The Vedas: A Great Human Heritage

      The Vedas are considered the earliest literary record of the entire humanity and are certainly considered as most sacred books of Indian thoughts. They are the original scriptures of Indian teachings, and contain spiritual knowledge encompassing all aspects of human life. The Vedas are the fundamental part of Vedic literature. Philosophical maxims contained in Vedas have stood the test of time and the Vedas are considered the highest religious authority for all sections of Hindus in particular and for mankind in general.

Vedas

      'Veda' means wisdom, knowledge or vision, and it manifests the language of the gods in human speech. The laws of the Vedas regulate the social, legal, domestic and religious customs of the majority of inhabitants in entire Indian subcontinent to the present day. All the obligatory duties of the Hindus at birth, marriage, death, etc. owe their allegiance to the Vedic rituals. They draw forth the thought of successive generation of thinkers, and so contain within it the different strata of thought. All philosophies based out of Indian thoughts, similarly, owe their origin to the Vedas.

      The Vedas are probably the earliest documents of the human mind and is indeed difficult to say when the earliest portions of the Vedas came into existence. The Vedas got composed when there were no scripts and writing was not yet invented. As such there is no proof of the exact period when these were composed. People have different timelines ranging from 1500 BC to 3000 BC where

most expected period indicate to 1500BC or around as the period of beginning of compositions for these great literature for the entire mankind.

      While the Vedas contain Hymns in praise of various Gods, the Brahmanas and Aranyakas contain prose text on sacrificial rites and ceremonies (those rituals and ceremonies had very special position in social cultural space of Vedic community) while the Upanishads are philosophical texts which clearly reveal very high level of abstract thinking by the Rishis of that time. All these four parts combined are called Vedic Literature. For right appreciation of Vedic scriptures, one must understand that nowhere on the earth has humanity developed so much at that point in history. Also whatever is available had been preserved through oral tradition passed on from generation to generation since these were not consigned to writing for a longtime.

      The Vedas are called Sruti literature, which signifies that the truth revealed by the learned seers is not merely representation of their own introspection. Individual introspection surely can be subjective in nature. The sages of the Vedas proclaimed that the knowledge communicated by them through the Hymns of the Vedas is not their own discovery but is the one revealed to them by Supreme power without effort. To understand the significance of Sruti, we can look at these compositions by learned sages as being made while in higher state of inspiration by none other than God. Inspiration so used for composing the Veda Hymns has human contemplation on one side and God's revelation on the other side. The compositions so made are to be taken as impersonal truth which is eternal, Nitya and are verifiable not only by logical reasoning but by self experience as well. The truth so composed has resulted in unique value of these compositions which were as relevant to humanity at the time of their compositions as these are today and are expected to remain equally relevant for all time to come as these touch the basic core of humanity without any restriction of time and space.

      The Vedas are not a single literary work like Gita or collections of smaller books written at the same time like Tripitaka of Buddhism and Bible for Christians but a whole literature, which got composed over centuries by many contributors and was handed down from generations to generations through oral forms. This literature is not only earlier than that of Greece and Israel but also reveal a high level of civilization among those who composed it as an expression of their gratitude for the powers that they worshipped. The Hymns composed are called Mantras, which means 'thinking', or 'formulae' by which the contemplation of the particular God is attempted.

      It might be remembered that Vedic age of Indian Civilization formation period is considered as heroic age of our culture. It was here that most basic features of traditional Indian culture took initial shape. It was precisely in this period that many fundamental concepts identified with Hinduism today, saw their fundamental emergence.

      A Guru always taught the Vedas to a disciple. Pronunciation (sound made while speaking the words), intonation, rhythm and metre—all of which were very important for hymns. We must salute to those Brahmins who have preserved these voluminous mantras over centuries and over generations without allowing any variation in these features. In all we have four Vedas namely, Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samveda and Atharvaveda.