The Rig Veda

Rig Veda

The First Verse of Rig Veda

"I adore the Fire, the sacrificial priest, luminous vibrations of Truth, the fierce warrior, the bestower of delight".

Translation:

"The Rig Veda is a collection of oral hymns composed by a group of anomymous authors in North India(Mohenjo-daro) around1,200 b.c"

Their poems praise personified natural forces for example, Indra: God of Thunder and rain; Agni: The god of Fire; Usha: the goddess of dawn; Prithvi: goddess of earth

The Vedas were written in a sacred language tongue calledSanskrit.The Vedas are revered as the basic scripture of Hinduism.

The community of people who created the Rig Veda called themselves the Aryans

The Upanishads:A series of Hindu sacred treatises written in Sanskrit c. 800–200 BC, expounding the Vedas in predominantly mystical and monistic terms.

Usha

Agni

Indra

Prithvi

Katha Upanishad: Nachiketas and Death

Mohenjo-daro

"The Vedas are concerned with the ultimate questions of human life: Who are we? Why were we born? And what in us, if anything, transcends death?" The Wisdom of the Vedas By J. C. Chatterji

The Caste System:The system of dividing society into hereditary groups that limited interaction with each other, especially marriage between castes

Brahmans (priests)Kshatriya (warriors and officials)Vaishya (merchants and artisans)Shudra (peasants and laborers)Dalit, or untouchables – outside the caste system