Which language was used for the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text?

Vedic Sanskrit was used for the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text. The Rigveda is a collection of hymns composed in an early form of Sanskrit and preserved through an exceptionally careful oral tradition.

The text is generally dated to the second millennium BCE, although the hymns were transmitted orally before being written down. Its language differs from Classical Sanskrit, the later standardized form associated especially with the grammarian Pāṇini.

The Rigveda is the oldest of the four Vedas and is central to the history of Hindu religious literature. Its hymns invoke deities, describe ritual practices, and preserve evidence about the society and poetic conventions of early Indo-Aryan speakers.

Vedic Sanskrit is not the same as Pali, the language associated with the Theravada Buddhist canon, or Prakrit, a collective term for several Middle Indo-Aryan languages. Those languages belong to related historical stages or branches, but the Rigveda itself is composed in Vedic Sanskrit.