THE VEDAS
In the Hindu tradition, the
Vedas have the status of shruti (literally, 'that which has been heard'). They
are thought to embody an eternal, self-existent truth realized by the rishis
(seers) in a state of meditation or revealed to them by the gods. The category
of smriti (literally, 'remembered') texts includes the Vedanga, Puranas, epics,
Dharmashastra, and Nitishastra.
The word Veda comes from the
root vid (literally, 'to know') and means 'knowledge'. There are four
Vedas-Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva. The Rig Veda contains the world's oldest
surviving poetry, some of it of extraordinary beauty and philosophical depth.
Each Veda has four parts, the last three of which sometimes blend into each
other-the Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanishad.
The Rig Veda Samhita is a
collection of 1,028 hymns (suktas) arranged in 10 books (Mandalas). The Sama
Veda consists of 1,810 verses, mostly borrowed from the Rig Veda, arranged
according to the needs of musical notation. The original melodies are, however,
lost. The Yajur Veda deals with the details of the performance of rituals. The
Atharva Veda is the latest Veda and contains hymns (some from the Rig Veda),
but also spells and charms which reflect aspects of popular beliefs and
practices. The Brahmanas (this term should not be confused with the Brahmana
varna or caste) are prose explanations of the Samhita portions and give details
and explanations of sacrificial rituals and their outcome. The Aranyakas
(forest books) interpret sacrificial rituals in a symbolic and philosophical
way. There are 108 Upanishads, among which 13 are considered the principal ones.
The Upanishads contain a great variety of philosophical ideas about sacrifice,
the body, and the universe, but are most closely associated with the concepts
of atman and brahman. Within the Vedic corpus as a whole, Books 2-7 (known as
the family books) of the Rig Veda Samhita are considered the oldest; the later
portions of this Samhita, along with all the other Vedic texts, comprise later
Vedic literature.
There are several recensions
(shakhas) of the Vedas, associated with different schools (charanas) of Vedic
study and interpretation. (The terms shakha and charana are often used
interchangeably.) The Shakala shakha is the only surviving recension of the Rig
Veda. The texts of the Yajur Veda are divided into those of the Shukla (White)
school and Krishna (Black) school. The recensions of the Shukla (also known as
Vajasaneya) Yajur Veda are the Madhyandina and Kanva. The Black school is
represented by the Kathaka, Kapishthala, Maitrayani, and Taittiriya recensions.
The main difference between the texts of the two schools is that the Samhitas
of the White school contain only the mantras (prayers and sacrificial
formulae), while in the texts of the Black school the mantras are accompanied
by a commentary describing and discussing various aspects of the sacri ficial
rituals. The Kauthuma, Ranayaniya, and Jaiminiya (or Talavakara) are recensions
of the Sama Veda, and the Shaunaka and Paippalada of the Atharva Veda.
References in inscriptions mention other recensions of the Vedas that once
existed but are now lost.
Vedic texts comprise a
religious literature, and references to possible historical events are few. For
example, book 7 of the Rig Veda Samhita refers to a battle of 10 kings, in
which Sudas defeated a number of adversaries who had confederated against him.
Historians have tried to reconstruct various aspects of the culture represented
in the Vedas, but it is not easy to interpret this vast and complex literature.
A major problem in using the
Vedas as a source of history is the problem of dating the Rig Veda. The dates
that have been suggested for the composition of this text range from c. 6000
BCE to 1000 BCE. Many historians take c. 1500-1000 BCE as the period of composition
of early Vedic literature and c. 1000-500 BCE as that of later Vedic texts.
This chronology is essentially based on the tentative dates suggested by Max
Müller in the 19th century.
Vedic literature forms an
important part of the Brahmanical tradition-texts pre served and transmitted by
a section of Brahmana males. It reflects their religious beliefs, practices,
and points of view. As a source of history, these texts are used for
information about life in parts of north-western and northern India during the
2nd and 1st millen nia BCE. But apart from the question of dates, as we shall
see later on, there are several problems in correlating the evidence from the
Vedas with archaeology.
A number of supplementary texts
known as Vedanga (literally, limbs of a Veda') aimed at helping the proper
recitation, use, and understanding of the Vedas. These in clude works on
phonetics (shiksha), metre (chhanda), grammar (vyakarana), etymology (nirukta),
ritual (kalpa), and astronomy (jyotisha). The broad period of composition of
Vedanga literature is c. 600-200 BCE. Yaska's Nirukta, a work on the etymology
of words in the Rig Veda, belongs to the 6th century BCE.
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