The chief metres are here reproduced, and each of the most important gods is represented by at least one hymn. Of the comparatively few hymns not addressed to deities, I have also chosen a certain number dealing with cosmogony and eschatology, social life and magical ideas. This volume thus furnishes an epitome of the Rigveda, the earliest monument of Indian thought, the source from which the poetical and religious literature of India has in great part been derived and developed during a period of more than three thousand years.