Stephanie W. Jamison

Joel P. Brereton

The Rigveda is the oldest Sanskrit text, consisting of over one thousand hymns dedicated to various divinities of the Vedic tradition. Orally composed and orally transmitted for several millennia, the hymns display remarkable poetic complexity and religious sophistication. As the culmination of the long tradition of Indo-Iranian oral-formulaic praise poetry and the first monument of specifically Indian religiosity and literature, the Rigveda is crucial to the understanding both of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian cultural prehistory and of later Indian religious history and high literature. This new translation represents the first complete scholarly translation into English in over a century and utilizes the results of the intense research of the last century on the language and the ritual system of the text. The focus of this translation is on the poetic techniques and structures utilized by the bards and on the ways that the poetry intersects with and dynamically expresses the ritual underpinnings of the text.

The Earliest Religious Poetry of India

The Rigveda

Brereton Joel

""The òRgveda is a monumental text in both world religion and world literature; yet it is comparatively little known outside a small band of specialists. The oldest Sanskrit text, composed in the latter half of the second millennium BCE, it stands as the foundational text of what will later be called Hinduism. The text consists of over a thousand hymns dedicated to various divinities, composed in sophisticated and often enigmatic poetry. Its range is large - encompassing profound meditations on cosmic enigmas, exuberant tributes to the wonders of the world, ardent praise of the gods and their works, moving and sometimes painful expressions of personal devotion, and penetrating reflections on the ability of mortals to approach and affect the divine and cosmic realms through sacrifice and praise. This guide introduces the text to a wider audience. It provides an overview of the text, its structure and the process of its composition and collection; treats its purpose and how this purpose is reflected in the contents and structure of the text; gives a sense of the text by quoting verses and complete hymns; situates it in the religious practices of its time; and considers its use and reception in later periods, which saw profound changes in religious practices and beliefs. It will also introduce the literary qualities of the text and the poets' belief in the role of their poetry in making sense of, and indeed creating, cosmic order and function by pressing the boundaries of language itself.""--

Brent Vine

David M. Goldstein

The Program in Indo-European Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, sponsors an Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference. The Conference welcomes participation by linguists, philologists, and others engaged in all aspects of Indo-European studies. These Proceedings include papers presented at the Thirty-Second Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, held in an online format.

November 5th, 6th, and 7th, 2021

Proceedings of the 32nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference

Function and Form in the -áya-formations of the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda

Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures Indo-European Studies Stephanie W Jamison

Jamison addresses the conditions that have limited our understanding of Vedic myth and ritual, such as the profusion and obscurity of the texts and the tendency on the part of scholars to approach mythology and ritual independently.

Stephanie W. Jamison

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