- Lived:
- fl. c. 1280 BCE by the relative chronology of the Rigvedic poets — an absolute date is beyond anyone; the hymns place him in the northwest of the subcontinent, and later tradition carries him east down the Ganges to the lands his sons were said to found
- Field:
- Rigvedic seer-poet — the Anukramaṇī index assigns him hymns 1.140–164, ending in the Asya Vāmasya, the riddle-hymn of the Rigveda
- The Big Idea:
- A sacred text can ask questions instead of answering them — and one of his answers, ekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti, "Truth is one; the wise call it by many names," became the single most quoted line in Indian thought.
- In their words:
- "They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuṇa, Agni... To what is One, sages give many a title: they call it Agni, Yama, Mātariśvan." (Rigveda 1.164.46, tr. Ralph T. H. Griffith)
- If you remember one thing:
- The blind poet of the Rigveda composed one hymn of fifty-two riddles — the year as a twelve-spoked wheel, two birds in one tree, speech with three hidden quarters — and buried in it a single line about one reality under many names that India has spent three thousand years unpacking, expanding, and arguing over.