The Rigveda refers to a sage called Dirghatama. He was one of the many poets who composed the Vedic hymns. His most famous hymn is the riddle hymn Mandala 1.164, that is full of puzzles and metaphors and cannot be easily explained by scholars. It refers to everything from the sun to the Big Dipper constellation (Sapta Rishi mandala) to the Pleiades constellation (Pleiades), to the zodiac, to the horizon, to the sun, to the earth and the sky, the dawn, the moon and two birds: one that watched the other eat fruit. Most important is a hymn that suggests that all gods come from a single source, indicating that Vedic civilisation was not quite polytheistic rather its polytheism had an underlying monotheism, making Dirghatama's hymn a rather complex hymn. We don't know anything about Dirghatama from his poem compiled 3,500 years ago. His story appears almost 1,500 years later in the Sanskrit retelling of the Mahabharata. The story is rather interesting and is full of sexual complexities. We are told that Brihaspati was sexually attracted to his younger brother, Uttatya's wife, Mamatha. He tried to have intercourse with her; however, she was already pregnant. Since Brihaspati forced his advances on her, the child within the womb protested and this angered Brihaspati, who cursed the child that he would be born blind. This child was called Dirghatama, the one who is enveloped in perpetual blindness.