CHATURVEDIC SERIES - INTRODUCTION TO VEDAS

VEDA VYASA MAHARISHI, 

(The compiler of four Vedas)

Hi Viewer, Welcome to my compilation on Vedas. Followed by an introductory blog, I propose to deal with each of the four Vedas in the future blogs. 

The Vedas are perhaps the oldest written text on our planet. They date back to the beginning of Indian civilization and are the earliest literary records of the whole Aryan race. They are supposed to have been passed through oral tradition for over 100,000 years. They reached us in formatted form between 4-6,000 years ago. The Vedas are not thought to have been revealed to a certain person or persons at a specific historical moment; they are believed to have always existed and were apprehended by sages in deep meditative states.

According to some schools of Hindu thoughts, the Vedas were composed by Brahman, the Supreme Consciousness, whose song the sages then heard. Although the Vedas are seldom read or understood today, even by the devout, they no doubt form the bedrock of the universal religion or “Sanatana Dharma” that all Hindus follow.

The Vedas have been orally transmitted with the help of elaborate mnemonic techniques. The mantras, the oldest part of the Vedas, are recited in the modern age for their phonology rather than the semantics, and are considered to be "primordial rhythms of creation", preceding the forms to which they refer. By reciting them the cosmos is regenerated, "by enlivening and nourishing the forms of creation at their base."

Scholars Forrest E. Baird and Raeburne S. Heimbeck note:

"Of all their many sacred texts, Hindus accord supernatural origin only to the Vedas. These four books exclusively are trusted to reveal the essential knowledge of life. Such knowledge, Hindus hold, has existed eternally in the form of vibrations, sounding throughout the universe. These elusive vibrations remained undetected until certain Indian sages, equipped with spiritual hearing, heard and formulated them in the Sanskrit language".

The Vedas, then, are thought to reproduce the exact sounds of the universe itself at the moment of creation and onwards and so take the form, largely, of hymns and chants. In reciting the Vedas, one is thought to be literally participating in the creative song of the universe which gave birth to all things observable and unobservable from the beginning of time.

Vedic thinkers asked questions about themselves, the world around them, and their place in it. 

What is thought? 

What is its source? 

Why does the wind blow? 

Who put the sun – giver of warmth and light – in the sky? 

How is it that the earth brings forth these myriad life-forms? 

How do we renew our existence and become whole? 

Questions of how, what, and why are the beginning of philosophical reflection.

The Vedas explore origins of life, highlighting the ideals of human existence; and the goals that beckon. There is no dogma, no restriction of thought. We are told in words clear as crystal: 

“आ नो भद्रा: क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वत:” (ā no bhadrā kratavo yantu viśvatah:)

‘Let noble thoughts come to us from every direction’-(Rigveda 1-89-1). 

That, indeed, is the essence of the Vedas - says Professor Sarva Daman Singh, Director, Institute of Asian Studies, Brisbane

The Sanskrit word véda, "knowledge, wisdom", is derived from the root vid- "to know". Vedas are called "Maṛai or Vaymoli" by Tamils. Marai literally means "hidden, a secret, a mystery". Vedas are śruti ("what is heard" and not seen), distinguishing them from other Hindu religious texts, which are called smṛti ("what is seen and remembered"). Hindus consider the Vedas to be 'apauruṣeya', which means "not of a man, superhuman" and "impersonal, authorless", revelations of sacred sounds and alphabets heard by ancient sages after intense meditation.

All the rivers of Indian thoughts and philosophy flow from the great reservoir of the Vedic tradition; and all our perceptions of the self in others, and of the others in the self, arise from the Vedic realization of the indissoluble relationship between God, humanity and the rest of creation. We pray for deliverance from darkness into the light of understanding that we are not alone; that the joys and sorrows of others are also our own; their success and failure are our own. The capacity to do so makes us truly human, enabling us to tread the earth in the image of God.

The Vedas existed in oral form and were passed down from master to student for generations, until they were committed to writing. They were carefully preserved orally as masters would have students memorise them forwards and backwards with emphasis on exact pronunciation in order to keep intact what was originally heard.

The texts which make up the Four Vedas are:  

• Rig Veda
• Sama Veda
• Yajur Veda
• Atharva Veda

It follows thus, the Mantras are properly of three forms:

1. Rig, which are verses of praise in metre for loud recitation.
2. Yajus, which are prose for recitation during Homa.
3. Sāma, which are verses in metre for singing at ceremonies.

The Atharva veda is the fourth Veda. Its status is ambiguous due to its use in sorcery and healing. Priests observe the procedures and uses Atharvaveda mantras to 'heal'. Its recitation is believed to produce long life, cure diseases or ruin enemies

Each of these is further sub-divided into types of text included within them:

• Aranyakas - rituals, observances
• Brahmanas - commentaries (explanations) on said rituals
• Samhithas - benedictions, prayers, mantras
• Upanishads – philosophical narratives and dialogues at the end.

Following is the chart depicting the structure of Hindu Scriptures:

Sanskrit literature can be classified under six orthodox heads and four secular heads. The six scriptures are: (i) Srutis, (ii) Smritis, (iii) Itihasas, (iv) Puranas, (v) Agamas and (vi) Darsanas. The four secular writings are: (i) Subhashitas, (ii) Kavyas, (iii) Natakas and (iv) Alankaras. 

The six orthodox sections form the authoritative scriptures of the Hindus. The four secular sections embody the latter developments in classical Sanskrit literature. 

The Srutis are called the Vedas, or the Amnaya. These are direct intuitional revelations.The Veda is the source of the other five sets of scriptures, why, even of the secular and the materialistic. The Vedas are what are heard (Sruti). The Rishi did not write. He did not create it out of his mind. He was the seer of thought which existed already. He was only the spiritual discoverer of the thought. He is not the inventor of the Vedas. 

The Vedas are the source of integral wisdom, science, tradition and culture of a remarkable civilisation. 

Hear the following video to understand a little more on Vedas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP44lo-ST1I

Let us briefly see what these Vedas teach us:

Rig veda

The Rigveda Samhita is a collection of 1,028 Vedic Sanskrit hymns and 10,600 verses in all, organised into ten books (mandalas). The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities. The books were composed by poets from different priestly groups over a period of several centuries.

There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities between the Rigveda and the early Iranian Avesta. The Avesta are a collection of the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism.

Yajur veda

The Yajurveda Samhita consists of archaic prose mantras and some verses borrowed and adapted from the Rigveda. Its purpose was practical; in that, each mantra must accompany an action in sacrifice but unlike the Samaveda, it was compiled to apply to all sacrificial rites, not merely the Somayajna. There are two major groups of shakha (recensions) of this Veda, known as the "Black" (Krishna) and "White" (Shukla) Yajurveda. The White Yajurveda separates the Samhita from its Brahmana (the Shatapatha Brahmana) and the Black Yajurveda intersperses the Samhita with Brahmana commentary. Of the Black Yajurveda, four major recensions survive (Maitrayani, Katha, Kapisthala, Taittiriya).

Sama veda

The Samaveda Samhita (from sāman, the term for a melody applied to metrical hymn or song of praise) consists of 1549 stanzas, taken almost entirely (except for 78 stanzas) from the Rigveda. Like the Rigvedic stanzas in the Yajurveda, the Samans have been changed and adapted for use in singing. Some of the Rigvedic verses are repeated more than once. Including repetitions, there are a total of 1875 verses numbered in the Samaveda recension as translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith (1826-1906), scholar of Indology at Queens College. Two major recensions remain today, the Kauthuma/Ranayaniya and the Jaiminiya. Its purpose is liturgical and it provides the udgātṛ with a repertoire of songs to accompany the sacrifice.

Atharva veda

The Artharvaveda Samhita is a text belonging to the period of the Atharvan and Angirasa poets. It consists of 760 hymns of which 160 are repetitions from the Rigveda. The majority of the verses in the Artharvaveda are metrical with a small section in prose. It was compiled around 900 BCE. The Atharvanaveda is preserved in two recensions, the Paippalāda and Śaunaka. According to Apte, it had nine schools (shakhas). The Paippalada text, which exists in a Kashmir and an Orissa version, is longer than the Saunaka recension; it is only partially printed in its two versions and remains largely untranslated.

Unlike the other three Vedas, the Atharvaveda has less material connected with the rituals of sacrifice. Its first part consists of spells and incantations concerned with protection against demons and disaster, spells for the healing of diseases, and spells for a long life and for various desires or aims in life. The second part of the text contains speculative and philosophical hymns.

The Atharvaveda is a comparatively late addition to the Vedas. This may be because of an extension of the sacrificial rite which involved the inclusion of the Brahman overseeing the ritual.

The purpose of my blog on Vedic Science is to educate the public, especially the young minds, on the significance of the Vedas to explain the Unified Field theory. For ease of understanding , I am sharing a video on Vedic science as perceived by the Western world, enumerated by Dr. John Hagelin in the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u3f7_p1i8c

With this brief, we shall now get into further details regarding the four vedas, in the following blogs.