The Vedas
As the Vedas are considered shruti (divinely revealed knowledge) the literal sounds of the Sanskrit chants are believed to be primordial sounds of creation. [8] Great importance was placed on the actual chanting of the scriptures themselves, the cadence and meter of the verses of each hymn.
This belief is so fundamental that many are of the opinion that a great deal of the true heart or substance of the Vedas is lost when written down, and even more so on translation, to the point where some believe you cannot know the Vedas through these modes of transmission.
(While I do agree that translation is notorious for losing complexity, I do not hold this opinion.)
Table of Contents
- The Origin of the Vedas
- The Rigveda
- The Brahmanas
- Shatapatha Brahmana
The Origin of the Vedas
The Rigveda is accepted as the oldest of the Vedas, believed to have been largely composed during the 2nd millennium BCE. Although the estimates for the age of composition vary, and are very tentative, they are thought to have been largely composed between 1900-1000 BCE.
The Vedas essentially are the Samhitas — the four collections of texts that comprise Vedic scripture — the Rigveda (“Wisdom of the Verses”), the Yajurveda (“Wisdom of the Sacrificial Formulas”), the Samaveda (“Wisdom of the Chants”), and the Atharvaveda (“Wisdom of the Atharvan Priests”).
While the Vedas are the foundation of Hinduism, the most ancient layer of myth and legend that evolved over thousands of years to become Hindu tradition, they were eclipsed by later Hindu doctrines and practices. [9]
The Rigveda
The Rigveda is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts known as the Vedas, which are considered śruti (revealed wisdom, literally “what is heard”). The term ‘Rigveda’ derives from the words for “praise” and “knowledge”. [16] Among the ancient India scriptures, it is considered to be the oldest.
The Rigveda is one of the oldest surviving texts in any Indo-European language, according to linguistic evidence. Yet while the date of the codification of the Rigveda into the exact words, sounds, and phrasing of the hymns by which it would be transmitted orally, with extensive care and precision for centuries, it should be noted that there is a distinction between the date of codification (when its more-or-less “final” form was reached) versus the date of the ideas or events that the hymns refer to.
In this case, I am speaking of very specific elements within the Vedic scriptures at large. In the Rigveda there is one specific myth that we can date definitively back to at minimum 9,700 BCE — and very probably before — because it refers definitively to the Last Ice Age (specifically to mountain glaciers during the last ice age) and the release of the waters when the sun returned to the land.
Vedic texts like the Rigveda are dated by scholars, and I have no quarrel with those dates necessarily because they are based on linguistic and phonological evidence which can give an indication of when a hymn, or text was composed.
You can read a book in English from the 21st century, from the 20th century, from the 18th century, and from the 19th century and even a lay, Native English speaker will notice distinct differences and might be relatively accurate, generally speaking, in assigning each book to its current century because the English is different. Therefore the specific language of the Vedas definitively gives us clear, valuable, and fairly strong evidence to give general dates.
However, that evidence only goes so far, because composition of a hymn is one thing. Yet it cannot tell us if this hymn was composed from a more ancient hymn in archaic Sanskrit language even to the sages of 2000 BCE! We have no way of knowing that.
What is more, is that in certain cases, there is definitive evidence within the Vedas themselves where we know when an event took place which can give us an even more powerful timeframe based directly on scientific dating methods, such as the thousand year timeframe for the End of the Last Ice Age. In this case, Book X clearly mentions the Ice Age, and so that story must absolutely date back until then. Just like the Flood Myth dealing with Manu.
With that being said, now that the difference between composition of the extant version of a hymn, versus earlier version of a myth, tale, legend, parable, story, or account, and content itself is clearly delineating, there is strong evidence for the composition and proliferation of central elements to the Rigveda that we know occurring in the centuries on either side of 1500 BCE. For example, the Mitanni
The Brahmanas
Shatapatha Brahmana
Full Article: Shatapatha Brahmana
The Shatapatha Brahmana is a commentary on the…
Based on a linguistic analysis of the Vedic Sanskrit used in the surviving version of the Shatapatha Brahmana it is dated to between about 700-500 BCE, depending on the scholar. [7] However, there are elements believed to be ‘far older, transmitted orally from unknown antiquity’ [7] which is an important point to remember. Than untold centuries (and even millennia perhaps)
One curious mention in the Shatapatha Brahmana is that when the sun united with Orion at the vernal equinox, this commenced the yearly YajnaVaraha sacrifice. Curiously, the approximate date when Orion and the Sun are close to being united in the sky at the Vernal Equinox (the March Equinox) is around 9000 BCE, as the image at the bottom illustrates.
Within the Shatapatha Brahmana (in addition to other Vedic texts like the Vedas, Samhitas, and Tattiriya Samhita) the astronomy of the Vedic period was at an incredibly high level [7] — on par with Babylonian astronomy and in excess of it in some ways, perhaps. They gave surprisingly accurate values for astromical quantities lke the relative size of planets, the distance of the earth from the sun, the length of the day, the length of the year, using basic measuring devices or the naked eye. [7] Moreover, the Earth was descrived specifically as circular (parimandala). [7]
Shubash Kak also mentions that they provide three separate values for π. [7] Moreover, there is clear evidence that the Vedic peoples at some early date knew the four fundamental mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, division, multiplication).
It seems clear that several avatars and associated Puranic legends of Vishnu either originate (Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, and Narasimha) or were significantly developed (Vamana) in the SB. [7] Notably, all constitue the first five avatars listed in the Dashavatar (the ten principle avatars of Vishnu). [7]
The Puranas
Vishnu Purana
Notes
- Vedic Religion is founded in the Vedas, an extensive body of literature composed in Vedic Sanskrit forming the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature, the most ancient scriptures of Hinduism. [1]
- There are four Vedas — the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, and the Atharvaveda.
- The word veda means “knowledge” or “wisdom” derived from the root vid- which means “to know.”[1]
- The Vedas are śruti — revealed knowledge directly from the gods, the word itself literally translated as “What is heard” — meaning that the people of Ancient India and the Hindus beginning around the start of the Common Era (when Hinduism evolved into being from Vedic Religion) consider that these texts were revealed to ancient sages directly by the gods. Specifically, it is believed that in deep meditation that the knowledge was heard in their minds, to be remembered and transmitted. They consider the Vedas to be apauruseya which means “not of man, superhuman.” [1] Authorless revelations of sacred sounds heard by ancient sages in intense meditation.
- The classification of the vedas as shruti distinguishes them from other religious texts called smṛti (“what is remembered”), a distinction that essentially emphasized the difference between revealed knowledge and an historical record of ancient peoples.
Resources
- Wikipedia Editors. Vedas. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas. Accessed 7 July 2024.