E-Rigveda

The Vedas are considered to be among the most primeval and mysterious texts in the world. They have no celebrated author and no timeline of origin. Their sacred hymns have shaped societal, political, and economic philosophies.

The Vedas are split into 4 sacred texts:
The Rig Veda: The Book of Mantra
The Sama Veda: The Book of Song
The Yajur Veda: The Book of Ritual
The Atharva Veda: The Book of Spell

The Vedas were originally formed, recited, and passed down from generation to generation by Aryannomads (considered “the noble ones”) in ancient India during the Vedic Period, But it wasn’t until centuries later (long after the Vedic Period) that the Vedas were written into physical form, creating what we know today as the Vedic Texts.

And the oldest and most fundamental of these texts is the Rigveda. In Sanskrit, the word Rigveda means “knowledge of the verses (or mantras).” The Rigveda is the first Vedic text ever written and is the main source of history on the ancient Hindus.

The text is comprised of 1,028 hymns (sūktas) dedicated to various deities. And these hymns contain 10 books, called “circles” or “mandalas.”

These Scriptures contain hymns that are devoted to the praise of various gods and goddesses, philosophical questions, the virtue of dāna (generosity, charity) in society, and other metaphysical issues. The hymns include praises, blessings, and sacrifices written in enchanting poetry and prose. (Quoted from here)

In the early Vedic Society, social stratification seems embryonic, then and later a social ideal rather than a social reality. There is no evidence, of any elaborate, pervasive or structured caste system. The women of 'Rigveda' are quite outspoken and appear more sexually confident than men, in the text. The early Vedic Society represented human equality and simplicity at their best, with complementary relations between early humans, priests, and deities. (Source: Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton (2014), The Rigveda : the earliest religious poetry of India, Oxford University Press, pp. 57–59)

What does E-Rigveda do?

Religion and Faith is a powerful and Sensitive subject. Through E-Rigveda, I do not intend to analyse or comment on the scripture, but to merely make it accessible in a way as to explore it from a certain perspective, that also allows others do the same.

This Device explores the relationship between various characters (and their curiously-called categories) that contributed to the Rigveda. Since this literature is a book of Hymns, this device explores who’s sung how many of the hymns, and to whom. Who had had, what kind of interactions, with whom? What does that Hymn say about that particular relationship? By clicking on the tiny Red dots, the device takes you to the particular Hymn (English translation by Ralph T.H. Griffith for convenience of a wider audience). Explore the conversations! What do you discover? It is an open-ended question for you and I to explore. I would not be so bold as to claim incorporating any specific ethos of Data Feminism. But I certainly feel that the design and content of the device reflects on Chapter 1, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, and Chapter 6 of Data Feminism.

Thought Process, Design Process, Reflections and Observations

Why Rigveda?

The Pandemic and the change in lifestyle have been highly introspective for many, including me. Living very closely with my family and around my culture, (more psychologically than physically), I have realised, questioned, and appreciated a lot of beliefs, traditions, habits, and perspectives. This year has had a very kinetic influence, with physical state being stagnant, but experiencing a rollercoaster of mental experiences and changes. From changes in workplace, to shift of dwelling; from extra ordinary news about future prospects, to losses of loved ones; the year is now ending with a major change personally and professionally with the shift from India to the States.

Introspecting on this year raised a lot of questions spiritually, and more importantly, it questioned the Status Quo. Why are there certain specific social norms and protocols? As a person not comfortable in following these unspoken social norms of pretending to be something I’m not for the sake of society, these traditions and rules bother me every day. The invisible social stratifications, gossips, and complaints have been extremely irksome. Why are things the way they are? What initiated these chains of events? What are the origins of the traditions we follow? Witnessing various rituals and traditions while being around my religious grandparents, and later witnessing the rituals at their memorial services brought me to the origin of this Culture (our culture), and the curiosity to (try to begin to) understand it. Rigveda is not just an ancient scripture that lays the foundation of many cultures, including Hinduism, it is claimed to be free from some of the discriminative traditions of the culture that are practiced today (for instance, dowry).

Observations, Intent and Reflections

The text itself is immensely complex in language as well as meaning (not to mention a lengthy one), to fully understand, however, upon exploring it briefly and indirectly through perspectives of others, the Rigveda is about prayers and praises to nature’s elements portrayed as deities. On the one hand, Human stratifications are little known to prevail in the Vedic period, however, there are divisions in the forms of deities and humans, binary divisions of male and female. Although it has been noted for female characters to have a strong and confident personalities, I was more interested in the content of the hymns that are sung while female characters are involved, and the involvement of female characters as compared to male characters.

Design Process and Reflections

Reflecting on my thoughts as mentioned above, I was looking to explore the concepts of the social relations and interactions at their origins, and more than a week of research and explorations landed me on the API about Rigveda: Vedic API 1.1 The endpoint is Public and JSON format was conveniently organised for me to use without much manipulation after pulling the data.

Looking at the data received, I was highly intrigued, and a bit disappointed by the ‘sungbycategory’ and ‘sungforcategory’, which had binary divisions of humans and divine, males and females. I decided to carry this feeling forward and explore the data based on these criteria. The challenge was to visualise these relationships and associate the hymns with them, since the times of interactions and the content of it has to be the key focus.

Once I was clear on the visualization part, the challenge was to map as many as over 2000 data points in some cases, on the 600px x 600px canvas. This is something I am still exploring to solve.

The most difficult challenge was to get the missing and very crucial data- the Hymns! I contacted the creator of the Vedic API 1.1, Anindita Basu through twitter, and she was prompt and gracious enough to guide me to the two sources Wikisource and Sacred-texts from where I can get English versions of the hymns. As the JSON format pulled from Vedic API 1.1 had mandal and sukta numbers very well arranged, and the Wikisource Hymns had the same numbers in their page url, with the help of a friend, I was able to dig into the uncomfortable and unfamiliar world of html and javascript, to extract the hymn text, and associate each one with their respective dot mapped on the device. I used first url to get page-id of the Hymn, and used that in the ssecond url to access the page of the specific hymn. But this provided with the html data of the entire page, hence by splitting the html string received from the second url, I was able to finally get only the hymn text.

Reflections

Usually, I reflect on any projects while describing my process, but this has, perhaps been a first experiment, where I dived into it without having a specific perspective on the subject, or carrying a thorough research on it. I wasn’t expecting to have an entire Vedic text accessible (perhaps I am not aware of the power of data and technology).

Even when the device is functioning, I am quite amazed by how much more there is to explore, and how it will probably invoke different thoughts in everyone who experiences it. People spend their entire lives trying to understand the Spiritual significance of something; Who am I to summarize such an experience?