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The Vedas -
The Vedas are considered the earliest literary record of Indo-Aryan civilization, and the most sacred books of India. They are the original scriptures of Hindu teachings, and contain spiritual knowledge encompassing all aspects of our life. Vedic literature with its philosophical maxims has stood the test of time and is the highest religious authority for all sections of Hindus in particular and for mankind in general.
Veda means wisdom, knowledge or vision, and it manifests the language of the gods in human speech. The laws of the Vedas regulate the social, legal, domestic and religious customs of the Hindus to the present day. All the obligatory duties of the Hindus at birth, marriage, death etc. owe their allegiance to the Vedic ritual. They draw forth the thought of successive generation of thinkers, and so contain within it the different strata of thought.
The Vedas are probably the earliest documents of the human mind and is indeed difficult to say when the earliest portions of the Vedas came into existence. As the ancient Hindus seldom kept any historical record of their religious, literary and political realization, it is difficult to determine the period of
the Vedas with precision. Historians provide us many guesses but none of them is free from ambiguity. It is believed that humans did not compose
the Vedas. They were handed down through generations by word of mouth. The general assumption is that
the Vedas hymns were either taught by God to the sages or that they were revealed themselves to the sages who were the seers or œmantradrasta of the hymns.
The Vedas were mainly compiled by Vyasa Krishna Dwaipayana around the time of Lord Krishna (c. 1500 BC)
The Vedas have been qualified in four:
The Rig-Veda, the Sama Veda, the Yajur Veda and the Atharva Veda, these the most important is the
Rig Veda. The four Vedas are collectively known as œChathurveda, of which the first three Vedas viz., Rig Veda, Sama Veda and Yajur Veda agree in form, language and content. Each Veda consists of four parts the Samhitas (hymns), the Brahmanas (rituals), the Aranyakas (theologies) and the Upanishads (philosophies). The collection of mantras or hymns is called the Samhita. The Brahmanas are ritualistic texts and include precepts and religious duties. Each Veda has several Brahmanas attached to it. The Upanishads form the concluding portions of the Veda and therefore called the œVedanta or the end of
the Vedas and contains the essence of Vedic teachings.
The Rig Veda: The Book of Mantra The Rig Veda is a collection of inspired songs or hymns and is a main source of information on the Rig Vedic civilization. It is the oldest book in any Indo-European language and contains the earliest form of all Sanskrit mantras that date back to 1500 B.C. - 1000 B.C. Some scholars date the Rig Veda as early as 12000 BC - 4000 B.C. The Rig-Vedic ˜samhita™ or collection of mantras consists of 1,017 hymns or ˜suktas™, covering about 10,600 stanzas, divided into eight ˜astakas™ each having eight ˜adhayayas™ or chapters, which are sub-divided into various groups. The hymns are the work of many authors or seers called ˜rishis™. There are seven primary seers identified: Atri, Kanwa,Vashistha, Vishwamitra, Jamadagni, Gotama and Bharadwaja. The rig Veda accounts in detail the social, religious, political and economic background of the Rig-Vedic civilization. Even though monotheism characterizes some of the hymns of Rig Veda, naturalistic polytheism and monism can be discerned in the religion of the hymns of Rig Veda.The Sama Veda: The Book of Song The Sama Veda is purely a liturgical collection of melodies (˜saman™). The hymns in the Sama Veda, used as musical notes, were almost completely drawn from the Rig Veda and have no distinctive lessons of their own. Hence, its text is a reduced version of the Rig Veda.
