The Rig Veda
selected and translated by Wendy Doniger
The Rig Veda is the oldest of the four sacred Hindu texts (Vedas) and one of the world’s oldest religious scriptures, composed in Vedic Sanskrit around 1500–1000 BCE. It consists of 1,028 hymns (sūktas) and 10,600 verses organized into 10 books (mandalas), which were preserved through an intricate oral tradition before being written down around 300 BCE. Wendy Doniger selects a hundred and eight hymns and annotates them as literature and history, rather than as devotional poetry. Strange, difficult to comprehend, and much deeper than its reputation.
Why you should read this
Doniger's Penguin selection from the oldest of the four Vedas, the foundational scripture of Hinduism, presenting hymns of praise and invocation to a pantheon of natural and cosmic deities. Read this for the hymns' strangeness and force rather than for a systematic philosophy, which the text does not offer in this form.
- Field
- Philosophy
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 1200 BCE
- Themes
- Eastern PhilosophyPhilosophy
