The History and Culture of the Indian People v1.c19.s1.4

v1.c19.s1.4

Rivers have all along played an important part in the lives of the Hindus, and even in the Rigvedic age they were esteemed as deities, presumably on account of the immense benefits they conferred on humanity. Out of thirty-one rivers mentioned in the Vedic texts, about twenty-five names occur in the hymns of the *Ṛigveda* alone. In the celebrated *Nadīstuti* (X. 75), the *Ṛigveda* enumerates several streams most of which belong to the Indus system.