The Rig Veda, composed in northern India around 1500–1200 BCE (and preserved by an unbroken oral tradition), is the oldest extant Indo‑European scripture. Its 1,028 hymns in ten mandalas praise deities—Agni, Indra, Varuna, Soma—and celebrate ritual, nature and community life. Poetic cosmologies such as the Nasadiya Sukta probe origins and wonder, while hymns govern sacrifice, social bonds and ethical duty. Linguistically rich and rhythmically powerful, the Rig Veda records early Indo‑Aryan religion, thought and poetic imagination. Today it matters as a foundational Hindu text, a key to Indo‑European linguistics and comparative religion, and a living source of spiritual insight, environmental reverence and cultural continuity.