Aranyani

About Aranyani

Aranyani lives in one hymn — Rigveda 10.146, the Vedas' only song to her. The poet calls into the dusk and asks why she never comes to the village, and whether the silence does not scare her. He hears her instead: a chichchika cricket answering a bull's bellow like cymbals, far-off grazing, a sudden scream. She harms no one unless attacked, and lets the lost traveler eat wild fruit and sleep safe. The hymn closes by calling her surabhi — musk-scented mother of wild beasts, who tills no field yet feeds everything that breathes.