The Rig Veda, core of the Hindu scriptural canon, is a collection of over a thousand hymns; above all it is a glorious song of praise to the gods, the cosmic powers at work in nature and in man. The presentation of the twelve hymns in this book makes available a portion of one of the major scriptures of humanity in contemporary idioms (English, French, german, and Spanish) that reflect the quality, substance, and form of the original.