The Rig Veda is the earliest text written by the Vedic age people with a number of different texts like the Upanishads and Puranas written after that. So although the Rig Veda is still an important manuscript that defines various rituals and practices of Hinduism faith till date if not completely but to a minimal extend. Hinduism and Hindu practices as we know them today have been shaped a lot by the later texts, which contained ideas sometimes greatly differing from the Rig Veda; Stories were modified, existing religious practices were updated and new ones introduced, and a lot of changes were blended into the ever-changing fabric of our culture. Each such age, of which there can be considered as three major, brought about some changes in the practices that Hinduism stated and although many remained, it cannot be said that the guidelines/practices referred to in the Rig Veda are the ones being followed today, or, even, followed in the years following the composition of the Rig Veda.
Let’s take, for example, the caste system: in the Rig Veda, the caste system of later times comprising the four Varnas was non-existent. The Rig Veda only speaks of two classes that is the Aryas and the Dasas. The Aryas apparently referred to the people who followed the vedic culture and the Dasas was referred to the people who was not following the vedic culture and one that may include the migrants from the southern parts of ancient India or people whose lands were been captured or possibly the prisoners of war.
However, as we all know that, the later texts defines four classes - the Brahmins, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya and the Shudra. This is not the only case. However many such ideas that came from Rig Veda was further updated in the later period of Vedic age are still being followed till date.So it cannot be said that Rig Veda is completely dominate Hindu society (not Indian, by the way) till date.
Rigveda did not even represent the whole culture of the common masses of even its own period. It was the creation of inspired poets, whose aim was to tell about the truth in an extraordinarily fascinating manner, by making us conscious of what nature is, what natural processes have inside them, how the natural law shines forth through each and every phenomenon - physical, spiritual and social aspect.
During Vedic period there were also common masses, whose aim was just like any of us of the present day .To get the day’s bread, get good money, live life with or without any goal and enjoy. Some even performed rituals, and some even sacrifices. Some people did gamble, some did drink wine. Some people did go after women, some people did eat meat and many of them were simple polytheists.
Rigveda as the creation of inspired poets, was different from its own contemporary society. It did not speak of physical sacrifices, dogmatic rituals, senseless myths, crude desires, meat eating, etc. Further, Rigveda identifies wine with poison and thoughtless action, sees gambling as a vice, heaps satire on physical sacrifices and speaks high of symbols and spirituality. Rigveda, unlike the ascetic works, does not order man to waste his life to get salvation, but asks man to live and act his full life to attain bliss. It does not fall for anthropomorphic “Monotheism” or bloody polytheism, but distinguishes itself with its beautiful form of poetic pantheism. It does not talk myths. It does not waste time speaking of life after death, paradise, hell, Devil, or such imaginary things. It talks about the world we see, the nature we live in, the inside world of each one of us.
Rigveda is not a cultural manual. It is not a collection of folk songs of masses, or a law book, or in any way the true representative of cultural domain of its own time. (But it does not mean Rigveda does not give us a picture of culture in its period - it surely does give the clearest picture. But only thing that Rigveda does not dominate that culture. Rigveda is not ritual book, mythology or a law book.
Had Rigveda been given due importance in our culture, we would have been far much better.
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