While others win their way as gifted Brahmans.
The one sits putting forth rich bloom of verses,
Another sings a song in skilful numbers,
A third as teacher states the laws of being,
A fourth metes out the sacrifice’s measure.
Even in the ordinary hymns are to be found a few moralising remarks of a cynical nature about wealth and women, such as frequently occur in the ethical literature of the post-Vedic age. Thus one poet exclaims: “How many a maiden is an object of affection to her wooer for the sake of her admirable wealth!” (x. 27, 12); while another addresses the kine he desires with the words: “Ye cows make even the lean man fat, even the ugly man ye make of goodly countenance” (vi. 28, 6). A third observes: “Indra himself said this, ‘The mind of woman is hard to instruct, and her intelligence is small’” (viii. 33, 17); and a fourth complains: “There are no friendships with women; their hearts are those of hyenas” (x. 95, 15). One, however, admits that “many a woman is better than the godless and niggardly man” (v. 61, 6).
Allied to the didactic poems are the riddles, of which there are at least two collections in the Rigveda. In their simplest form they are found in a poem (29) of the eighth book. In each of its ten stanzas a different deity is described by his characteristic marks, but without being mentioned, the hearer being left to guess his name. Vishṇu, for instance, is thus alluded to:—
Another with his mighty stride has made three steps
To where the gods rejoice in bliss.
A far more difficult collection, consisting of fifty-two stanzas, occurs in the first book (164). Nothing here is directly described, the language being always symbolical and mystical. The allusions in several cases are so obscurely expressed that it is now impossible to divine the meaning. Sometimes the riddle is put in the form of a question, and in one case the answer itself is also given. Occasionally the poet propounds a riddle of which he himself evidently does not know the solution. In general these problems are stated as enigmas. The subject of about one-fourth of them is the sun. Six or seven deal with clouds, lightning, and the production of rain; three or four with Agni and his various forms; about the same number with the year and its divisions; two with the origin of the world and the One Being. The dawn, heaven and earth, the metres, speech, and some other subjects which can hardly even be conjectured, are dealt with in one or two stanzas respectively. One of the more clearly expressed of these enigmas is the following, which treats of the wheel of the year with its twelve months and three hundred and sixty days:—