Ratha

"Having a word to designate the war chariot does not mean that they invented it."

"The consciousness is like a chariot yoked to a team of powerful horses. One of them is breath (prånå), the other is desire (våsanå)."

"So right from the start, even according to the AIT scenario, even as the Aryans (allegedly) arrived, they fashioned cars from the wood of native trees; they did not bring chariots from abroad!"

"The only real-life, not mythological, ratha in a race we know is mentioned in 10.102 and this is pulled by oxen. Nowhere in the 1000 hymns of the `Rgveda is there one single mention of a real-life battle with horse-drawn rathas... The scholars of the 19th century translated the Rigvedic ratha (or anas) as “chariot” thinking of Greece and Rome, and the notion stuck."

"The unique forms and the early appearance of carts in the Indus valley region suggest that they are the result of indigenous technological development and not diffusion from West Asia or Central Asia as proposed by earlier scholars."

"The rite is often considered a ‘ship’ or a ‘chariot’; it is a means of communication, of bringing closer the two shores, that of the hither or terrestrial realm, and that of the beyond, or godly realm."

"The reconstructed picture of the Vedic ratha is not yet complete. A number of technical terms are not fully or not at all understood... The Rgveda, in fact, offers countless examples of such metaphors, where the chariot stands for the word, the well-composed hymn of praise, the ritual ceremony or the sacrifice as a whole."

"In the total of nine passages in the Rigveda in which the words √vah, rátha, and ásva occur together, the ráthas are imaginary, heavenly vehicles, drawn by imaginary, heavenly ásvás. Parpola’s specific translation “war-chariot” for rátha is misleading. In none of these passages is the rátha a vehicle of war. All but three of them describe dawn and her attendant deities."

"Given the current frantic search for evidence of ‘spoked wheels’ in the remains of the Indus Valley Civilization, the translation [of the word arati as 'spoked wheels'] could even be considered irresponsible."

"The Early Mandalas contain no references to technological innovations like ‘ara’ (spokes) which appear only in late Mandalas."

"Something of this fear of the horse and of the thundering chariot, the "tank" of the 2nd millennium B.C. is transparent in the famous horse 'Dadhikra' of the Puru king Trasadasya ("Tremble enemy" in RV 4.38.8) ……..The first appearance of thundering chariots must have stricken the local population with terror similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and the Incas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse riding Spaniards."

"Not only the language, but also the culture of the newly arrived elite was appropriated, including the 'Vedic Tank' the horse drawn chariot."

"The twelve-spoke wheel of truth revolves about the heaven unwearied. Seven hundred and twenty sons in pairs stand on it, O Agni. They call the full one in the upper half of heaven the “Father with five feet and twelve forms”. These others call him “the far-seeing one mounted below on seven wheels and six spokes”. On this ever-revolving five-spoked wheel, all creatures take their stand. Its axle, though bearing a heavy load, does not get hot, nor has its nave ever broken apart for ages."

"Soma flows on for u's as winner of the kine, winner of thousands, cars, water, and light, and gold; He whom the Gods have made a gladdening draught to drink, the drop most sweet to taste, weal-bringing, red of hue."

"By the time of the Katha Upanishad, the metaphor of the horse (and the chariot, to which we will turn shortly), though slightly altered from the `Rgvedic imagery, had become perfectly explicit: “Know the self (åtman) to be the chariot’s master, and the body, the chariot itself; know the intellect (buddhi) to be the charioteer, and the mind (manas), the reins” (1.3.3); the horses, the Upanishad continues, are the five senses (indriya-s) which must be reined in by our intellect and (higher) mind, and ultimately the self. The chariot, here, stands for the body or our external being."

"Forty bay horses of the ten cars’ master before a thousand lead the long procession. Reeling in joy Kakßivån’s sons and Pajrå’s have grounded the coursers decked with pearly trappings."

"Joyfully the youthful daughter of the sun Ascends your rátha, heroes, here; Around are marvellous áßvás flying, May the flame-coloured birds bring you to us."