Mandala 1

Ashwins, when you came speeding on your course to Divodasa-Bharadvaja, holding you, your splendid vehicle traveled, yoked by a bull and a dolphin. ~ Rigveda

The first Mandala ("book") of the Rigveda has 191 suktas which has 2006 hymns. Together with Mandala 10, it forms the latest part of the Rigveda. Its composition likely dates to the late Vedic period (1000-500 BCE) or the Early Iron Age (around 1000 BCE).

Quotes

• I laud Agni the priest, the divine minister of sacrifice, who invokes the gods, and is most rich in gems.
  May Agni, the invoker, the sage, the true, the most renowned, a god, come hither with the gods!
  • Mandala 1, Hymn 1, verse 1- Start of Hymn 1, as quoted in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Vol. 23 (1864), p. 267
  • Variant translations:
  • I praise Agni, the priest who is the light and the invoker of the sacrifice, whose chants bestow treasure.
  • quoted in The Vedic Tradition Cosmos, Connections, and Consciousness by S. Kak, 2022
  • Agni I laud, the high priest, god, minister of sacrifice, The invoker, lavishest of wealth.

• Child of a double birth he grasps at triple food; in the year's course what he hath swallowed grows anew. He, by another's mouth and tongue a noble Bull, with other, as an elephant, consumes the trees.
  • Rigveda 1.140.2

• Mighty, with wondrous power and marvellously bright, selfstrong like mountains, ye glide swiftly on your way. Like the wild elephants ye eat the forests up when ye assume your strength among the bright red flames.
  • Rigveda 1.64.7

• When you drove the course for Divodāsa and for Bharadvāja, Aśvins, urging your steeds onward, your accompanying chariot conveyed wealth. A bull and a river dolphin were yoked to it.
  Conveying wealth with good rule and a full lifetime with good descendants and good men, Nāsatyas, you two of one mind journeyed here with the prizes of victory to the wife of Jahnu, who was setting your portion three times a day.
  • Rigveda, I, 116, 18–19, as translated by Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Poetry of India, Vol. 1 (Oxford UP, 2014), p. 270
  • Variant: Ashwins, when you came speeding on your course to Divodasa-Bharadvaja, holding you, your splendid vehicle traveled, yoked by a bull and a dolphin. Carrying wealth, dominion, progeny, life and vigor, accordant you came to the Jahnavi with strength, where your offering is made three times a day.

• His spies are seated round about.
  • m. 1, hymn XXV

• What thing I am I do not know. I wander secluded, burdened by my mind. When the first-born of Truth has come to me I receive a share in that self-same Word.
  • Rig Veda, I.164.37

• May He delight in these my words.
  • Rig Veda, I.25.18

• The wise speak of what is One in many ways.
  • Rig Veda 1.164.46

• God is one and the sole ruler of the Universe. God is one but the learned call him by many names.
  • Rig Veda, in A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics, p.56

• O ye who wish to gain realization of the Supreme Truth, utter the name of "Vishnu" at least once in the steadfast faith that it will lead you to such realization.
  • I.15b.3

• Just as the sun's rays in the sky are extended to the mundane vision, so in the same way the wise and learned devotees always see the abode of Lord Vishnu.
  • I.22.20

• Let me now sing the heroic deeds of Viṣṇu who has measured apart the realms of the earth, who propped up the upper dwelling-place, striding far as he stepped forth three times.
  They praise for his heroic deeds Viṣṇu who lurks in the mountains, wandering like a ferocious wild beast, in whose three wide strides all creatures dwell.
  • 1.154.1–2, as translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty in The Rig Veda : An Anthology (1981), p. 226

• Alone, he supports threefold the earth and the sky — all creatures.
  Would that I might reach his dear place of refuge, where men who love the gods rejoice. For their one draws close to the wide-striding Viṣṇu; there, in his highest footstep, is the fountain of honey.
  • 1.154.4–5, as translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty in The Rig Veda : An Anthology (1981), p. 226

• The Angirasas gained the whole enjoyment of the Pani, its herds of the cows and the horses.
  • Rig-Veda I.83.4. as quoted/cited in THE HORSE AND THE ARYAN DEBATE by Michel Danino* (Published in the Journal of Indian History and Culture of the C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar Institute of Indological Research, Chennai, September 2006, No.13, pp. 33-59.)

• Elsewhere, he “found the cattle, found the horses, found the plants, the forests and the waters” (1.103.5).
  • quoted in Danino, M. (2019). Demilitarizing the Rigveda: a scrutiny of Vedic horses, chariots and warfare., STUDIES IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Journal of the Inter-University Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences VOL. XXVI, NUMBER 1, SUMMER 2019

• The four-and-thirty ribs of the. Swift Charger, kin to the Gods, the slayer's hatchet pierces.
  Cut ye with skill, so that the parts be flawless, and piece by piece declaring them dissect them.
  • verse I.162.18, the Rigveda (Griffith translation) Wikisource

• Indra, in short, is “the best winner of horses” (1.175.5)
  • quoted in Danino, M. (2019). Demilitarizing the Rigveda: a scrutiny of Vedic horses, chariots and warfare., STUDIES IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Journal of the Inter-University Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences VOL. XXVI, NUMBER 1, SUMMER 2019

Quotes about Mandala 1

• The chronological order of the Mandalas, as we saw, is: VI, III, VII, IV, II, V, VIII, IX, X, with the chronological period of Mandala I spread out over the periods of at least four other Mandalas (IV, II, V, VIII).... [Mandala I also because] ‘it is, for the most part, earlier than Mandala V’.
  • S. Talageri, The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000) Chapter 3 : The Chronology of the Rigveda

• A dolphin lying on the sands, dried out by the North wind, could refer to the Gangetic dolphin, as in fact it does at 1.176...
  • M Witzel, India and the Ancient World: History, Trade and Culture Before A.D. 650 edited by Gilbert Pollet (Paper by Michael Witzel), Department Oriëntalistiek Leuven, 1987.