Vedas
The Vedas are a collection of ancient sacred texts in Hinduism, composed in Sanskrit and considered to be the foundational scriptures of Indian religious thought. There are four principal Vedas: the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Sāmaveda, and Atharvaveda, each dating from approximately 1500 to 1000 BCE. These texts encompass a variety of content related to hymns, rituals, philosophical speculations, and meditative practices. The Rigveda is particularly significant as it contains hymns that explore cosmology and early religious concepts, celebrating various deities associated with natural phenomena and human emotions.
Each Veda is structured into four sections: Saṃhitā (hymns), Brāhmaṇas (ritual instructions), Āraṇyakas (meditative practices), and Upaniṣads (philosophical inquiries). While some Vedas, like the Yajurveda and Sāmaveda, are less emphasized in contemporary practice, the Atharvaveda has influenced modern Indian medical practices through its focus on spells and incantations. The philosophical ideas in the Rigveda, particularly the concepts of Ṛta (cosmic order) and the emerging notion of monism, laid the groundwork for later developments in Indian philosophy, such as the Vedantic ideas of brahman and ātman. The Vedas thus represent a rich tapestry of early thought that continues to be relevant in various cultural and spiritual contexts today.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Vedas
Related civilization: Indo-Aryan.
Date: 1500-1100 b.c.e.
Locale: Indian subcontinent
Authorship: Compiled by several generations of Indo-Aryan priests/philosophers
Vedas
There are four Vedas (VAY-duhs; the Sanskrit term veda signifies “wisdom”) that deal with aspects of religious thought and customs: the Rigveda (also known as Ṛgveda, c. 1500-1000 b.c.e.; English translation, 1896-1897), the Yajurveda (c. 1500-1100 b.c.e.; The Texts of the White Yajurveda, 1899), the Sāmaveda (c. 1500-1100 b.c.e.; Sama Veda of the Jaiminiyas, 1938), and the Atharvaveda (c. 1500-1100 b.c.e.; The Hymns of the Atharva-veda, 1895-1896). Each Veda contains four sections: Saṃhitā (hymns, prayers, benedictions), Brāhmaṇas (prose commentaries on the importance of the rites and ceremonies of sacrifice), Āraṇyakas (concerning forest-meditation retreats), and Upaniṣads (philosophical speculations concerning the ultimate questions of existence). The Yajurveda (sacrificial formulas) and Sāmaveda (melodies) are not important today; the Atharvaveda (magic formulas, spells, and incantations) would become important to the development of modern Indian (that is, non-Western, alternative) medical practices.
The Rigveda (hymns) remains the most significant document in that it contains the cosmologies (creation myths) of early Indo-European thought, some of the earliest manifestations of religious/philosophical consciousness in human civilization. It is made up of 1,017 hymns divided into ten books. The first and the tenth books contain most of the document’s philosophical speculations. As in all primitive cosmologies, there are celebrations of numerous deities related to the occurrence of natural phenomena such as Sūrya (the Sun), Agni (fire), Dyaus (the sky or heaven), Vāyu/Vata (the wind), and Pṛthivī (Earth). Some deities are related to abstract human emotions, such as Śrāddha (faith) or Manyu (anger), and there are also numerous minor spirits and fairies associated with local forests, mountains, and fields.
Despite the polytheistic aspects of the Rigveda, the document also describes the monistic idea of Ṛta, or the unifying and absolute order (cosmic law/truth) of the universe, which seems to be ascribed to a single deity who has two names (or dimensions): Prajāpati (or the lord of all creation/creatures) and Viśvakarman (or the maker of the world). This idea evidences a tendency away from the primitive polytheism of the earlier village shaman and toward the philosophical monism of a later emerging scholarly priest class, who often voiced a sense of skepticism concerning the existence of a multitude of deities. Such a position presents a harmonized view of the universe that seeks to find a higher metaphysical unity amid the diversity of natural phenomena. This monistic dimension of the Rigveda emerges in later Indian thought as the Vedantic notion of brahman, the ultimate nature and source of absolute reality, and the allied concept of ātman, or this divine reality as it is manifested in the individual soul.
Bibliography
Frawley, David. From the River of Heaven: Hindu and Vedic Knowledge for the Modern Age. Salt Lake City, Utah: Morson, 1990.
King, Richard. An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2000.
Knapp, Stephen. The Secret Teachings of the Vedas: The Eastern Answers to the Mysteries of Life. Bombay, India: Jaico Publishing House, 1993.
Ramamurty, A. The Central Philosophy of the Rig-Veda. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books, 1992.
Swami Prabhavananda. Vedic Religion and Philosophy. Los Angeles: Vedanta Press, 1983.