Rigveda

The Rigveda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, from ṛc "praise, shine" and veda "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four canonical sacred texts (śruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas. The text is a collection of 1,028 hymns and 10,600 verses, organized into ten books (Mandalas).

The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities. For each deity series the hymns progress from longer to shorter ones; and the number of hymns per book increases In the earliest composed eight books the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology and praise deities. Books 1 and 10, that were added last, deal with philosophical or speculative questions about the origin of the universe and the nature of god, the virtue of Dāna (charity) in society, and other metaphysical issues in its hymns.

Rigveda is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language.Philological and linguistic evidence indicate that the Rigveda was composed in the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, most likely between c. 1500–1200 BC, though a wider approximation of c. 1700–1100 BC has also been given.

Purusha Sukta

Purusha sukta (puruṣasūkta) is hymn 10.90 of the Rigveda, dedicated to the Purusha, the "Cosmic Being".

One version of the suktam has 16 verses, 15 in the anuṣṭubh meter, and the final one in the triṣṭubh meter. Another version of the suktam consists of 24 verses with the first 18 mantras designated as the Purva-narayana and the later portion termed as the Uttara-narayana probably in honour of Rishi Narayana. Some scholars state that some verses of Purusha sukta are later interpolations to the Rigveda.

Content

The Purusha sukta gives a description of the spiritual unity of the universe. It presents the nature of Purusha or the cosmic being as both immanent in the manifested world and yet transcendent to it. From this being, the sukta holds, the original creative will (ldentified with Viswakarma, Hiranyagarbha or Prajapati) proceeds which causes the projection of the universe in space and time. The Purusha sukta, in the seventh verse, hints at the organic connectedness of the various classes of society.

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. While interpreting—the facilitating of oral or sign-language communication between users of different languages—antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature. There exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2000 BCE) into Southwest Asian languages of the second millennium BCE.

Translators always risk inappropriate spill-over of source-language idiom and usage into the target-language translation. On the other hand, spill-overs have imported useful source-language calques and loanwords that have enriched the target languages. Indeed, translators have helped substantially to shape the languages into which they have translated.

Due to the demands of business documentation consequent to the Industrial Revolution that began in the mid-18th century, some translation specialties have become formalized, with dedicated schools and professional associations.