Dating the Rig Veda is one of the most sensitive and complicated topics in Indology.
The subject has been obscured by ideological debates, wrong assumptions, and the lack of contemporary written documents.
Yet the Rig Veda itself contains clear internal clues that allow us to outline a realistic chronology.

These clues come from geography and astronomy.

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1. Geography: the most solid evidence

The Rig Veda is deeply rooted in the landscape of the Civilization of the Seven Rivers (Sapta Sindhu), between present-day India and Pakistan.
The most important hymn for dating the end of its composition is RV 10.75, “The List of Rivers”.

In this hymn, we find:

• Sarasvatī, mentioned simply among other rivers, with no special emphasis.
  Yet she is the only river that is also a goddess in the Rig Veda.
  Her discreet presence in this hymn is important:
  when RV 10.75 was composed, Sarasvatī was still flowing, but she was already weakened.
• Other rivers listed include Sindhu (the Indus), Vitastā, Asiknī, Paruṣṇī, Śutudrī, Vipāś, and others.

A crucial detail: the Drishadvatī is missing

The Drishadvatī, once a major tributary of the Sarasvatī, is not mentioned in RV 10.75.
This is a key geological clue:
the river must have disappeared before this hymn was composed, likely because of an old earthquake or climatic change.

Another detail: the Sutudrī (Sutlej) still flows

The Sutudrī, another major tributary, is mentioned.
Modern geology shows that the Sutlej was diverted later, after a powerful earthquake — probably between 2000 and 1900 BCE.

This gives us a very strong chronological limit:

✔ The Rig Veda was composed before the diversion of the Sutudrī
✔ but after the disappearance of the Drishadvatī

Therefore, the end of the composition of the Rig Veda is likely around:
📌 2000 BCE

This corresponds to a Sarasvatī still present but weakened, just before it finally dried up around 1900 BCE.

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2. Astronomy: an even older clue

Several Rig Vedic hymns mention astronomical events, but only one of them can be dated with precision:
the solar eclipse described in RV 5.40.

Modern astronomers — who have no particular interest in the Rig Veda itself — have reconstructed ancient eclipses.
One of them matches the Vedic description perfectly, and it has been dated to:

📌 19 February 3929 BCE

This is an extremely ancient date.
It shows that parts of the Rig Veda go back to the late 4th millennium BCE.

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3. The “stolen cows” myth and the recovered light

The same hymn (RV 5.40) refers to a well-known story in the Vedas:
the “theft of the cows” by the Panis (a word meaning “avaricious”, “greedy”, or “miserly traders”).

In the Vedic symbolic language:

• the cows represent light,
• the Panis represent forces that hide or imprison this light,
• and Indra — under another name here, Brihaspati — liberates the light.

This story appears in many hymns and may be linked to that very ancient eclipse.

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4. A coherent chronology

When we bring together geology, astronomy, and the internal references of the Rig Veda, we obtain a clear and coherent timeline:

• Beginning of the Rig Veda: around 3929 BCE

(the eclipse described in RV 5.40)

• Main period of composition: 3900 – 2200 BCE

(Civilization of the Seven Rivers; Sarasvatī still flowing)

• End of the Rig Veda: around 2000 BCE

(Sutudrī still present; Drishadvatī already gone; Sarasvatī weakened)

• After 1900 BCE: Sarasvatī dries up completely

(This happens after the Rig Veda)

In short:
The Rig Veda is not a text from “1500 BCE” as often claimed in old Western scholarship.
It is much older, rooted in a civilization that flourished thousands of years before the Iron Age.