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The Rigveda
8Various Vedic poets
The oldest Hindu text and the foundation of Indian civilization — 1,028 Vedic hymns that shaped three thousand years of South Asian religion, philosophy, and poetry.
GBM Assessment (Score: 8/10)
The Rigveda is the oldest Hindu religious text and the foundation of Indian civilization. Comprising 1,028 hymns dedicated to the gods of the Vedic pantheon, it established the spiritual, philosophical, and literary traditions that would shape the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years.
Drafted by various Vedic poets in Vedic Sanskrit, the Rigveda stands as the oldest continuously used religious text in the world. Its hymns laid the groundwork for Hindu philosophy, ritual practice, and cosmological thought. The collection was recognized as a UNESCO Memory of the World document in 2007, affirming its lasting significance to human cultural heritage.
Vedic India, c. 1500 BC
Indo-Aryan peoples settle northern India with an oral tradition of immense sophistication. The Late Bronze Age connects Egypt (New Kingdom), the Hittite Empire, Kassite Babylon, and Mycenaean Greece in trade and diplomacy.
Awards & Adaptations
UNESCO (2007). Oldest continuously used religious text.
Recommended Edition
R.T.H. Griffith trans. (1896)
