Vedic Hymns
Vedic Rishis c. 1200 BCE
These ancient Indian hymns offer prayers and songs to gods associated with nature and ritual. Their verses evoke a world of sacred fires, offerings, and powerful storms.
62 pages 1h 12m reading time
- Among the oldest religious poetry still in use anywhere, these hymns come from the Rig Veda and the other Vedas, the founding scriptures of Hinduism.
- Praises gods such as Agni (fire), Indra (storm and war), and the Maruts (storm spirits) as powers that keep the world in order and answer human offerings.
- Asks big questions about how the world began, in a famous hymn that wonders whether even the highest god knows the answer.
- Verses from the Vedas are still recited at Hindu weddings, funerals, and daily prayers, kept alive for thousands of years largely by memory and spoken teaching.
- Their study in Europe helped found the comparative study of languages and religions, showing that Sanskrit is related to Greek, Latin, and English.
Unwritten for centuries
The hymns existed only in spoken form for centuries, and the oldest surviving written copies are about a thousand years old.
Made by poet families
Families of priest-poets composed the hymns, and many books of the Rig Veda collect one family's songs.
A 25-year printing project
Before translating, Müller spent about 25 years printing the first full Sanskrit text of the Rig Veda.
Focused on storm gods
Müller's volume translates hymns to the Maruts, the storm spirits, with long notes explaining nearly every line.
Translated by F. Max Müller and Hermann Oldenberg 1891