The Vedas
ऋग्वेदः
The oldest surviving literature in any Indo-European language, preserved by sound alone for a thousand years before it was written.
The Rigveda's core is roughly 1500–1200 BCE, preserved for a thousand years or more before anyone wrote it down, by a memorisation system so exact that scholars can still reconstruct the pitch accent. Four collections: Rigveda (1,028 hymns), Samaveda (the Rigveda set to melody), Yajurveda (sacrificial formulae), Atharvaveda (charms, healing, and some of the boldest cosmological speculation anywhere). Most of it is ritual and will not speak to a modern reader. A handful of hymns will speak to anyone. Kanchi Periyava spent his life making sure the sound of it did not die.
इन्द्रं मित्रं वरुणमग्निमाहुरथो दिव्यः स सुपर्णो गरुत्मान् ।
एकं सद्विप्रा बहुधा वदन्त्यग्निं यमं मातरिश्वानमाहुः ॥
ekaṁ sad viprā bahudhā vadanty agniṁ yamaṁ mātariśvānam āhuḥ
They call it Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; and it is the heavenly bird with fine wings. The One Being the wise call by many names—Agni, Yama, Mātariśvan.
The charter verse of this whole library. Ramakrishna's “God is one, but His names are many” is its direct descendant, three thousand years on.
ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः ।
तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि ।
धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥
tat savitur vareṇyaṁ bhargo devasya dhīmahi
dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt
We meditate on the excellent radiance of the divine Sun: may it awaken our understanding.
The most repeated verse in the world, still chanted at dawn.
नासदासीन्नो सदासीत्तदानीं नासीद्रजो नो व्योमा परो यत् ।
nāsad āsīn no sad āsīt tadānīṁ nāsīd rajo no vyomā paro yatThen there was neither non-being nor being; there was no air, nor sky beyond it. … Who truly knows? Who can declare it—whence it was born, whence this creation? The gods came after. The one who looks down on it from the highest heaven—he knows. Or perhaps he does not.
The oldest surviving expression of honest not-knowing. It ends a creation hymn with “or perhaps he does not.”
सं गच्छध्वं सं वदध्वं सं वो मनांसि जानताम् ।
saṁ gacchadhvaṁ saṁ vadadhvaṁ saṁ vo manāṁsi jānatāmCome together, speak together; let your minds be of one accord.
The last hymn of the Rigveda.
Where the translation is marked “Aumidhra”, the English is our own plain rendering from the original, made with the public-domain translations above as reference. Where a translator is named, the wording is theirs.
Other scriptures