Generally speaking, Vedic gods share many characteristics: several of them (Indra, Varuna, Vishnu) are said to have created the universe, set the sun in the sky, and propped apart heaven and earth. All the gods are susceptible to human praise. Some major gods were clearly personifications of natural phenomena, and these deities assumed no clearly delineated personalities.

The three most frequently invoked gods are Indra, Agni, and Soma. Indra, the foremost god of the Vedic pantheon, is a god of war and rain. Agni (a cognate of the Latin ignis) is the deified fire, particularly the fire of sacrifice, and Soma is the deified intoxicating or hallucinogenic drink of the sacrifice, or the plant from which it is pressed; neither is greatly personified.

The principal focus of Vedic literature is the sacrifice, which in its simplest form can be viewed as a ritualized banquet to which a god is invited to partake of a meal shared by the sacrificer and his priest. The invocations mention, often casually, the past exploits of the deity. The offered meal gives strength to the deity so that he may repeat his feats and give aid to the sacrificer.

The myth of Indra killing the dragon Vritra has many levels of meaning. Vritra prevents the monsoon rains from breaking. The monsoon is the greatest single factor in Indian agriculture, and thus the event celebrated in this myth impinges on every Indian’s life. In the social circles represented in the Rigveda, however, the myth is cast in a warrior mold, and the breaking of the monsoon is viewed as a cosmic battle. The entire monsoon complex is involved: Indra is the lord of the winds, the gales that accompany the monsoon; his weapons are lightning and thunderbolt, with which he lays Vritra low. To accomplish this feat, he must be strengthened with soma. Simultaneously, he is also the god of war and is invoked to defeat the non-Vedic dasyus, the indigenous peoples referred to in the Vedas. These important concerns—the promptness and abundance of the rains, success in warfare, and the conquest of the land—all find their focus in Indra, the king of the gods. Although he ceased being a major god as Hinduism incorporated Vedic tradition in the course of its development, Indra’s royal status as the king of the gods continued to be evoked even in areas influenced by India—for example, in dozens of lintels and temple carvings across Southeast Asia.

Because the Vedic gods were not fully anthropomorphic, their functions were subject to various applications and interpretations. In the view of the noble patrons of the Vedic poets, Indra, the greatest and most anthropomorphic god of the early Vedas, was primarily a warrior god who could be invoked to bring booty and victory. Agriculturalists and hunters emphasized Indra’s fecundity, celebrating his festivals to produce fertility, welfare, and happiness. Indra, however, was essentially a representative of useful force in nature and the cosmos; he was the great champion of an ordered and habitable world. His repeated victories over Vritra, the representative of obstruction and chaos, resulted in the separation of heaven and earth (the support of the former and the stabilization of the latter), the rise of the sun, and the release of the waters—in short, the organization of the universe.

Although morality is not an issue in Indra’s myth, it plays a role in those of the other principal Vedic deities. Central to ancient morality was the notion of rita, which appears to have been the fidelity with which the alliances between humans (and between humans and the gods) were observed—a quality necessary for the preservation of the physical and moral order of the universe. Varuna, an older sovereign god, presides over the observance of rita with Mitra (related to the Persian god Mithra). Thus, Varuna is a judge before whom a mortal may stand guilty, while Indra is a king who may support a mortal monarch. Typical requests that are made of Varuna are for forgiveness, for deliverance from evil committed by oneself or others, and for protection; Indra is prayed to for bounty, for aid against enemies, and for leadership against demons and dasyus.

Distinct from both is Agni, the fire, who is observed in various manifestations: in the sacrificial fire, in lightning, and hidden in the logs used in fires. As the fire of sacrifice, he is the mouth of the gods and the carrier of the oblation, the mediator between the human and the divine orders. Agni is above all the good friend of the Vedic people, who prayed to him to strike down and burn their enemies and to mediate between gods and humans.

Among other Vedic gods, only a few stand out. One is Vishnu, who seems more important perhaps in retrospect because of later developments associated with him. He is famous for the three strides with which he traversed the universe, thus creating and possessing it. This pervasiveness, which invites identification with other gods, is characteristic of his later mythology. His function as helper to the conqueror-god Indra is important.

Impersonality is increased by the prevalence of pairs and groups of gods. Thus, Varuna and Mitra are members of the group of Adityas (sons of Aditi, an old progenitrix), who generally are celestial gods. They are also combined in the double god Mitra-Varuna. Indra and Vishnu are combined as Indra-Vishnu. There is also Rudra, an ambivalent god who is dreaded for his unpredictable attacks (though he can be persuaded not to attack); Rudra is also a healer responsible for 1,000 remedies. Although there are many demons (rakshasas), no one god embodies the evil spirit; rather, many gods have their devil within, inspiring fear as well as trust.

Among the perpetually beneficent gods are the Ashvins (horsemen), helpers and healers who often visit the needy. Almost otiose is the personified heaven, Dyaus, who most often appears as the sky or as day. As a person, he is coupled with Earth (as Dyava-Prithivi) as a father; Earth by herself is more predominantly known as Mother (Matri). Apart from Earth, the other goddess of importance in the text of the Rigveda is Ushas (Dawn), who brings in the day and thus brings forth the Sun.

In the later Vedic period the significance of the Rigvedic gods and their myths began to wane. The peculiar theism of the Rigveda—in which any one of several different gods might be hailed as supreme and the attributes of one god could be transferred to another (called “kathenotheism” by the Vedic scholar Max Müller)—stressed godhead more than individual gods. In the end this led to a pantheism of Prajapati, the deified sacrifice or the ritualized deity, who, with his consort Vach, the speech of ritual recitation, is said to have begotten the world.

During the Vedic period, Purusha fused with the figure Narayana (“Scion of Man”) and with Prajapati (“Lord of Creatures”). In the speculative thought of the ritualists, Prajapati emerged as the creator god and in many respects as the highest divinity—the One, the All, or Totality. He was the immortal father even of the gods, whom he transcends, encompasses, and molds into one complex. By a process of emanation and self-differentiation (by dividing himself), Prajapati created all beings and the universe. After this creation, Prajapati became the disintegrated and differentiated All of the phenomenal world and was exhausted. By means of a rite, he then reintegrated himself to prepare for a new phase of creativity. Because the purpose of a sacred rite is the restitution of the organic structural norm, which ensures the ordered functioning of the universe, Prajapati’s rite was regarded as the prototype for all Vedic and Hindu rites. Thus, by performing the rite, those offering sacrifice to Prajapati may temporarily restore oneness and totality within themselves and within the universe.

Ethical and social doctrines

In Vedic times, sin (enas) or evil (papman) was associated with illness, enmity, distress, or malediction; it was conceived of as a sort of pollution that could be neutralized by ritual or other devices. An individual could incur sin by improper behavior, especially improper speech. Thus, one could be guilty of anrita—i.e., infidelity to fact, or departure from what is true and real or from what constitutes the established order—whether or not one had deliberately committed a crime. Other transgressions included making mistakes in sacrifices and coming into contact with corpses, ritually impure persons, or persons belonging to the lower classes of society. These acts were only rarely considered to be misdeeds against a god or violations of moral principles of divine origin, and the consciousness of guilt was much rarer than the fear of the evil consequences of sin, such as disease or untimely death. Sometimes, however, a god (Agni, the evil-devouring fire, or Varuna, the god of order, whose role included punishing and fettering the “sinner”) was invoked to forgive the neglect or transgression or to release the sinner from its concrete results. More usually, however, these results were abrogated by means of purifications, such as the ceremonial use of water, and a variety of expiatory rites.

The pure who earned ritual merits hoped to win a safe world (loka) or condition. The meticulous effort to purify oneself from every evil also involved shanti, the observance of various customs regarding the avoidance of inauspicious occurrences. Ritual purity was the principal concern of the compilers of the manuals of dharma (religious law), which have contributed much to the special character of Hinduism. According to the authorities on dharma, ritual purity is the first approach to dharma, the resting place of the Vedas (brahman), the abode of prosperity (shri), the favorite of the gods, and the means of clearing (soothing) the mind and of seeing (realizing) the atman in the body.

The sacred: nature, humanity, and God

The Vedic poets were convinced that the world is an organized cosmos governed by order and truth and that it is always in danger of being damaged or destroyed by the powers of chaos (asat). This conviction inspired the performance of rituals to preserve the order of the universe, and it found mythological expression in the continual conflict between gods (devas) and antigods (asuras).

Gods were conceived as presiding over certain provinces of the universe or as being responsible for cosmic or social phenomena. Their deeds are timeless and exemplary presentations of mythic events replete with power and universal significance. To retain their vitality and efficacy, mythical events need to be repeated—that is, celebrated and confirmed by means of the spoken word and ritual acts.

Vedic and Brahmanic rites

Vedic religion is primarily a liturgy differentiated in various types of ritual, which are described in the sacred texts in great detail and are designed for almost any purpose. In these rites, theoretically, no operation, no gesture, no formula is meaningless or left to an officiant’s discretion. The often complicated ritual technique, based on an equally complicated speculative system of thought, was devised mainly to safeguard human life and survival, to enable people to face the many risks and dangers of existence, to thwart the designs of human and superhuman enemies that cannot be counteracted by ordinary means, to control the unseen powers, and to establish and maintain beneficial relations with the supramundane sacred order. Belief in the efficacy of the rites is the natural consequence of the belief that all things and events are connected with or participate in one another.

Another characteristic of Vedic religion is the belief that there is a close correspondence between sacred places—such as the sacrificial place of many Vedic rites, a place of pilgrimage, or a consecrated area—and provinces of the universe or even the universe itself. In such places, direct communication with other cosmic regions (heaven or underworld) is possible, because they are said to be at the point of contact between this world and the “pillar of the universe”—the “navel of the earth.” The sacred place is understood as identical to the universe in its various states of emanation from, reabsorption into, integration with, and disintegration from the sacred. This idea has as its corollary the possibility of ritually enacting the cosmic drama and, thus, of influencing those events in the cosmos that continuously affect human weal and woe.

The Vedic ritual system is organized into three main forms. The simplest, and hierarchically inferior, type of Vedic ritualism is the grihya, or domestic ritual, in which the householder offers modest oblations into the sacred household fire. The more ambitious, wealthy, and powerful married householder sets three or five fires and, with the help of professional officiants, engages in the more complex shrauta sacrifices. These require oblations of vegetable substances and, in some instances, of parts of ritually killed animals. At the highest level of Vedic ritualism are the soma sacrifices, which can continue for days or even years and whose intricacies and complexities are truly stunning.

In the major shrauta rites, requiring three fires and 16 priests or more, “the man who knows”—the person with insight into the correspondences (bandhu) between the mundane and cosmic phenomena and the eternal transcendent reality beyond them and who knows the meaning of the ritual words and acts—may, it is believed, set great cosmic processes in motion for the benefit of humanity. In these rites, Brahman officiants repeat the mythic drama for the benefit of their patron, the “sacrificer,” who temporarily becomes its center and realizes through ritual symbolism his identity with the universe. Such officiants are convinced of the efficacy of their rites: “the sun would not rise, were he [the officiant] not to make that offering; this is why he performs it” (Shatapatha Brahmana). The oblations should not be used to propitiate the gods or to thank them for favors bestowed, since the efficacy of the rites, some of which are still occasionally performed, does not depend on the will of the gods.