Purusha Sukta
पुरुषसूक्त puruṣasūktaA hymn of the Rigveda (10.90) describing creation as the sacrifice of a cosmic being, Purusha, from whose mouth, arms, thighs, and feet the four varnas arise. It is the earliest scriptural source for the fourfold social model and belongs to the late strata of the Rigveda.
Where this term appears
- The caste system: what Hinduism says Essentials
The Rigveda , in the late hymn called the Purusha Sukta (10.90), describes the cosmos as born from the sacrifice of a primordial being, and Griffith's public-domain translation renders the crucial verse: "The B…
- What is Sanatana Dharma? Essentials
The famous verse of the Purusha Sukta (Rigveda 10.90) that pictures the classes as born from a cosmic being belongs, scholars including Jamison and Brereton note, to the latest layer of that text and reads as a…
- Brahma, Brahman, Brahmin: what's the difference? Journal
…he brahman ." Scripture gives this class a cosmic origin image in the Purusha Sukta , the hymn in which the ordered world is made by the sacrifice of a cosmic being, the Purusha.
- Does karma justify caste? Treatise
…both must be stated with their difficulties visible. The first is the Purusha Sukta , the hymn at Rigveda 10.90.