A verse of Rigveda says that all the various deities are but descriptions of One Truth (ekam sat), and it is in neuter gender as if to emphasise that God is not male.

Some teachers refuse to call themselves teachers, because they feel they have nothing to teach; their teaching consists in their merely being present. And so on. Psychologist Guy Claxton, a former disciple of Bhagwan Rajneesh, has found the image of the guru as teacher somewhat misleading. He offers these comments: The most helpful metaphor is . . . that of a physician or therapist: enlightened Masters are, we might say, the Ultimate Therapists, for they focus their benign attention not on problems but on the very root from which the problems spring, the problem-sufferer and solver himself. The Master deploys his therapeutic tricks to one end: that of the exposure and dissolution of the fallacious self. His art is a subtle one because the illusions cannot be excised with a scalpel, dispersed with massage, or quelled with drugs. He has to work at one remove by knocking away familiar props and habits, and sustaining the seeker’s courage and resolve through the fall. Only thus can the organism cure itself. His techniques resemble those of the demolition expert, setting strategically placed charges to blow up the established super-structure of the ego, so that the ground may be exposed. Yet he has to work on each case individually, dismantling and challenging in the right sequence and at the right speed, using whatever the patient brings as his raw material for the work of the moment.1 Claxton mentions other guises, “metaphors,” that the guru assumes to deal with the disciple: guide, sergeant-major, cartographer, con man, fisherman, sophist, and magician. The multiple functions and roles of the authentic adept have two primary purposes. The first is to penetrate and eventually dissolve the egoic armor of the disciple, to “kill” the phenomenon that calls itself “disciple.” The second major function of the guru is to act as a transmitter of Reality by magnifying the disciple’s intuition of his or her true identity. Both objectives are the intent of all spiritual teachers. However, only fully enlightened adepts combine in themselves what the Mahāyāna Buddhist scriptures call the wisdom (prajnā) and the compassion (karunā) necessary to rouse others from the slumber of the unenlightened state. In the ancient Rig-Veda (10.32.7) of the Hindus, the guru is likened to a person familiar with a particular terrain who undertakes to guide a foreign traveler. Teachers who have yet to realize full enlightenment can guide others only part of the way. But the accomplished adept, who is known in India as a siddha, is able to illumine the entire path for the seeker. Such fully enlightened adepts are a rarity. Whether or not they feel called to teach others, their mere presence in the world is traditionally held to have an impact on everything. All enlightened masters, or realizers, are thought and felt to radiate the numinous. They are focal points of the sacred. They broadcast Reality. Because they are, in consciousness, one with the ultimate Reality, they cannot help but irradiate their environment with the light of that Reality.

Tapas is any practice that pushes the mind against its own limits, and the key ingredient of tapas is endurance. Thus in the archaic Rig-Veda (10.136), the long-haired ascetic or keshin is said to “endure” the world, to “endure” fire, and to “endure” poison.1 The keshin is a type of renouncer, a proto-yogin, who is a “wind-girt” (naked?) companion of the wild God Rudra (Howler). He is said to “ascend” the wind in a God-intoxicated state and to fly through space, looking down upon all things. But the name keshin harbors a deeper meaning, for it also can refer to the Sun whose “long hair” is made up of the countless rays that emanate from the solar orb and reach far into the cosmos and bestow life on Earth. This is again a reminder that the archaic Yoga of the Vedas revolves around the Solar Spirit, who selflessly feeds all beings with his/her/its compassionate warmth. The early name for the yogin is tapasvin, the practitioner of tapas or voluntary self-challenge. The tapasvin lives always at the edge. He deliberately challenges his body and mind, applying formidable will power to whatever practice he vows to undertake. He may choose to stand stock-still under India’s hot sun for hours on end, surrounded by a wall of heat from four fires lit close by. Or he may resolve to sit naked in solitary meditation on a windswept mountain peak in below-zero temperatures. Or he may opt to incessantly chant a divine name, forfeiting sleep for a specified number of days. The possibilities for tapas are endless. Tapas begins with temporarily or permanently denying ourselves a particular desire—having a satisfying cup of coffee, piece of chocolate, or casual sex. Instead of instant gratification, we choose postponement. Then, gradually, postponement can be stepped up to become complete renunciation of a desire. This kind of challenge to our habit patterns causes a certain degree of frustration in us. We begin to “stew in our own juices,” and this generates psychic energy that can be used to power the process of self-transformation. As we become increasingly able to gain control over our impulses, we experience the delight behind creative self-frustration. We see that we are growing and that self-denial need not necessarily be negative.

Tapas is any practice that pushes the mind against its own limits, and the key ingredient of tapas is endurance. Thus in the archaic Rig-Veda (10.136), the long-haired ascetic or keshin is said to “endure” the world, to “endure” fire, and to “endure” poison.1 The keshin is a type of renouncer, a proto-yogin, who is a “wind-girt” (naked?) companion of the wild God Rudra (Howler). He is said to “ascend” the wind in a God-intoxicated state and to fly through space, looking down upon all things. But the name keshin harbors a deeper meaning, for it also can refer to the Sun whose “long hair” is made up of the countless rays that emanate from the solar orb and reach far into the cosmos and bestow life on Earth. This is again a reminder that the archaic Yoga of the Vedas revolves around the Solar Spirit, who selflessly feeds all beings with his/her/its compassionate warmth. The early name for the yogin is tapasvin, the practitioner of tapas or voluntary self-challenge. The tapasvin lives always at the edge. He deliberately challenges his body and mind, applying formidable will power to whatever practice he vows to undertake. He may choose to stand stock-still under India’s hot sun for hours on end, surrounded by a wall of heat from four fires lit close by. Or he may resolve to sit naked in solitary meditation on a windswept mountain peak in below-zero temperatures. Or he may opt to incessantly chant a divine name, forfeiting sleep for a specified number of days. The possibilities for tapas are endless. Tapas begins with temporarily or permanently denying ourselves a particular desire—having a satisfying cup of coffee, piece of chocolate, or casual sex. Instead of instant gratification, we choose postponement. Then, gradually, postponement can be stepped up to become complete renunciation of a desire. This kind of challenge to our habit patterns causes a certain degree of frustration in us. We begin to “stew in our own juices,” and this generates psychic energy that can be used to power the process of self-transformation. As we become increasingly able to gain control over our impulses, we experience the delight behind creative self-frustration. We see that we are growing and that self-denial need not necessarily be negative. The Bhagavad-Gītā (17.14–16) speaks of three kinds of austerity or tapas: Austerity of body, speech, and mind. Austerity of the body includes purity, rectitude, chastity, nonharming, and making offerings to higher beings, sages, brahmins (the custodians of the spiritual legacy of India), and honored teachers. Austerity of speech encompasses speaking kind, truthful, and beneficial words that give no offense, as well as the regular practice of recitation (svādhyāya) of the sacred lore. Austerity of the mind consists of serenity, gentleness, silence, self-restraint, and pure emotions.

With moist eyes, Rikshavi raised her bow and released an arrow towards the bird. But the arrow missed the bird. The bird simply flew away, shocked by the arrow which zipped past it. Rikshavi desperately shot another arrow in the direction of the flying bird, but in vain. “Hadn’t I told you to ensure that you do not miss the target, Rikshavi?” the Acharya sternly asked, “You purposely missed the target, didn’t you?” “No Acharya, I tried my best. Believe me; I did not do it purposely. Forgive me, Acharya,” Rikshavi tearily said and looked at her mother for validation. “She is not lying, Acharya. I know my daughter,” Bhairavi added. The Acharya suddenly broke into a smile. “I know that, Bhairavi. Rikshavi is not lying. But tell me child, if you had earnestly tried to target the bird, why did you miss it? I have not seen you missing a single target until now.” Rikshavi was confused. She had made up her mind to shoot the bird. Why couldn’t she still hit the target? The Acharya continued, “You are an intuitive archer, my child. Unless your subconscious mind accepts a target, your body will not align itself towards it. Though you had consciously decided to shoot the bird as per my order, your heart felt compassion for it. Hence your subconscious mind did not allow you to shoot it. Even if you try this again, you will not be successful.

Wheeler combined this with a reading of the Rigveda, an ancient Indian Vedic Sanskrit text

The gāyatrī is explained in many places in the Sanskrit literature. For instance, the Tripurā-Tāpanī-Upanishad, a fairly late work belonging to the Shākta tradition, connects this mantra with the worship of the Goddess Tripurā. She is celebrated as the great Power (Shakti) behind all manifestation. In that scripture, we learn that the Sanskrit word tat (“that”) refers to the eternal, unconditioned Absolute (brahman), the transcendental Reality out of which the world in all its many layers has evolved. Savitur (or Savitri), the Upanishad further tells us, refers to the primal power of the Goddess Tripurā, even though the Sanskrit name Savitri is a masculine word standing for the “Impeller,” that is, the Sun or Solar Spirit. Savitri must not be confused with the Goddess Savitrī, who presides over all learning but also over the mighty river by the same name that once flowed from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. The name Savitri derives from the verbal root su meaning “to urge, instigate, impel,” which is closely related to the second connotation of this root, namely “to extract, press.” What Savitri extracts out of himself are two closely connected things: life-giving light and warmth. Varenyam means “most excellent” or “most beautiful,” designating that which has no superior. This word qualifies the term bhargas. Bhargo (from bhargas or “splendor”) is said to be the transcendental aspect of Savitri, which strikes us with awe—a splendor that cannot be seen with human eyes but that discloses itself only to the inner vision of the great Yoga adept. Devasya (from deva) means “of God,” that is, “of Savitri.” Dhīmahi means “let us contemplate” and implies a heartfelt desire to focus the mind on the ultimate Reality through the medium of contemplation (dhī). In the Rig-Veda, the archaic term dhī stands for the later term dhyāna, which means “meditation/contemplation.” Dhiyo (from dhiyas) is the plural of dhī. Repeatedly the ancient sages fixed their minds on that One, and contemporary yogins still follow the same age-old practice. As their contemplations deepen, Savitri increasingly illuminates the mind. Yo (from yah) is simply the relative pronoun “who,” which here refers to God Savitri. Nah means “us/our” and qualifies the contemplations of the sages. Pracodayāt is derived from the verb pracodaya (meaning “to cause to be inspired”). Without Savitri, the masters of yore felt, their contemplations lacked inspiration. Only Savitri could inspire or illuminate their inner world, just as he illuminates the Earth through his radiant physical body (the visible solar orb).

This migration, which is a subsequent invasion of other lands is described in ancient Vedic texts known as the Vedas. The Rig-Veda is the oldest of the four collections of hymns and other sacred texts which make up the Vedas.

Uno de los textos más antiguos y fascinantes que nos transmitió la antigua India, el Rigveda, escrito hacia el año 1500 a.C., dice: ¿De dónde ha nacido esta creación y de dónde vino? Hasta los Devas nacieron después de la creación de este mundo, y entonces, ¿quién sabe de dónde vino la existencia? Nadie puede saber de dónde vino la creación, y si Él la creó o si Él no la creó. Él, que la vigila desde lo más alto de los cielos, solo Él lo sabe, o quizá no lo sabe. [Rigveda, 10. 129]

In the beginning, There was neither existence nor nonexistence, All this world was unmanifest energy … The One breathed, without breath, by Its own power Nothing else was there.… RIG-VEDA In modern terms, this verse tells us that God can only be found in a virtual state, where all energy is stored before creation.

Other scholars would see links with Hesiod’s Theogony, the Sanskrit Rigveda, and even the Norse sagas, where the world is said to have sprung from the great abyss Ginungagap, which, like Te Pō, is without form and void.

There are things, that can be proven, and there are things, that can not be proven. When the Aryan founds his entire thinking onto his deepest conviction of the moral meaning of the world — his own existence and the existence of the universe —, his thinking is mounted on an 'inner knowing', beyond 'all occupation with proofs'. This 'substance' can not be adopted from observing surrounding nature. Yet we see the Indo-Aryan, as early as the Rigveda, consider nature as something that is closely related to him and as a consequence as something that has moral meaning. This shows up in his mythology, so complicated because the gods, who appear in the first place as embodiments of natural phenomena, are at the same time allegories of the internal forces in the human bosom. It seems, as if these Aryans felt the inner urge, to project what moved deep inside them on that what surrounded them, and as if in turn the great natural phenomena — the heavenly lights, the clouds, the fire, etc. — returned on the same beams that radiated from the inside to the outside, entered the human bosom and whispered: yes, my friend, you and I are the same!

For these cities the term used in the Rigveda is pur, meaning a 'rampart', 'fort' or 'stronghold'….Indra, the Aryan war god, is puramdara, 'fort destroyer'….In brief, 'he rends forts as age consumes a garment'.

The belief that caste has a "divine origin"—central to Brahminical ideology—can be effectively deconstructed using historical-critical methods that examine the textual origins, historical interpolations, and socio-political functions of canonical scriptures. The Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda (10.90.12), often cited as the foundational text on caste, describes the cosmic being Purusha from whose body the four varnas emerge: “The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya made. His thighs became the Vaishya, from his feet the Shudra was produced” (Griffith, Rig Veda 10.90.12). However, historians like Romila Thapar assert that this hymn is a late addition, not found in the earlier layers of the Rig Veda. She notes, “The Purusha Sukta is not among the oldest hymns of the Rigveda and appears to have been composed when varna divisions were becoming more rigidly defined” (The Past Before Us, 2013, p. 52). This suggests that the so-called divine origin was retroactively constructed to legitimize social hierarchies already taking form.

Tantra understands itself as a gospel for the “new age” of darkness, the kali-yuga. According to the Hindu worldview, history unfolds in a cyclical pattern that proceeds from a golden age to world ages of progressive spiritual decline, and then back to an era of light and plenty. These ages are called yugas (yokes), presumably because they fasten beings to the wheel of time (kāla-cakra), the flux of conditioned existence. There are four such yugas, which repeat themselves over and over again, all the while maturing all beings, but especially human beings. The scriptures speak of this developmental process as “cooking.” The four world ages, in order, are: 1. The satya-yuga, in which truth (satya) reigns supreme, and which is also known as krita-yuga because everything in it is well made (krita) 2. The tretā-yuga, in which truth and virtue are somewhat diminished 3. The dvāpara-yuga, in which truth and virtue are further diminished 4. The kali-yuga, which is marked by ignorance, delusion, and greed These correspond to the four ages known in classical Greece and ancient Persia. Significantly, the Sanskrit names of the four world ages derive from dice playing, a favorite pastime of Indic humanity ever since Vedic times. The Rig-Veda, which is at least five thousand years old, has a hymn (10.34) that has been dubbed “Gambler’s Lament” because its composer talks poetically of his addiction to gambling. Of the dice he says that “handless, they master him who has hands,” causing loss, shame, and grief. The Bharata war, chronicled in the Mahābhārata epic, was the ill-gotten fruit of gambling, for Yudhishthira lost his entire kingdom to his wicked cousin Duryodhana with the throw of a die. Krita signifies the lucky or “well-made” throw, dvāpara (deuce) a throw of two points, tretā (trey) a throw of three points, and kali (from the verbal root kal, “to impel”) the total loss, indicated by a single point on the die. The word kali is not, as is often thought, the same as the name of the well-known goddess Kālī.4 However, since Kālī symbolizes both time and destruction, it does not seem farfetched to connect her specifically with the kali-yuga, though of course she is deemed to govern all spans and modes of time.

[...] the Rigvedic society consisted of several different ethnic components, who all participated in the same cultural life. I fully agree with Southworth's words (1974: 204f.): "the equation of IA speakers with 'Aryan' (i.e. the original intruders and their direct descendants) is not supported by historical evidence.

The question of whether the 'original' RV text had the category of retroflexes is a legitimate one but Deshpande has failed to bring forward any evidence in support of his thesis that the retroflexes are post-Rigvedic.

The so-called 'ruki'-law (change of s to sh after i, u, r, k) is valid for a group of the Indo-European languages, including Indo-Aryan. The occurrence of s in this position is, therefore, an indication of foreign origin. Cf. RV bisa-, kIsta-; rbIsa (cf. Panini nibirisa-), busa-, brsaya-.