A Uniquely Rigvedic Meter Taken by the Mitanni to West Asia

 

A Uniquely Rigvedic Meter Taken by the Mitanni to West Asia

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

A scholar, Jaydeepsinh Rathod, sent me links to an article (for which I am grateful to him):

https://archaeologymag.com/2025/08/3000-year-old-hymn-reveals-musical-links/ 

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202506.1669/v2

 

A hymn in the Hurrian language, named the Hymn to Nikkal, found in Ugarit as “part of a larger Hurrian musical library written on clay tablets, of which this hymn alone has been preserved in its entirety”, and only recently deciphered (Hagel, 2005), is found to be in the Triṣṭubh meter, which is the most common meter in the Rigveda.  

The detailed and extremely researched article is self-explanatory. We will examine it below in the form of questions and answers:

 

1. Is the meter used in the Hymn to Nikkal very definitely Rigvedic?

The research paper itself repeatedly asserts that it is purely Rigvedic:

“The hymn from Ugarit has two cadences, one in the middle and one at the end. The analysis presented here demonstrates that these cadences are identical to the two most common cadences of the Rig Veda”.

“the ratio of long and short tones would be 1.4, which is also found in the contemporary Rig Veda”.

“We will utilize statistical significance to identify just how unique the Hymn to Nikkal and Vedic poetry are in their use of cadences. It turns out, the cadences utilized in the Hymn to Nikkal and in Vedic poetry are not mistakable for chance encounters, as will be shown. Instead, they are good, recognizable, and reassuring verse conclusions”.

“the most popular verse form of the Rig Veda—the Triṣṭubh—has at least five common opening patterns but virtually only one typical ending. This cadence marks the ends of more than 95% of a total of 16,450 Triṣṭubh verses (padas) in the Rig Veda, and it is a rhythmic pattern that, although only three syllables are fixed in it, makes for a clear and reassuring finale for each verse that it crowns (Van Nooten and Holland, 1995) […] The same cadence together with falling melodic lines is also found in the Hymn to Nikkal. To expand on this point, the present article comes with a computational evaluation. The cadences extracted from the Hymn to Nikkal in their full length of seven syllables were searched amid verse endings in the Rig Veda, and this search returned several thousand exact matches. […] the cadences that have been found in the Hymn to Nikkal connect it with the Rig Veda, interlinking the two musical cultures […] approximately every fifth verse in the Rig Veda ends with one of two cadences of the Hymn to Nikkal”.

“the Hymn to Nikkal matches up with the Rig Veda at least as well as if it was taken from within the Rig Veda itself—and even if picked from within, it would be one of the more characteristic duplets. Indeed, the statistics demonstrate that if the Hymn to Nikkal were part of the Rig Veda itself, its two cadences would be positioned among the topmost 1% most characteristic ones in the Rig Veda—that is on the top 100th percentile (Supplemental material)”.

“the final cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal is also the most widespread cadence across all verses in the Rig Veda. Similarly, the first cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal is the second most widespread Rig Vedic cadence, and the most widespread in the Triṣṭubh meter, specifically. The composers of the Hymn to Nikkal could not have chosen better”.

“One can confidently say that Vedic Indians would have loved this hymn. They would have recognized its rhythm as their own […] it can be concluded that the cadences of the Hymn to Nikkal are signature Rig Vedic cadences”.

“The new result demonstrates that the music as a whole—including rhythm and melody—is even more typically Rig Vedic than the rhythm alone […] Here again, the excellent correspondence between the Hymn to Nikkal and the Rig Veda is no chance encounter. Considering that the rhythms of our two cadences are already defined, the melodies added by the Hymn to Nikkal on top of these rhythms are compatible with the two most frequent accent patterns present in the Rig Veda in association with these specific rhythms.”

“the first cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal remains the second most frequent melodic and rhythmic cadence across the entire Rig Veda, including the newer Rig Vedic hymns (Supplemental material). While there is one combination of rhythm and melody that is more common across all of the Rig Veda than the first cadence, this particular most frequent pattern resembles the positions between the two cadences of the Hymn to Nikkal. It features the same rhythm and only one difference in accent”

There is more of the same.

 

2. Can the Tristubh meter found in the Hymn to Nikkal be of non-Vedic origin?

The Triṣṭubh meter is not found in the Avesta. Nor is it known to be found in Greece (before the references in the above article): a question “Is the Tristubh meter found in Greece” on google elicits the following AI overview; “No, the Tristubh meter is not found in Greece. It is a Vedic meter originating from ancient India, specifically used in the Rigveda. While similarities exist between Sanskrit and Greek prosody, the Tristubh meter is a uniquely Indian form of verse.”.

Again, another question, “Is the Tristubh meter found outside India” elicits the answer: “Yes, the Tristubh meter, a prominent Vedic meter, is found outside India, specifically in Southeast Asian prosody and poetry. Its influence is seen in Thai poetry, likely transmitted through Cambodia or Sri Lanka. Additionally, there's evidence of its influence in 6th-century Chinese literature, possibly introduced by Buddhist monks who visited India.” A corollary question (on the reference to Cambodia above) “Is the Tristubh meter found in Cambodia” again tells us: “No, the Tristubh meter is not specific to Cambodia. It is a Vedic meter, a form of Sanskrit prosody, and is found in ancient Indian texts. While Cambodia has strong Hindu and Buddhist influences, including Sanskrit language and cultural elements, the Tristubh meter itself originated in India”. In short: the meter went everywhere from India.

 

3. How did this meter reach West Asia and into the Hymn to Nikkal?

The research article is very clear about this: it reached there through the Mitanni people:

“The kingdom of Mitanni was a Bronze Age society of the Near East that has left two immensely valuable gifts. The first gift is the earliest archaeological evidence for the existence of the Rig Vedic language and culture (Novák, 2007; Fournet, 2010).

This first gift is truly important because of both the of the Vedic culture, which has produced the scriptures of more than a billion Hindus today. Without the evidence from Mitanni, scholars would be at a loss, relying almost entirely on guesswork to determine when Old Indic and Vedic were originally spoken (Spinney, 2025).

In addition to helping scholars confirm their chronology of the Vedic language, the evidence from Mitanni also tells a story of its own. The archaeological evidence for the Vedic language that Mitanni has left is somewhat unconventional. It is not a full text written in Vedic. Instead, only individual words have remained, and these Vedic or Old Indic words fall in a narrow list of three categories: 1.) terms related to horsemanship, 2.) Vedic names of gods, and 3.) other Vedic names (Novák, 2007; Spinney, 2025; Gernot, 1989). Coincidentally, the country name “Mitanni” itself—or “Maitanni”, as it appears in early sources—may be a testimony to ancient connections between the Hurrians who lived in Mitanni and the Indo-European ancestors of the Vedic Indians. “Mitanni” is derived from the Old Indic verb mith- “to unite”. Specifically, the reconstructed accusative form *m[a]ithāṃ followed by the common Hurrian ending -nni, would give together Maitanni (Fournet, 2010). Similarly, the name of Mitanni’s capital “Waššukanni” may be derived from the Vedic word root “vasu”, signifying “wealth” Cotticelli-Kurras et. al, 2023. If these etymologies are correct, they suggests that this wealth-loving “United States” of the Bronze Age did indeed unite multiple cultures: the majority of the population was Hurrian, but there were also political, religious, and technological ties to Vedic-speaking peoples and their ancestors (Spinney, 2025).

Mitanni’s second gift is more specifically linked to Hurrian culture, and it is all the more delightful. It is the oldest preserved musical composition. It was found in Ugarit, an independent city on the east coast of the Mediterranean (Laroche 1955, Krispijn, 1990; West, 1994; Thiel, 1977; Smith and Kilmer, 2000). The composition is a Hymn to Nikkal (Figure 1), part of a larger Hurrian musical library written on clay tablets, of which this hymn alone has been preserved in its entirety. Attempts to decipher the notation proved successful in the 20th century (Hagel, 2005). The composition is two-voiced, and, perhaps not unexpectedly, much shorter than the Hurrian lyrics (Krispijn, 1990; Hagel, 2005; Krispijn, 2002)”.

 

4. How does the author of the research paper identify the chronology of the origin and spread of this hymn, and how does it fit in with Rigvedic chronology?

And here we come to the one single (and minor) interpretative flaw that I find in the paper: the matter of chronology. While the paper is absolutely researched in all matters of metric studies, and will definitely add a new revolutionary element into the AIT-OIT debate, it falters in the matter of absolute chronology:

a) The scholars are idealistically hopeful (in spite of their own discoveries, repeatedly detailed throughout their paper, which show this particular meter to be unique and exclusive to, and of single origin in, the Rigveda) that they have found something which links ancient global music together:

“The Hymn to Nikkal bears a distant influence, linking distant Bronze Age societies. These societies were also connected through politics, religion, and technology. Which connection, then, was the first? Is it possible that music and Art connected the world before speech, money, religion, or politics? Perhaps the role of music is underestimated because archeologists never get to hear musical compositions performed by prehistoric people…. The Hymn to Nikkal reveals that music both spreads and blends in easily, linking distant motives and themes. As a matter of fact, the hymn reflects an intricate web of connections. The clay tablet on which the hymn was inscribed was found in Ugarit. The musical notation is Hurrian, although not originally. Adding to the global connections, the Hurrian musical notation is derived from Near Eastern musical notation. Also, Nikkal is a Near Eastern goddess, venerated by the Akkadians already a millennium earlier, then as Ningal (Figure 1). Thus, the Hymn to Nikkal reveals connections across a broad range of cultures, including India, the Caucasus, the Near East, and the Mediterranean. This is something common for music. In music, everything seems interconnected. We can certainly say this for the present day, when songs literally go viral. Was there—just perhaps—a global musical culture already in the Bronze Age? (Figure 4)”.

But, as their paper shows, all these links started out from a single source, the Rigveda, and remained late and rare outside the Rigveda. It was not a pre-Rigvedic phenomenon but a post-Rigvedic one.

b) The scholars are clearly not fully acquainted with the internal chronology of the Rigveda, and with the chronological relationship of the Mitanni with the Rigveda. Though they do not specifically say so in so many words, they treat the common elements in the Rigveda and the Mitanni data as remnants of an earlier pre-Rigvedic extra-Indian relationship between the Vedic people and the Mitanni people: “Without the evidence from Mitanni, scholars would be at a loss, relying almost entirely on guesswork to determine when Old Indic and Vedic were originally spoken (Spinney, 2025). In addition to helping scholars confirm their chronology of the Vedic language, the evidence from Mitanni also tells a story of its own.”

Specifically, they are totally unacquainted with the evidence that there is an Old Rigveda (based in Haryana) and a New Rigveda (representing a later phase with its geography expanding from Haryana northwestwards as far as Afghanistan) and that “Mitanni Indo-Aryan” represents a culture totally derived from the new and different culture of the New Rigveda:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/08/final-version-of-chronological-gulf.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-finality-of-mitanni-evidence.html

c) The article shows no acquaintance with the internal chronological order of the ten books of the Rigveda:

“a closer look at some of the oldest hymns of the Rig Veda demonstrates that, here, the correspondence is the greatest.

The combination of rhythm and melody of the final cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal is compatible with the overall most frequent combined rhythm and accent cadence in Book 5 of the Rig Veda—the book of the Atri family. At the same time, the first cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal, taking rhythm and melody into account, matches up exactly with the overall most frequent cadence found in Books 4 and 6 of the Rig Veda—the books of the Vamadeva and Bharadvaja families (Supplemental material). Together, these three books—4, 5, and 6—are among the oldest Rig Vedic material and most likely contemporary to the Hymn to Nikkal. Later Rig Vedic material may have experienced changes in accent pronunciation, with the melodic accents gradually shifting from their original positions to the positions where they are still pronounced today.”

In actual fact, Book 6 is an Old Book, Book 4 is a Middle Book, and Book 5 is a New Book. The correspondence of the Hymn to Nikkal is, at first look, with the whole of the Rigveda (since the Triṣṭubh meter is the commonest and most frequent meter throughout the Rigveda), and not, as the writers claim, “the greatest” with the “oldest hymns” in the three books they collectively describe as “among the oldest Rig Vedic material and most likely contemporary to the Hymn to Nikkal”.

A closer look, in fact, confirms that the correspondence is later down the line within the Rigveda: “The combination of rhythm and melody of the final cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal is compatible with the overall most frequent combined rhythm and accent cadence in Book 5 of the Rig Veda—the book of the Atri family”. That is, with the New Book 5.

And, although they club all the three books together in one “oldest” space, their own words make it clear that Book 5 is later to the others and represents a new period and phase: “This study reveals that this cadence was initially the most frequent one. Only gradually, it was outcompeted by the iambic cadence, which is more frequent in the Atri family book, where it may have originated, spreading to dominate in the newer books of the Rig Veda. It may have been liked for its simplicity and efficiency”.

A question “Iambic meters in the Rigveda” elicits the answer: “In the Rigveda, iambic meter is primarily found in the cadence (last four syllables) of lines, particularly in the Gāyatrī meter (8 syllables per line)”. 

 As I have pointed out in my books and articles, while the first two 8-syllabled meters in the Rigveda (Gāyatrī and Anuṣṭubh) are found throughout the Rigveda, but much less frequent than the Triṣṭubh, the further 8-syllabled meters start out from the Atri family book (Book 5) and are completely absent in the Old Rigveda (except one late verse in the latest hymn in Book 6):

Pankti (8+8+8+8+8):

I. 29; 80-81; 82.1-5; 84.10-12; 105.1-7,9-18 (57 verses).

V. 6; 7.10; 9.5,7; 10.4,7; 16.5; 17.5; 18.5; 20.4; 21.4; 22.4; 23.4; 35.8; 39.5; 50.5; 52.6,16-17; 64.7; 65.6; 75; 79 (49 verses).

VI. 75.17 (1 verses).

VIII. 19.37; 31.15-18; 35.22,24; 46.21,24,32; 56.5; 62.1-6,10-12; 69.11,16; 91.1-2 (24 verses).

IX. 112-114 (19 verses).

X. 59.8; 60.8-9; 86; 134.7; 145.6; 164.5 (29 verses). 

Mahāpankti (8+8+8+8+8+8):

I. 191.10-12 (3 verses).

VIII. 36.7; 37.2-7; 39; 40.1,3-11; 41; 47 (55 verses).

X. 59.9; 133.4-6; 134.1-6; 166.5 (11 verses).

Śakvarī (8+8+8+8+8+8+8):

VIII. 36.1-6; 40.2 (7 verses).

X. 133.1-3 (3 verses).

[Even Anuṣṭubh, the second of the 8-syllabled meters, is found in 155 verses in Book 5, but only in 115 verses in all the other five earlier Family Books 2,3,4,6,7 combined, and in 528 verses in the later Non-Family Books 1,8,9,10. Later it became the most common meter in Sanskrit].

 

All in all, the above paper, barring this unawareness of the internal chronology of the Rigveda, is a priceless addition to the AIT-OIT debate, even if not intended to be so.