Rig Veda

Vedic people

composers of the Rig Veda myth.

Purusha

cosmic giant/primeval male; dismembered by an unnamed creator god and used to create universe (cf. Ymir); earth, sky, gods, humans, and animals were all created out of him; becomes the first sacrifice, as object (thing being sacrificed) and as recipient (of the sacrifice that is himself) [internal contradiction].

Soma

deified sacred drink; binatural (thing+god); hallucinogenic drink; unknown plant (grew high up in the mountains but we don't know exactly what plant it was); drank by gods (and priests in honor of the gods); that promoted vitality (gives the gods extra strengths), and seems to be connected to the immortality of the gods; poetry (soma can also be connected to poetry because the altered state is sort of inspiring to help them compose their poetry); however, is very powerful and can have scary effects: fear & exultation.

Panis

demons that live beyond the river Rasa that stole cattle of Angirases (family of sages/ wisemen); tries to bribe Sarama when he tracks the stolen cattle down.

Aditi

female creative force/infinity; gives birth to earth (which bears sky); also gives birth to eight gods.

Hiranyagarbha

aka Golden Embryo; "gold" (hirany); "womb/seed/embryo/egg" (garbha).

Sarama

Indra's loyal dog; tracks down stolen cattle and tired to get them back and resists bribes of Panis.

Three Days of Soma

after cremation: fire burns for you for 3 days and soma is offered; soul travels path (believed it takes 3 days for the soul to reach the afterlife realm).

Sanskrit

is an Indo-European language; the myth Rig Veda was written in this language.

Golden Embryo

is an unknown creator god; referred to as Hiranyagarbha; arises from primordial waters; creates waters; separates earth, sky; creates earth, sky.

Yama

king of dead in the Indo- European myth Rig Veda; was the first mortal to reach death realm (in heaven); path maker for humans.

Indra

king of gods; god of thunder and war (storm god is king of the gods once again); connected to rain and fertility as the storm god; avid drinker of soma because he thought he got extra strength from it to defeat his enemies; Indra himself is a poet and they look at him as a role model; was kept unborn until bursts out of mother's side and kills father.

Daksha

male creative force; Aditi gives birth to him and he gives birth to her (cyclical thinking- they give birth to one another).

Vritra

male dragon/serpent; holds back all the water of the world. Indra kills him and uses body parts to create all the rivers with the water he was holding back.

Rig Veda

oldest literary work of India composed sometime between 1700-1100 BCE; oral for centuries, then written down; 1028 hymns (poems) to gods, in 10 books in which each poem is addressed to a god; in Sanskrit it means rig ("praise") + veda ("knowledge"); sacred to Hindus, earliest of four Vedas.

Agni

one of the Vedic gods, whose name means "fire"; he is binatural, a thing and a god; he is fire (heat, light): natural= fire, lightning, sun; domestic= hearth (fire that you cook food with, associated with households, etc.); ritual= sacrifice(need fire of Agni to burn flesh of the gods to sacrifice); funereal= cremation; poetry (Agni as fire connected to poetry, call upon Agni as a light of inspiration to help poets compose their poetry).

River Rasa

river in Indo- European culture that encircles heaven/earth (gods/humans live) that the Panis live beyond; demons beyond it; cf. Okeanos because he encircles the earth.

Tiamat

rivers created from body parts; her body was used to create the Tigris and Euphrates, just as Vritra's was used to create the rivers of the world.

Prajapati

the name of the unknown creator god in Rig Veda in the later addition, think that this poem was originally only a 9 line poem.

Martanda

the sun; one of the eight sons that Aditi gives birth to that is rejected and dies every night when he, "the sun," goes down.