The Rig Veda

The Rig Veda

The Rig Veda is composed of many documents that were recovered by archeologists and are believed to be the oldest written texts to date. These documents give us insight into what the culture was like for these ancient Aryans of India. The texts that we look over, Victory over Vritra, Who is Indra, and To Purusha help give us some look into their beliefs and traditions. The Aryans seem to have a polytheistic belief system and attribute many natural events as being influenced by their gods. These people also seemed to follow some laws or code of conduct to keep order in their society.These people also have a caste system that is discussed in the last section of reading, To Purusha. These people tell stories of how their deities
helped the people with their problems and these songs are dedications to their greatness. This first selection talks about their deity Indra who eats Soma to hallucinate and gain victory over the dragon. This dragon that they talk of is the dragon of drought that is a plague for the people. They are a farming group of people, and the need for water is very high. Indra “slew the dragon, then disclosed the waters” , which tell us that the clouds that were described as the dragon opened up and poured on the land. After the defeat of the dragon, at the end of the passage it is said, “Over all living men he rules as sovereign, containing all as spokes within a rim” . This tells us that Indra was considered the ruling god over all in the Aryan nation. This next selection is some evidence that some people were starting to lose faith in Indra and that he needed to be reinforced as the supreme ruling god.
Many events that happened to the Aryan people were said to be because of his intervention in the world. This passage tells us that there was some unrest about if Indra really was doing good for the people. Some people are discontent with their deity and are losing the faith, but this passage tells all Indra’s powers and his influence. “He, the mighty bull who with his seven reins let loose the seven rivers to flow, who with his thunderbolt in his hand hurled down Rauhina as he was climbing up to the sky, he, my people, is Indra” . This tells us about how people see him, he is mighty as a bull and he was the one whom let rivers flow so that the people could flourish. He strikes down his enemies and the enemies of the people such as Rauhina. We see in this section that the people relied on the gods to answer the unknown in nature. The sun, the moon, the rain, the wind, the animals, and even the seasons were determined by Indra. These people were afraid of their god it seems, they offer sacrifices to help appease the god so that he would not punish them with natural disasters. We can tell that the people of the time were either really religious or doubting; this passage was made for those doubting people by the religious people who feared Indras displeasure with the doubters. This knowledge of wrong doing seems to give us
some insight into moral codes and public laws. These people feared the god and believed that they could anger those gods, so they must have followed some kind of public code of conduct. The Final section To Purusha is about the god Purusha who composes everything in the world. He makes everything that we see and use, he is everywhere at every moment. This section shows us that the early Aryan civilization had a caste system comprised of the Brahmin, Rajanya, Vaisya, and Sudra . If we consider where each of these groups is on Purusha we can look into how important people believed they really were. “The Brahmin was his mouth” , this tells us that the priests were the earthly governing authority of the people. “… of both his arms was the Rajanya made” ; This is symbolic of the strength that the warriors of the Aryan people possess. The farmers and field workers were the Vaisya; “his thighs became the Vaisya” . The servants were the bottom of the caste system so logically they were last and it is said. “from his feet the Sudra was produced” . Purusha is held in high regard by these people and is considered the creator of everything and is also considered to be in everything in the natural world. From these readings we can see that the Aryan people had many gods and beliefs; they had common laws that were followed in practice and also had a caste system of their people.