The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.5

v1.c17.5

The mass of the collection is very considerable, approximating to the same amount of material as that contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, but the light thrown by the hymns on social and political conditions in India is disappointingly meagre. By far the greater part of the Rigveda consists of invocations of the many gods of the Vedic pantheon, and scarcely more than forty hymns are found which are not directly addressed to these deities or some object to which divine character is, for the time at least, attributed. These hymns contain much miscellaneous information regarding Vedic life and thought; and other notices may be derived from the main body of the collection, though deductions from allusions are always difficult and open to suspicion. Some names of tribes, places, and princes, as well as of singers, are known to us through their mention in the *dānastutis* or ‘praises of liberality’ which are appended to hymns, mainly in the first and tenth books, and in which the poet praises his patron for his generosity towards him. But the *dānastutis* are unquestionably late, and it is significant that some of the most striking occur in a small collection of eleven hymns, called the Vālakhilyas, which are included in the Saṃhitā of the Rigveda, but which tradition recognises as forming no true part of that collection.