Rig Veda: A Digital Version of H. H. Wilson's Translation
A translation of the complete Rig Veda into English with a state-of-the-art search and discovery capability. This is the first Digital Book that aims to answer the question – “What is in the Rig Veda and where do I find it?”
The Vedic heritage, and the Rig Veda in particular, is the foundation of Hinduism. Yoga, Dharma, Spirituality and so much of what defines Indian thought and culture today, derive from it. It was composed by famous Rishis who are household names, and yet, for many of us, its contents still remain a mystery. This book hopes to make the Rig Veda a little more accessible.
Horace Hayman Wilson wrote the first translation of the Rig Veda into English. His work is notable because it consciously tries to be true to the ancient sources. It is an important work of scholarship that this ebook hopes to preserve and extend.
This is the first Digital version of Wilson’s work. It converts all the six volumes into a single, easy to carry ebook. It then embeds a state of the art search capability using AI and NLP. It extends this with Serendipity, to help us discover what maybe relevant even when we are not sure what to look for.
This work aims to be your reference of choice when you are looking for something in the Rig Veda. It also includes an Introduction where you can find some important Suktas and references, Rishi families and their compositions, elements of Vedic tradition like Danastutis and Apri Suktas, and much more.
Discovering the Rig Veda
The Rig Veda has been transmitted orally for more than a hundred generations with an accuracy that rivals modern digital technology. It created some of the most advanced linguistic technology of its time. Yet this uncompromising fidelity has also meant that it is oftentimes surprisingly unfamiliar. It lauds kings that no one remembers and prays to Gods that are no longer worshipped. Even the earliest commentators, from thousands of years ago, struggled with the meaning of many passages. Any modern attempt at explaining the Rig Veda is an interpretation that may not be representative, an English one probably even less so.
H. H. Wilson was the first to translate the Rig Veda into English and consciously attempts to be true to Indian tradition. This book extends his work by making it more accessible leveraging technology. It embeds a state of the art search and discovery capability that allows us to navigate to relevant content just by clicking hyperlinks. It structures the content based on Vedic tradition and uses AI to summarize and roll-up information. This digital approach has many advantages. It can be more comprehensive. It is less subjective. Its answers are immediate and more responsive to the readers interests. It presents content without fear or favor, without intent or bias. Its notions of relevance come directly from the Rig Veda itself and is more likely to represent the Vedic world view than a modern interpretation. It is more “objective“.
This book also aspires to reinvent the way we read the Rig Veda and perhaps books in general. Since the first handwritten parchment or papyrus scroll, we read books page by page, cover to cover, in the sequence laid down by the author. Even our ebooks do the same. By making search and discovery integral to our reading journey, it allows people to follow their interests so that they can jump directly to what is relevant and skip what is not. By allowing readers to chart their own course through the content , readers can follow a journey as unique as a thumbprint, personalized to what matters to them. Instead of reading a book all at once, people can return at different times from different perspectives to find fresh relevance. Readers are able to read socially, sharing their experience in a deeper and more meaningful way than if everyone read the same thing at the same time. Instead of being passive consumers of the author’s story, readers become co-creators, the protagonists of their own journeys.
Key Features
Hyperlink based Discovery
This ebook enhances Wilson's translation with as many as 124,000 hyperlinks that underline the important elements in every single hymn like Peoples, Places and others. Clicking a link goes to a dictionary definition as well as a summary of all relevant information from the Rig Veda and other sources, seamlessly integrated for easy lookup.
WordCloud
The WordCloud lays out the universe of contents being tracked by the book's search system. The size of the letters gives a hint on the relative prevalence in the Rig Veda. Each link leads to a dedicated Index which summarizes information from across the entire Rig Veda and a number of other sources. The principals covered includes 419 Rishis (seers), 243 Devatas (deities), 1108 Entites
Introduction
While this ebook aspires to be your reference of choice for the Rig Veda, it has an introduction that tries to bring some context to the first time reader. It includes as many as 300 references or launch points into the Rig Veda for further study. As an example, the Gayatri Mantra, which is perhaps one. of the most famous in Hindu tradition, is a Mantra in the Rig Veda composed by the Rishi Vishvamitra Gathina.
Rishi Index
The Rishi Index tries to collect all the information relevant to a Rishi from across the Rig Veda, Sarvanukramani and other sources. At entries like these and those in the other Indexes, the normal linear flow of reading breaks and we can “warp” to a completely different part of the Rig Veda by following a link
On the left we have the entry for Kakshivan Dairghatamas Aushija, a famous Rishi of the Angirasa family. One finds all the Suktas he composed and the Devatas he addressed with easy to access hyperlinks. It lays out his descendants and ancestors as a Family Tree and highlights their contributions. It summarizes the key topics he emphasizes in his work.
There are 419 Rishis in the Rishi Index.
Devata Index
The Devata Index similarly tries to organize the information on a particular Devata.
In the Example on the left, we have the entry for Indra, the most lauded God in the Rig Veda. We find that he has been addressed in 318 Suktas and 3169 Mantras. He has been mentioned 2894 times by as many as 144 Rishis. We find the key Suktas addressed to him from across the Rig Veda. Some of the most important Rishis dedicating their work to Indra include Vishvamitra Gathina, Vasishtha Maitravaruni, Vamadeva Gautama and others; each of whom dedicate a considerable part of their compositions to him. We find he is lauded along with many other Gods and often celebrated along with Kings because of miraculous victories he gave them.
There are 243 Devatas in the Devata Index.
Entity Index
The Entity Index serves as the single stop lookup for information regarding an Entity. An Entity may be a Person, a People, a Place, a River or anything that is mentioned in the Suktas. This ebook also combines Entities from the Sarvanukramani and other sources, and seamlessly integrates them here.
In the example on the left we find the Index entry for Sudas Paijavana who was the victor of the famous Dasharagya battle. We find all the Suktas about Sudas ranked according to relevance. At the top of the list is the Sukta of the Dasharagya battle itself. We find relevant Rishis ranked in importance. Vasishtha Maitravaruni and Vishvamitra Gathina were Sudas’s priests and indeed we find them at the top. We can find the key tribes he defeated in the battle and the See Also section highlights that he is one of the few kings to be given a Danastuti. This Index, like all others, are computed algorithmically with no manual intervention. The Entity Index has 1108 Entities.
List Index
Lists allow one to take an exhaustive look of a topic along a particular dimension. An an example, on the left we find the list of all Danastutis in the Rig Veda as given in Katyayana’s Sarvanukramani. These Lists are included in the See Also section of each Rishi, Devata and Entity and may be discovered in a context sensitive manner. They are compiled in a List Index with a List of Lists so we can see what all is there. There are 179 Lists in this Index including the following:
- Lists of Rishis and Rishikas, of Rishi Families and their Apri Suktas and Devatas
- Lists of Danastutis and other Stutis, Dialogs and other contents
- Lists of Top Rishis and Devatas by Mentions, Mandalas and other criteria
- Lists of 410 Individuals, 102 Peoples, 173 Gods and many more
Important Suktas
The Rig Veda is one of the most important sources of Hindu tradition. As an example, the Gayatri Mantra (RV 3.62.10) is a Mantra composed by Vishvamitra Gathina. The Devi Sukta (RV 10.125) is one of the key Suktas of Devi worship and regularly recited even today. Surya’s Wedding Sukta (10.85) highlights the wedding traditions in Vedic times and still serve as prototypes for the modern Hindu wedding. The Introduction lists a number of other similarly important Suktas for the reader to lookup when trying to understand the origins of Hindu traditions and their original forms.
Researching Rishis
Many modern Gotras and Pravaras claim descent from Vedic Rishis. While this is a system of identity, it also provided a necessary mechanism to prevent Endogamy and continues to be used today. Marriages are often allowed only after making sure they are not from the same Pravara. For some people, the progenitor of their Gotras can be found in the Rig Veda and often their compositions there are their most famous. Rig Veda can be a way to research their ancestry and find a familial connection to the compositions.
Searching for Drishadvati
The Nadi Stuti (RV 10.75) lauds the rivers present during Vedic times. It starts with Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shutudri and enumerates all the rivers in geographic order. Curiously, it misses the Drishadvati which was the other famous river of Brahmavarta along with Sarasvati. Does the Rig Veda not have it? In doing a look up on Drishadvati in this ebook we find that it is mentioned just once in the entire Rig Veda (RV 3.23) where it is mentioned with the Sarasvati. In the absence of a search facility, such a query would need the reader to find an existing published result or read the whole Rig Veda. In many instances a result may not be available or it may not be in English. With this ebook many such research queries can answered immediately just by doing a simple search.
Editorial Reviews
A fascinating and insightful journey into the Rig Veda but with a contemporary twist to make it more understandable and engaging to a reader today.
These stories and wisdom date back literally thousands of years. Their sheer size and ancient age might be intimidating to a modern reader who is not a scholar of the subject. Which is why I was so wonderfully surprised by the genius of this edition’s formatting.
While the translation is unyielding authentic, the interwoven hyperlinks, search options, word clouds, and more, allow the modern reader a unique experience of an ancient text, which is both state-of-the-art and, strangely enough, incredibly engaging and intimate.
While I am convinced that the format of this book will revolutionize the research of the philosophy, poetry, or teachings contained within these pages, it also has a wonderful side-effect for any casual reader braving this tome in an attempt to hear what our ancestors were trying to communicate many many years ago.
Instead of trudging through the pages of fascinating but nearly alien text, you are seated with a group of wise elders and storytellers, ready to explain anything confusing or jump to any story that catches your interest. This book provides the reader with an opportunity to try to comprehend and experience the voices of the people in the past as part of the roots of Hinduism and wonderful myth, often entirely unknown to a western reader.
Highly recommended.
Which line stood out from all the others in the book?
Just because we do not understand something does not mean there is nothing to understand.
