The Religion of the Veda

Character of Rigvedic Poetry.

...words become fixed, playing an unclear game with mystic, shimmering colors—at times with great and deep concepts, at others with those that are by no means deep. One speaks of the navel of immortality and the secret name of the cows, the first-born of Right original: "Erstgebornen des Rechts." In the Vedic context, this refers to Ṛta, the cosmic and moral order that governs the universe. and the highest heaven of speech. One finds pleasure in tracing the essence currently being discussed—the god to be celebrated—through manifold forms of appearance and places of residence, with a particular fondness for pointing toward the "highest hidden abode." Libations of milk are frequently called "cows"; a wooden vessel is called "the forest"; the essence present within the product, from which that product originates, is pointed to through artificial allusions. Within the world of the gods, one discovers fathers who are the sons of their sons; one finds sons who are the fathers of their fathers, or daughters and sisters who are simultaneously wives or lovers. The seemingly ancient inclination of myth toward the motif of incest receives fresh nourishment from this taste for mysterious entanglements of kinship. Monstrosities, intentional absurdities, and riddles of this kind fill many songs entirely, strung together without interruption and piled one on top of the other.

In this priestly master-song original: "Meistergesang." This implies a highly technical, formalised craft akin to the guilds of the later Middle Ages., which speaks in such a way of gods and divine things, there can be no full resonance, no eloquence of passion in what it has to say about the human soul and human destinies. It cannot possess the tones from which the warmth, depth, and the slight trembling of a pious heart speak. Of the abysses of distress and guilt, this poetry knows little; here, above all, the happy and the wealthy have their say—those who bring the great sacrifice to lay before the gods their desire for cattle and horses, for a long life and progeny. Or rather, it is not even these sacrificers themselves who speak,