The interpretative heritage surrounding the Rigveda unfolds in several distinct yet interwoven layers. Early on, the Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas, and Upaniṣads began to read the hymns not merely as poetic praise, but as keys to ritual action and spiritual insight. The Brāhmaṇas explain how specific verses are to be used in sacrifice, while the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads move toward more symbolic and philosophical understandings of the same mantras. Alongside this ritual and contemplative exegesis, Yāska’s *Nirukta* established an etymological and philological tradition, probing difficult words and preserving early debates about whether the gods are natural forces, ritual powers, or personal deities. Even the padapāṭha, prātiśākhya, and grammatical traditions implicitly interpret the text, since every decision about how to segment, accent, or analyze a word shapes how the hymn is understood.

Over time, these currents crystallized into classical commentarial works, above all Sāyaṇa’s extensive *Ṛgveda-bhāṣya*. Rooted in a ritualist, Mīmāṃsā outlook, Sāyaṇa’s commentary situates each hymn within the sacrificial system, identifies the deity addressed, and often offers both an apparent and a more inward, spiritual sense. Earlier commentators such as Skandasvāmin, and fragmentary glossators like Venkatamādhava and others, represent a somewhat different balance of philological care and ritual concern, though their works survive only in part. These scholastic traditions typically treat the Veda as authoritative revelation, and thus seek to harmonize devotional, ritual, and sometimes adhyātma (inner) meanings rather than set them in opposition.

Later philosophical and sectarian readings draw selectively on these foundations. Vedāntic and bhakti-oriented interpreters highlight hymns that can be read in a more explicitly theistic or non-dual key, often mediated through Upaniṣadic citations. Reformist movements, such as those inspired by Dayananda Saraswati, turn to the Rigveda with a monotheistic and ethical lens, downplaying sacrificial ritual in favor of moral and spiritual instruction. Regional and school-based traditions within India have also developed vernacular expositions that follow Sāyaṇa in broad outline while reorienting the emphasis toward spiritual practice or theology.

Modern academic scholarship adds yet another stratum to this living tradition. Philologists and historians approach the Rigveda through comparative linguistics, Indo-European mythology, and the study of ancient ritual, producing translations with running commentary that attend closely to grammar, meter, and historical context. Such work often resonates, at a different register, with the concerns of the *Nirukta* and the older grammatical schools, even as it refrains from doctrinal commitments. Taken together, these ritual, philosophical, philological, and devotional strands reveal a text that has never been read in only one way, but has continually invited fresh interpretation while remaining anchored in a long, disciplined lineage of commentary.