Who Were the People Who Produced the Rigveda?

Part 2. Their Religion and Religious Practices

In our previous post on this subject, we took a brief look at some of the economic, social and political aspects of Rigvedic society that can be inferred from the Rigveda. Here, we will continue our exploration of the Rigveda as the first and foremost source of information about the Rigvedic people.

As mentioned earlier, the Rigveda is essentially a religious text. It therefore gives us a great deal of information about the rituals, beliefs and religious practices of the culture that produced it. Contrary to popular belief, though the Rigveda contains within it the seeds of the belief-system that came to be known as Hinduism, the religion of the Rigveda is different and quite distinct from modern Hinduism. For instance, there is no mention of image worship in the Rigveda. It is very likely that the religion of the Rigveda was aniconic, i.e., without any symbols or images to represent the gods (Habib, 2003, p.22). Nor is there any mention of temples in the Rigveda, or indeed of any kind of permanent space or structure for the performance of worship. The fire-sacrifices of the Rigveda were performed in the open, on ground specially chosen for the purpose. The sanctification of this land formed the preliminary rites of the ritual itself. It was therefore unnecessary to permanently set aside any piece of land for the fire-sacrifice. (Brereton and Jamison, 2020, p.53). Further, the two most important gods of modern Hinduism, Vishnu and Shiva, occupy only minor positions in the Rigvedic pantheon. Vishnu is associated with Indra, the most prominent of the Rigvedic gods. Shiva does not appear under that name at all; rather the adjective ‘shiva’, which means ‘pleasant’ or ‘auspicious’, is applied to several of the gods, including Rudra, who is only later identified with Shiva (Brereton and Jamison, 2020, p.65-66). Bearing this in mind — that the religion of the Rigveda is NOT the same as Hinduism — let us see what the Rigveda tells us about the religious beliefs and practices of the people who produced it.

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