Mandala 8

The eighth Mandala of the Rigveda has 103 hymns. Other than the "family books" (Mandalas 2–7, dated as an old part of the RV) and RV 1 and RV 10 (dated as the latest portion of hymns composed shortly before redaction of the Rigveda into shakhas), Mandala 8 cannot straightforwardly be dated as a whole relative to the other books, and its hymns may include both ancient and late specimens. Most hymns in this book are attributed to the kāṇva family. The hymns 8.49 to 8.59 are the apocryphal vālakhilya, the majority of them are devoted to Indra; these are accepted as a recent portion, properly already post-Rigvedic.

Quotes

• We drank soma, we became immortal; we went to the light, we found the gods;
  how could now affect us distress, O Immortal One, how man’s malevolence?
  • Hymn 8.48.3, quoted from Kazanas, N. (2015). Vedic and IndoEuropean studies. Aditya Prakashan. chapter Shamans, Religion, Soma and the Ṛgveda

• Repeatedly, Indra is invoked as a bringer or conqueror of horses and cattle together: “Break open for us cattle and horses in their thousands” (8.34.14), “split apart the enclosure of the cow and the horse like a stronghold for your comrades” (8.32.5).
  • 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

• Break open for us the thousands of the Cow and the Horse (8.34.14, Sri Aurobindoís translation).
  • M Danino in History of ancient India / editors, Dilip K. Chakrabarti and Makkhan Lal. v. 3. The texts, political history and administration, till c. 200 BC. I.2. The Horse and the Aryan Debate

• Chitra is King, and only kinglings are the rest, who dwell beside Sarasvatœ. He, like Parjanya with his rain, hath spread himself with thousand, yea, with myriad gifts.
  • RV 8.21.18:(in Lal, B. B. (2005). Can the Vedic people be identified archaeologically?–An approach. IT, 31, 173-194.)

Quotes about Mandala 8

• To point to the list of words common to the Avesta and viii [of the Rigveda] with its group, and say that here is proof positive that there is closer relationship with the Avesta, and that, therefore, viii after all is older than the books which have not preserved these words, some of which are of great significance, would be a first thought. But this explanation is barred out by the fact that most of these Avestan words preserved in viii, withal those of the most importance, are common words in the literature posterior to the Rik. Hence to make the above claim would be tantamount to saying that these words have held their own through the period to which viii (assuming it to be older than ii-vii) is assigned, have thereupon disappeared, and then come into vogue again after the interval to which the maker of this assumption would assign ii-vii. This, despite all deprecation of negative evidence, is not credible. Take, for instance, udara or uṣṭra or meṣa, the first is found only in viii., i., x.; the second in viii., i.; the last in viii., i., ix., x. Is it probable that words so common both early and late should have passed through an assumedly intermediate period (of ii.-vii.) without leaving a trace? Or, again: is a like assumption credible in the case of kṣīra, which appears in the Iranian khshīra; in RV. viii., i., ix., x.; disappears in the assumedly later group ii.-vii.; and reappears in the AV. and later literature as a common word? Evidently, the facts are not explained on the hypothesis that the Avesta and RV. viii. are older than RV. ii.-vii. We must, I think, suppose that the Avesta and RV. viii. are younger than RV. ii.-vii.; or else that the poets of viii. were geographically nearer to the Avestan people, and so took from them certain words, which may or may not have been old with their Iranian users, but were not received into the body of Vedic literature until a time posterior to the composition of ii.-vii."―[....] viii with the General Books and post-Rik literature agrees with Avestan as against the early family books" "[....] viii joins the later Avesta to post-Rik literature and the other General Books.
  • About the relative date of the Avesta and Rigveda. HOPKINS 1896a: Prāgāthikāni. Hopkins, Edward W. pp. 23-92 in JAOS (Journal of the American Oriental Society), Vol. 17. (HOPKINS 1896a:80-81) quoted in [1] Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• Not only in grammatical structure and vocabulary, but also in literary form, in certain metres like the Tristubh and in a way GayatrI, there is resemblance between the Avesta and the Rgveda. The fact is usually mentioned in good manuals. But there is a peculiarity about these points of resemblance which is not so commonly known: It is the eighth Mandala which bears the most striking similarity to the Avesta. There and there only (and of course partly in the related first Mandala) do some common words like uṣṭra and the strophic structure called pragātha occur. … Further research in this direction is sure to be fruitful.
  • J.C. Tavadia, Indo-Iranian Studies: I by J.C. Tavadia, ViSva Bharati, Santiniketan, 1950. Quoted in Talageri, S. (2000). The Rigveda: A historical analysis. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• Book 8 concentrates on the whole of the west: cf. camels, mathra horses, wool, sheep. It frequently mentions the Sindhu, but also the Seven Streams, mountains and snow.” [This Mandala] “lists numerous tribes that are unknown to other books”. [In this Mandala,] “camels appear (8.5.37-39) together with the Iranian name Kasu, ‘small’ or with the suspicious name Tirindra and the Parsu (8.6.46). The combination of camels (8.46.21, 31), Mathra horses (8.46.23) and wool, sheep and dogs (8.56.3) is also suggestive: the borderlands (including GandhAra) have been famous for wool and sheep, while dogs are treated well in Zoroastrian Iran but not in South Asia.
  • Witzel Michael, Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and polities, 1995 in : The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity edited by George Erdosy (Papers by Michael Witzel and P. Oktor Skjærvø), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York, 1995. (pp. 317-322) Quoted in Talageri, S. (2000). The Rigveda: A historical analysis. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.