The Vedas

The word Veda comes from the Sanskrit root vid, 'to know', so Veda simply means knowledge. In Hindu tradition the Vedas are the root of all dharma. They are shruti, 'that which is heard', and stand apart from smriti, 'that which is remembered', the large body of later texts such as the epics, the Puranas and the Dharmashastras. Smriti texts are revered, but where they seem to differ from the Vedas, the classical schools treat the Vedas as the final authority.

The Vedas are not one book. Each of the four is a vast library that grew over centuries and was handed down by different schools of reciters called shakhas (branches). Much of what Hindus still chant at a wedding, an upanayana, a havan or a shraddha comes from these texts.

Each Veda is traditionally divided into four layers. The Samhita is the core collection of mantras. The Brahmanas are prose texts that explain the rituals and their meaning. The Aranyakas, the 'forest books', reflect on the inner meaning of ritual. The Upanishads, the last and most philosophical layer, are known as Vedanta, 'the end of the Veda'.

Broadly, the first two layers are called the karma-kanda (the section on ritual action) and the last two the jnana-kanda (the section on knowledge). In practice the boundaries overlap: the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, for example, is itself the closing part of the Shatapatha Brahmana.

According to tradition, the Vedas are apaurusheya, 'not of human origin'. They are eternal; the rishis did not invent them but 'saw' them in deep meditation, which is why a rishi is called a mantra-drashta, a seer of mantras. Each hymn is still recited with its rishi, devata (deity) and chhandas (metre). Tradition also holds that the sage Krishna Dvaipayana arranged the one Veda into four at the end of the Dvapara Yuga, earning the name Veda Vyasa, and entrusted each Veda to a disciple: the Rigveda to Paila, the Yajurveda to Vaishampayana, the Samaveda to Jaimini and the Atharvaveda to Sumantu.

Historians and linguists offer a separate, evidence-based picture. On philological grounds most scholars place the bulk of the Rigveda Samhita between about 1500 and 1000 BCE, composed in the north-west of the subcontinent; wider estimates of c. 1900–1200 BCE have also been proposed. Mandalas 2 to 7, the 'family books' attributed to rishi lineages such as Vishvamitra and Vasishtha, are considered the oldest, while mandalas 1 and 10 are the youngest. The other Samhitas, the Brahmanas and the oldest Upanishads followed over the next several centuries, down to roughly the middle of the first millennium BCE. These dates remain debated, and scholars openly acknowledge the uncertainty.

The Samhitas are hymns of praise and prayer addressed to the devas: Agni, the sacred fire and messenger between humans and gods; Indra, the king of the gods who releases the waters; Varuna, guardian of rta, the cosmic order; Soma; Surya and Savitr; and Ushas, the dawn. Rta, the truth and order that holds the universe together, is the Vedic seed of the later idea of dharma.

Alongside ritual, the Vedas ask the deepest questions. The Nasadiya Sukta (Rigveda 10.129) wonders how creation began and even whether the highest being knows. The Purusha Sukta (10.90) describes the universe as the body of the cosmic Purusha. The famous line 'ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti' (1.164.46) says that the one reality is called by many names, a verse often cited to explain the Hindu view of the many forms of the divine. The Atharvaveda adds prayers for health, a long life, harmony in the family and love for the earth, as in its Bhumi Sukta (book 12).

Three verses from the Rigveda, with the text as given on Sanskrit Wikisource.

For most of their history the Vedas were not read but heard. Students learned them from a teacher syllable by syllable, with the exact pitch accents (udatta, anudatta and svarita). To guard against even one error, reciters developed patha methods in which the same text is chanted in different orders: samhita-patha (continuous), pada-patha (word by word), krama-patha (in overlapping pairs), and complex patterns such as jata and ghana. UNESCO, which recognised the Tradition of Vedic Chanting as Intangible Cultural Heritage, notes that only thirteen of the more than one thousand Vedic recitation branches are believed to have survived.

Today Vedic mantras are part of everyday Hindu life: the Gayatri mantra in morning and evening sandhya, the Purusha Sukta and Rudram in temple worship, Shanti mantras before study, and Vedic verses in the samskaras from naming to marriage to the last rites. Traditional Veda pathashalas still train young students over many years, and families who keep their ancestral shakha alive are honoured as Vedic scholars (vedapathis or ghanapathis).

The Vedas are vast, so begin with selections. For a reliable complete Rigveda in English, the 2014 translation by Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (Oxford University Press) is the current scholarly standard; Ralph T. H. Griffith's older translations of all four Samhitas are in the public domain and easy to find online. Readers of Hindi often turn to the Vedic editions and Hindi commentaries of Pandit Shripad Damodar Satavalekar (Svadhyaya Mandal, Pardi). The Sanskrit text of the Samhitas, with Sayana's commentary for many hymns, is freely available on Sanskrit Wikisource.

A good path for beginners: start with a handful of well-known suktas (Gayatri, Purusha Sukta, Nasadiya Sukta, Shri Sukta from the Rigveda khilas, and the Bhumi Sukta of the Atharvaveda), then move to the principal Upanishads, which distil Vedic philosophy. Wherever possible, also listen to traditional chanting: the Vedas were meant to be heard.