Talk:Rigveda

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Contents 1 Anyone editing this article non-Hindu?? 2 Devatā  : neither deity nor god 3 I just came across this article, and... 4 ordering of article 4.1 significance in Hindu revivalism 5 Refactoring 6 Lead

[edit] Anyone editing this article non-Hindu??

If that is the case, you untouchables should NOT even be reading the Rg Veda let alone have the audacity to comment on it. Your ancestors who were cleaning the streets and running around naked were kept aloof for a reason. Likewise, untouchables (mlecchas) like you (dab etc.) should not be allowed to even read the Vedas.

[edit] Devatā  : neither deity nor god

The article Rgveda mentions "hymns dedicated to the gods". All the hymns of Rgveda are dedicated to some "devatā", and not a single hymn is dedicated to any deva or devi. Devatā is the feminine form of Daivata (masc., neut.), but in modern Hindi, devatā is used for all genders. Daivata is purely a Sanskrit word, not used in Hindi. MW translates devatā as godhead, divinity (abstract and concrete) (but idol in post-Vedic literature). Later Vedic texts used devatā for sense organs as well (MW cites ŚBr; Yājñvalkya in BrU gives a detailed account of 33 devatās which included the senses too, among other things). Keeping reliable sources in view, "hymns dedicated to the abstract and concrete godheads/divinities" is preferable to "hymns dedicated to the gods" (DAB's version) and "hymns dedicated to the deities" (IAF's version). I think editors will not object to this suggestion. -Vinay_Jha 08:47, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

what is this? we have a full article on Rigvedic deities, which is linked, where such details can be addressed. Rigvedic hymns are addressed both to individual gods or goddesses and to groups of gods (Vishvedevas). You apparently fail to understand the English term "god" if you think it means anything other than "godhead, divinity (abstract and concrete)", see god (word) for details. look, this is a matter of stylistics, not content. "hymns dedicated to the deities" isn't wrong, but it is sylistically inferior. "hymns dedicated to the gods" is perfectly fine. I know we are only discussing this because IAF is trying to make the WP:POINT that the Rigveda is pantheistic or monotheistic, which is simply not the case. If you want to make such a point, make it up front, putting your references on the table, and not by oblique revert-wars. dab (𒁳) 08:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry to note DAB's comment "dear baby Ganesha" used for me in his edit summary. Even my well intentions edits are returned by abuses, although he is not using terms like shitholes presently which is his scholarly trademark reserved for Indians. I tried to stop, in good faith and without taking sides, the edit war between DAB and IAF, and as a result received DAB's fire. I am not an idolator, but I must say that DAB is unable to hide his hatred for Hinhuism and Hindus, and not only overgrown Hindus like me but even Hindu gods are babies for him. I had not anticipated such a response, which is actually a result of his ignorance of the actual meaning of devatā . Since he has again started using insulting me, there is no point in discussing anything.

I was adapting an idiom. But feel free to play the race card and send in the PC police to hang me by my guts. dab (𒁳) 13:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Previously, DAB had remarked that rcā is instrumental case, but instrumental form is actually rcena. Hindi rcā has been derived from Sanskrit rcāḥ. I did not humiliate DAB by pointing to his lack of elementary knowledge of Sanskrit grammar, just because I wanted him to learn more. But now I am convinced that DAB is too arrogant and ignorant to learn Sanskrit and behave in a civilised manner (which is another meaning of sanskrit). I was not interested in what point IAF was making, I was just trying to stop the edit war. Go on fighting, I will not intervene. DAB is too incivil to be rectified by mere requests. Let him have his way in the main article, I am not going to waste my time over arguing with an uncivilised person. -Vinay_Jha 13:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

ṛcena, huh. "derived from ṛcāḥ". Man, you wouldn't pass a "Sanskrit 101" beginners' course. This wouldn't matter if you could refrain from passing yourself off as an expert whose students are "heads of department". This is really sad. I do hope these are hardware store departments. I am glad you feel " no point in discussing anything", how about you go back to writing articles on various gotras, then. If you really cannot bear your contributions being scrutinised and debunked, go get your own blog. It's free. Thanks, dab (𒁳) 13:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for failing me, esp in a less rude manner this time. I am here citing two verses(there are other examples too) from Rgveda in your favour : 10.15.8 and 10.165.5, in which Wilson rightly translated rcā as "by our hymns"(instr.). I was really suspicious of your knowledge because you are sitting silently for five days upon Buddhipriya's substitution of my correct version with a wrong version (cf. 'Brahmin:etymology' in Talk:Brahmin), (Buddhipriya wrongly believes that first and last both syllables in "Brahamana" were accented at the same time). Neither you nor Buddhipriya answered to my post there, and the wrong version remains in the main article. Moreover, Buddhipriya charged me of WP:OR and dishonesty (citing falsely ). If you are really interested in accuracy, why was I wrongly elbowed out of that article, with wrong charges ? You can check from Rgvedic index. But no, these pages are properties of the chosen few, and I must chant gotra-names, sell hardware or go to blogs (i.e., leave Wikipedia). Thanks. -Vinay_Jha 14:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

trying to weasel our way out again are we. I thought you believed that "instrumental form is actually rcena"? Whatever, I'm tired of your games, do what you must. dab (𒁳) 15:07, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Had I given a wrong etymology of "Brāhamana", you must have reverted it, but a superior soul made this mistake, hence you are shirking away. Nobody else in Wiki, as far as I know, is going to correct this error. OK, over and all. -Vinay_Jha 15:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I just came across this article, and...

I was looking for information on CLAMP's manga and anime RG Veda, which is a retelling by a group of women mangaka of a Japanese version of the Rigveda.

And what I get is a group of petulant complaints and nonsense written by egotists who each want to be The Boss. I know almost nothing about Sanskrit or the Rigveda, but I sure didn't learn anything from you people. I assure you that I do NOT care about your mutual accusations and hatreds except when they interfere, as they certainly do, with the main purpose of Wikipedia, which is to provide information to people like me.

This article is not your property nor your playground. Now stop the insults and do something useful.

For example, I have read -- I forgot where, so I'm looking for it -- that CLAMP's Rg Veda was based on Japanese folktale versions of the original. Do any of you know enough about the Rigveda to help answer that question? I truly and genuinely find the kind of insults and antagonisms you people display to be useless, counter-productive, and thoroughly unnecessary. So stop the insults. You all sound like angry children.

The bottom line is that there are other people out here, and we don't care how much you hate each other. We want information, not useless noise.

Timothy Perper 16:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Note added by TP later.

After I deleted the comment above, another editor asked me to put it back. He convinced me, so here it is. That lets me add another observation.

There are editors of Wikipedia who treat Wiki as a free-form blog, a place to pout, posture, gesticulate, and yell about their beliefs. It's all **seriously** counterproductive. I do not care what God or gods you believe in -- you can believe anything you want. But when religion, egotism, arrogance, call it whatever you want to call it, start revert and edit wars, then you have gone too far. Take those discussions somewhere else -- a blog, a listserve, wherever, but NOT HERE.

And remember -- I am looking for information about the Rig Veda. I know next to nothing about the subject. And that is why you are here, or, more accurately, why you should be here: to provide information -- not insults and hatred.

Timothy Perper 07:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

DAB you really are a rude fellow are you not?? Your attitude leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth (no matter how knowledgeable you may be). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.136.51.89 (talk) 15:38, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ordering of article

The Rig Veda is a core shastra for Hindus. As such, the importance of this book should be discussed first prior to analyzing its layout, etc. This is why I changed the order. Kkm5848 (talk) 05:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

This article is not written for Hindus, not only because WP is an encyclopedia with world-wide scope and readership, but also because the Hindu who needs this article to learn about the RgVeda is probably in deep trouble already. And you have not addressed the substance of Abcedare's argument. rudra (talk) 14:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Kkm5848, to expand on my edit summary

• Your version inexplicably talked about the content of the 10 mandalas of Rigveda without even defining "mandala"; refers to "verse 3.62.10" without first defining what that notation means; etc.
• More importantly in an encyclopedic article it is better to organize the content in a top-down fashion, rather than jump into presenting the details without orienting the reader. For example, if one is writing an article on the Shakespeare canon (which is a "core" component of English literature, just as Rigveda is a "core shastra for Hindus"), one would begin by talking about how many plays and sonnets he wrote and how the former are classified as tragedies, histories and comedies, instead of jumping into a content analysis of Hamlet etc. Similarly, when writing about the Rigveda it is important to begin by providing basic information, such as, "The Rig Veda consists of 1,028 hymns", "It is organized in 10 books", "It is preserved by two major shakhas" and its remarkable oral tradition.

Hope this makes the reason for the reverts clear. If you still believe your approach is better, I would encourage you to first work on a internally consistent version of the Rigveda article in your userspace, instead of making cut-and-paste edits to this well-developed article. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 19:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

some thought has gone into the arrangement of content in this article. Of course it can be discussed and improved, intelligently, with a view to improving article quality. What Kkm5848 is doing is nothing of the kind, but rather thoughtless WP:POINT. His brief overall history of edit warring and sockpuppeteering really establishes him as the sort of editor best ignored. dab (𒁳) 11:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Coming from Dbachmann I almost feel complimented...thank you for yet another violation of WP policy on name calling! Kkm5848 (talk) 05:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

chuckle, "another" is basically an admission that I am right. I have no interest in finding whose sock you are, and I guess we'll meet Kkm5849 as soon as this account is banned as a sock? dab (𒁳) 15:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, to a certain extent we have a tail-wagging-dog problem here. The Rgveda is "important" in two distinct (albeit related) ways: one religious (as an object of reflexive veneration in Hinduism) and the other philological (as a text). The religious aspect is purely dogmatic: precious little is really relevant to modern Hinduism, but not only will this never be admitted, to the contrary it will be insisted that this "importance" be emphasized to the exclusion of most everything else. However, the bulk of scholarly literature is on the philological aspect, which of course leaves the average blog-fed science student Hindu mystified and outraged that the article isn't steeped in reverential cant. rudra (talk) 00:18, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Same basic issue (the religious versus the philological), different take: this discussion. It's all over the place, and one reason why so many articles are in bad shape. rudra (talk) 15:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no interest in downplaying the religious significance: this article should and does state the text is important to Hinduism, right in the lead. After this has been stated, it is time to give background on the text itself. The religious importance in current Hinduism cannot just be stated, it needs to be referenced to Indological literature. Our section "Vedantic and Hindu reformist views" badly needs an academic reference. Now even if we did find some paper on "the significance of the Rigveda in 20th century Hindu revivalism", it would hardly be advisable to treat this (chronologically latest) topic before we treat the text and its contents itself. dab (𒁳) 15:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] significance in Hindu revivalism

ok, this may be quotable: Signifying Sanskrit in Hindu Revivalist and Nationalist Discourse, Adi Hastings, Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Chicago:[1]

The primary textual sources for Dayananda’s vision of his new rational Vedism are his magna opera, Satyarth Prakash (Light of Truth; 1st ed. 1874, 2nd ed. 1878) and the Rigvedadi Bhashya (Commentary on the Rigveda, etc.;13 1877-1899). In both of these texts, Dayananda elaborates a vision of a pure monotheistic Vedic religion which once had held sway over the entire subcontinent, a religion in which caste is based purely on merit, in which idols and icons have no place -- there is only the fire sacrifice. The Vedas for their part, become the canonical texts, the scripture, the sole source of truth and universal revelation, the ultimate origin of all science and knowledge ... Dayananda tended to dismiss entirely Western scholarship on Sanskrit, as when he ridicules Max Müller’s interpretation of certain Rigvedic words in Satyarth Prakash (Dayananda Saraswati 1970: 281-282).

detailed discussion of this belongs on the Swami Dayananda and Hindu revivalism articles, but we can certainly mention the role of the Rigveda (and notably and ironically Müller's edition of it) in the formative phase of Hindu revivalism. If nothing else, coverage of Dayananda's books and their impact certainly helps to elucidate a whole lot of confused pov-pushing, trolling and general misbehaviour on Wikipedia today, 130 years after he wrote them. This is rather amazing. A bit as if we got swarms of sworn-in Catholics giving Wikipedia in general grief over the tenets of the First Vatican Council (1870), touting papal infallibility on barely related articles such as Book of Amos. dab (𒁳) 15:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Refactoring

I've moved some stuff around towards a possible refactoring. The first step was ToC changes to bring stuff together and move some into subsection level. Inter alia,

• The Brahmana/Aranyaka sections should probably be summarized. Right now, they're just lifted from EB1911 (presumably from a time when they had a "filler" role).
• Hindu tradition et al section needs more.
• Dating and historical reconstruction is most in need of refactoring.
• The text section also needs some work. E.g. the "Rishis" subsection looks like it's lifted straight from Talageri, and actually has a baloney factor to it. Talageri assigned many rishis to his canonical "ten families" on unsourced grounds. (Actually, much of his own OR is unattributed lifting from Rahurkar, whom Talageri dismisses in his book somewhat peremptorily: the hidden story there is that Rahurkar relied heavily on post-Vedic texts such as the Puranas for his own identifications.) rudra (talk) 20:15, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

excellent work, rudra. dab (𒁳) 19:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Long way to go, yet. So far I've resisted my deletionist urges and tried to wrestle everything into some semblance of coherence.

• I'll be revamping the "Rishis" section soon. Done, for now.
• I don't know what to do with the prolix section on the Brahamanas and Aranyakas (all EB1911 stuff, actually). We may need to look at other related articles on that branch of the Vedic literature to get a proper balance distributed across several articles.
• The Dating section still needs more work. rudra (talk) 21:04, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lead

Before anybody brings it back, explain what it was doing in the lead. Lead is meant to be a summary of the most important things that follow in the article. Linguistic and 'cultural' affinities to Avesta are not explained anywhere else in the article and the presence of the same in the lead is perplexing. Also explain, why we have to bend over backwards to squeeze in the bit about Andronovo. If it is the consensus that PII is/was associated with andronovo, then there is no need to qualify it. If it isnt, then we need to present both/all views. either way, andronovo in the lead is superfluous.. Sarvagnya 23:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read WP:LEAD again. Your assumption, that a lead is only a summary, is false. It also functions as an introduction, such as establishing a context. The Rgveda is a philologically important text beyond its place in Hinduism (see the second section above this one), which means that its relevance to Indo-European issues needs to be mentioned. ("The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic according to reliable, published sources.") The material is adumbrated in the "Dating" section but, as also noted (this time immediately above), this is the section most in need of an overhaul. You are welcome to contribute constructively, rather than divagating with requests for references and waiting for them to be provided before deleting the passage you objected to, effectively taking it upon yourself to decide that others' time was yours to waste. rudra (talk) 00:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Where did I say that I had a problem with the lead functioning as an introduction to establish context while at the same time providing a summary of the article? If anything, that is precisely what I've been asking for and I said so clearly on your talk page. That the Rigveda has a philological importance beyond its place in Hinduism isnt news to me.. and the article in its present state leaves no room for any such illusions. That however, is all the more reason to explain the context in which the avesta and andronovo finds itself in the lead. If it has to do with dating, then say so. The dating section (a whole section) doesnt so much as make a passing mention of the avesta. And in any case, the lead does mention that the dating is based on philological and linguistic evidence (which is where Avesta/andronovo and all that comes into the picture anyway, i suppose)... look.. I am not averse to dumping the couple of sentences I removed into the dating section.. but what good would it do? They will still keep sticking out. And my apologies for using the {cn}} tag last time when I should perhaps have used {clarify}}.. but I thought my message on your talk page clarified that. In any case, I cant imagine that I have wasted too much of your precious time considering that "utterly and completely uncontroversial" statements shouldnt be hard to source at all. Sarvagnya 01:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The reason it belongs in the lead is that the linguistic and cultural similarities between the Yasna and the Rgveda strongly suggest that the Rgveda was composed in a time when the cultures which composed them were still fairly close, perhaps even in contact, and which was not particularly long after the Indo-Iranian period. This has implications not just for the dating of the Rgveda, but also for our understanding of the cultural and geographic milieu in which the Rgveda was composed - not to mention wider questions regarding the origin and evolution of the Indo-European languages and the culture associated with their speakers. Look, I agree that at some stage we need an appropriate section dealing with all this, but given the importance of the Rgveda to Hinduism and Indian culture more generally, these topics often raise sensitivies which aren't easily dealt with, making writing a detailed section a somewhat unappealing proces - the section would have to discuss, amongst other things, the "Origins of the Vedic people" controversy which causes no end of grief here. But surely it's better to have a couple of sentences in the lead even if we don't have a detailed section - because as I've tried to explain above the information does belong in the lead? If it's just a question of rewording it to give more context, that should be achievable, particularly if you have any suggestions. -- Arvind (talk) 12:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the bit Sarvagnya removed are perfectly mainstream, undisputed, and highly relevant. "Sensitivities" have nothing to do with it (or I invite you to go over to Talk:Muhammad and plead for the removal of the infamous images because they "raise sensitivities"...). If you have suggestions for rephrasing within WP:LEAD, you are most welcome to propose them. dab (𒁳) 08:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Umm, dab... if you actually read what I was saying, I was trying to explain to Sarvagnya (1) why the information belongs in the lead and (2) why the information is only in the lead and not in a detailed section in the article (that would require a degree of refactoring which is nearly impossible to achieve given the atmosphere on this article, unless someone is willing to spend several weeks doing little else) -- Arvind (talk) 09:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

ah, wait, I don't see a problem to expand on the information in the article body. The sentence in the lead is very concise, appropriate for the introduction:

"There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the early Iranian Avesta,deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times, often associated with the early Andronovo culture of ca. 2000 BCE."

That's about as compact as it gets. Details on this should go to the "Dating and historical reconstruction" section. It is also correct that the references should be cited in the body, not in the lead. I have made an edit to this effect. dab (𒁳) 10:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added a reference to Bryant, whose work I think is spot on as far as the Vedic-Avestan relationship goes. -- Arvind (talk) 10:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)