Throw light on the nature of religion and classification of gods mentioned in the Rigveda.

Answer:

The religion of the Rigveda, our oldest literary source for early Indian belief, was essentially naturalistic and sacrificial in character. The Aryans personified the great forces of nature as devas and worshipped them chiefly through hymns of praise and the yajna, seeking material blessings in this world rather than spiritual liberation. Yet the later hymns of the collection already reveal a striking movement towards philosophical reflection and monism, so that the Rigveda captures a religion in transition.

Nature of Rigvedic religion

• Predominantly naturalistic polytheism, deifying phenomena such as fire, storm, sun, dawn, wind and the rivers.
• The gods were conceived anthropomorphically, endowed with human forms, families and personalities.
• Worship was through prayer (mantra) and sacrifice (yajna), with no temples, idol worship or elaborate images.
• The aims were thoroughly this-worldly: cattle, sons, victory in battle, health and long life.
• There was as yet no developed doctrine of transmigration, karma or moksha.

Henotheism and the divine order

• Marked by henotheism or kathenotheism, a term of Max Muller, whereby each god invoked was for the moment exalted as supreme.
• The concept of rta, the cosmic and moral order, underlay the whole pantheon and was upheld by Varuna.
• The gods were broadly benevolent, and the relation between god and worshipper was one of reciprocity through sacrifice.
• Some scholars see in this an early groping towards the idea of a single underlying reality.

Threefold classification of gods

• Terrestrial (Prithvisthana): gods of the earth, such as Prithvi, Agni, Soma and Brihaspati.
• Atmospheric or intermediate (Antarikshasthana): gods of the mid-region, such as Indra, Rudra, the Maruts, Vayu and Parjanya.
• Celestial (Dyusthana): gods of the sky, such as Dyaus, Varuna, Mitra, Surya, Savitri, Pushan and Vishnu.
• This scheme, given by the commentator Yaska in the Nirukta, remains the standard classification.
• It reflects the Aryan tendency to organise the divine world by cosmic sphere.

The principal deities

• Indra, god of war and rain, is the foremost, celebrated in about 250 hymns for slaying the demon Vritra.
• Agni, the fire-god and messenger between gods and men, comes next with around 200 hymns.
• Varuna, guardian of the cosmic and moral order (rta), gives the religion its ethical dimension.
• Soma is deified as the sacred drink and plant, with the entire ninth mandala dedicated to it.
• Surya, Savitri, Pushan and the Ashvins represent the varied solar and healing powers.
• Goddesses like Ushas, Aditi and Sarasvati occupy a comparatively minor but significant place.

Towards philosophy and reflection

• Later hymns such as the Nasadiya Sukta question the very origin of creation in a spirit of doubt.
• The Purusha Sukta offers a cosmic and social vision, linking the four varnas to the primeval sacrifice.
• Hints of monism appear alongside the polytheism, as in the saying that the wise call the one reality by many names.
• The Hiranyagarbha hymn gropes towards a single creative principle.
• These speculations mark the bridge from ritual polytheism to Upanishadic thought.

Rigvedic religion was thus a vibrant nature-worship organised around sacrifice, its pantheon neatly classified by cosmic sphere and animated by the idea of rta. As A.A. Macdonell and A.L. Basham observed, its henotheistic tendency and its late speculative hymns already contained the seeds of the monistic and philosophical thought that would later mature in the Upanishads, making the Rigveda the fountainhead of the Indian religious tradition.