The nine essays in this volume grew out of papers presented in the Vedic section of the 13th World Sanskrit Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 July, 2006. The essays illustrate the directions that European and American scholars have taken contemporary Vedic studies. They thus not only add to our knowledge of Vedic texts and traditions, but they also offer innovative perspectives on the Veda. The central focus of this volume is the Rgveda. Seven of its papers reflect a renewed effort within Rgvedic studies to reconstruct Vedic religious and social history, to define more precisely the style of Rgvedic poetry and its relation to the purposes of the text, and to connect the Rgveda to both earlier Indo-lranian and Indo-European traditions and to later Vedic literature. While studies of the Rgvecla have often presented the text as isolated within Indian culture, these work to integrate the Rgveda within the larger religious, literary, and cultural histories of India. The final two papers of the volume analyze the construction of a later Vedic text and illustrate the continuity of Vedic traditions into the post-Vedic period.
