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The Vedas

VEDA,  (Skt. veda, knowledge, from vid, to know; connected with Gk. foida, I know, fidein, Lat. videre, OChurch Slav. vědě, I know, OHG. wizzan, Ger. wissen, Goth., AS. witan, Eng. wit, to know). The collective designation of the ancient sacred literature of India, or of individual books belonging to that literature. At an unknown date, conventionally averaged up as about 1500 B.C., Aryan tribes, according to generally accepted theories, began to migrate from the Iranian highlands on the north of the Hindu Kush into the northwest of India, the plains of the river lndus and its tributaries. The non-Aryan aborigines were easily conquered, but the conquest was followed by gradual amalgamation of the fairer-hued conquerors with the dark aborigines. The Aryans brought with them a primitive pastoral civilization, a language which was a mere dialectic variety of the speech spoken in Iran, and religious beliefs which show close connection with the ancient Persian religion of the Avesta (q.v.), and, to a lesser and more problematic extent, with the beliefs of other Indo-Germanic peoples, such as the Greeks (see GREEK RELIGION) and the Teutons. (See SCANDINAVIAN AND TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY.) From the very start we are confronted by a poetical literature, primitive on the whole, yet lacking neither in refinement of thought, nor in skill in the handling of language and metre. The literature is throughout religious, and includes prayers and sacrificial formulas, offered to the gods by the priests; charms for witchcraft and medicine, manipulated by magicians and medicine men; expositions of the sacrifice; theological comments and legends; higher speculations, philosophic and theosophic, growing up in connection with the simpler beliefs; and finally rules for conduct in everyday life at home and abroad. This is the Veda as a whole.

At the base of this entire literature of more than 100 books lie four varieties of metrical compositions known as the four Vedas in the narrower sense. These are the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. These four names come from a somewhat later time, and do not coincide exactly with the earlier names, nor do they correspond with the contents of the texts themselves. …The collection known as the Rig-Veda contains not only "stanzas of praise," but also "blessings and curses,"' as well as most of the stanzas which form the basis of the sāmāni. The Atharva-Veda, likewise, contains rcah and yajūmsi, as well as "blessings and curses." The Yajur-Veda also contains many "blessings and curses," in addition to its main topic. The Sama-Veda is merely a collection of a certain kind of "stanzas of praise" which occur for the most part in the Rig-Veda, but are here set to music by means of definite musical notations.

The Rig-Veda is on the whole the most important as well as the oldest of the four collections. A little more than 1000 hymns, equaling in bulk the surviving poems of Homer, are arranged in 10 books called mandala, or circles. Six of them (ii-vii), the so-called family books, form the nucleus of the collection. Each of these is the work of a different seer and his descendants, as can be seen from the hymns themselves. The eighth book and the first 50 hymns of the first book, belonging to the family of Kanva, are arranged strophically in groups of two or three stanzas. The most marked peculiarity of these hymns is that they form the bulk of the stanzas sung with melodies in the Sama-Veda. The hymns of the ninth book are addressed directly to Soma (q.v.). The remainder of the first book and the entire tenth book are more miscellaneous in character and problematic as to arrangement. On the whole they are of later origin, for themes foreign to the narrower purpose of the rcah, such as theosophic hymns and witchcraft hymns, appear in considerable number. The poems of the latter class frequently reappear, usually with variations, in the Atharva-Veda.

Generally speaking the Rig-Veda is a collection of priestly hymns addressed to the gods of the Vedic pantheon during sacrifice. This sacrifice consisted of oblations of intoxicating sōma (q.v.) and melted butter or ghee (q.v.) which was poured into the fire. The ritual of the Veda is advanced in character, by no means so simple as was once supposed, though not as elaborate as that of the Yajur-Veda and the Brahmanas. (See below.) The chief interest of the Rig-Veda lies in the gods themselves and in the myths narrated in the course of their invocation. The mythology represents an earlier, clearer stage of thought than is to be found in any other parallel literature. Above all it is sufficiently primitive to show clearly the process of personification by which natural phenomena developed into gods. (See the subsection Vedic Religion under INDIA; NATURE WORSHIP.) The original nature of the Vedic gods, however, is not always clear; some of them are so obscure in character as to make an analysis of them a difficult and important chapter in Vedic philology. But on the whole the keynote of Rig-Vedic thought is the nature myth.

The Yajur-Veda represents the growth of ritualism or sacerdotalism; its yajūmsi, liturgical stanzas and formulas, are in the main of a later time, and are partly metrical, partly prose. The materials contained in the Rig-Veda are freely adapted, with secondary changes of expression, and without regard to the original order of their composition. The main object is no longer devotion to the gods themselves. The sacrifice has become the centre of thought; its mystic power is conceived to be a thing per se, and every detail has become all-important. A crowd of priests (17 is the largest number) conducts a vast, complicated, and painstaking ceremonial, full of symbolic meaning even in its smallest minutiae. From the moment the priests seat themselves on the sacrificial ground and proceed to mark out the altars (vēdi) on which the sacred fire is built, every act has its stanza or formula, and every utensil is blessed with its own fitting blessing. These formulas are no longer conceived as prayers, but as magic. The words as well as the acts have inherent power. If the priest chants a formula for rain while pouring a certain sacrificial liquid, rain shall and must come. In fact, and in brief, the Yajur-Veda means the deification of the sacrifice in every detail of act and word.

The Sama-Veda is the least clear of all the Vedas. Its stanzas, or rather groups of stanzas, are known as sāmāni, melodies. The sāman stanzas are preserved in three forms. First, in the Rig-Veda, as ordinary poetry, accented in the same way as other Vedic poetry. Secondly, in the āroikas, a kind of libretto forming a special collection of sāmān verses, most of which, though not all, occur also in the Rig-Veda. Here also there is a system of accents, peculiar in its notation, but purely with reference to the unsung sāmans. In the third sāmān version, the gānas, or song books, we find the real sung sāmāns. Here not only the text, but the musical notes, are marked. Still this is not a complete sāman. In the middle of the sung stanzas appear exclamatory syllables, the so-called stōbhas, such as ōm, hāu, hāi, hōyi, or him: and at the end certain concluding words, such as atha, ā, īm, nām, and sāt. The Sama-Veda is devoted chiefly to the worship of Indra, (q.v,). It seems likely, therefore, that it is the civilized version of savage Shamanism (q.v.), an attempt to influence the natural order of things by shouts and exhortations, for the Brahmans as a rule blended their own hieratic practices and conceptions with what they found among the people. The sāman melody and the exclamations interspersed among the words may, therefore, be the substitute for the self-exciting shouts of the Shaman priests of an earlier time.

The oldest name of the Atharva-Veda is, as stated above, atharvāngirasah, a compound formed of the names of two semimythic families of priests, the Atharvans and Angirases. At a very early time the former term was regarded as synonymous with holy charms, or blessings; the latter with witchcraft charms, or curses. In addition to the name Atharva-Veda there are two other names, practically restricted to the ritual texts of this Veda: bhrgvangirasah or "Bhrigus and Angirases," in which the Bhrigus, another ancient family of five priests, take the place of the Angirases; and Brahma-Veda, probably Veda of the Brahma, or holy religion in general. (See BRAHMA.) The Atharva-Veda is a collection of 730 hymns, containing some 6000 stanzas, divided into 20 books. About one-sixth of the mass, including two entire books (xv and xvi), is written in prose, similar in style to that of the Brahmanas (see below), the rest being poetry in the usual Vedic metres. These, however, are handled with great freedom, often betraying either ignorance or disregard of the metrical canons, as they appear in the Rig-Veda. The Atharva-Veda did not attain to perfect canonicity until the period of classical Sanskrit, simply on account of the nature of its contents, which are somewhat apart from the hieratic worship of the gods and the sacerdotalism of the other three Vedas. The contents of the Atharva-Veda are popular rather than hieratic, and superstitious rather than religious. It is a picture of the lower life of ancient India, painted on a very broad canvas. It exhibits the ordinary Hindu not only in the aspect of a devout and virtuous adherent of the gods, and performer of pious practices, but also as the natural, semi-civilized man: rapacious, demon-plagued, and fear-ridden, hateful, lustful, and addicted to sorcery.

The themes of the hymns of the Atharva-Veda may be grouped as follows: charms to cure disease and possession by demons; prayers for long life and health; imprecations against demons, sorcerers, and enemies; charms pertaining to women; charms pertaining to royalty; charms to secure harmony, influence in the village assembly, and the like; charms to secure prosperity in house, field, cattle, business, gambling, etc.; charms in expiation of sin; prayers and imprecations in the interest of Brahmans; and wedding and funeral stanzas. Curiously enough, the Atharva has a large number of cosmogonic and theosophic hymns, being in this respect a more significant precursor to the Upanishads (q.v.) than is the Rig-Veda itself.

The redactions of these four Vedas, called samhitas by the Hindus, have been handed down in various schools, branches, or recensions, which present a given Veda in forms differing not a little from one another. The school differences of the Rig-Veda are of no importance, except as they extend also to the Brahmanas and Sutras. (See below.) There are two Sama-Veda redactions, that of the school of the Kauthumas and the Ranayaniyas; and two of the Atharva-Veda, ascribed to the school of Saunakiyas and the Paippaladas. The Yajur-Veda especially is handed down in recensions that differ from one another very widely. There is first the broad division into White Yajur-Veda and Black Yajur-Veda. The most important difference between these two is that the Black Yajur schools intermingle their stanzas and formulas with the prose exposition of the Brahmana, whereas the White Yajur schools present their Brahmana in separate works. The White Yajur-Veda belongs to the school of the Vajasaneyins and is subdivided into the Madhyandina and Kanva schools. The important schools of the Black Yajur-Veda are the Taittiriyas, Maitrayaniyas, Kathas, and Kapishthalas. Sometimes these schools have definite geographical locations. For example, the Kathas and the Kapishthalas were located, at the time when the Greeks became acquainted with India, in the Punjab and in Kashmir. The Maitrayaniyas, appear at one time to have occupied the region around the lower course of the river Narmada, and the Taittirivas, at least in modern times, are in the south of India.

The poetic stanzas and the ritualistic formulas of the Vedas collectively go by the name of mantra, pious utterance, or hymn. These were followed at later periods by a very different literary type, viz., the theological treatises called brahmānas. (See BRAHMANA.) Aside from the light which these texts throw upon the sacerdotalism of ancient India, they are important because they are written in connected prose, the earliest in the entire domain of Indo-Germanic speech. They are especially important for syntax, representing in this respect the oldest Indian stage even better than the Rig-Veda, owing to the restriction imposed upon the latter by its poetic form. The Brahmanas also were composed in schools or recensions, but the various Brahmana recensions of one and the same Veda differ at times even more widely than the Samhitas of the Mantras. Thus the Rig-Veda has two Brahmanas, the Aitareya and the Kaushitaki or Sankhayana. The Brahmana matter of the Black Yajur-Vedas is given together with the hymns themselves; but the White Yajur-Veda treats its Brahmana matter separately, and with extraordinary fullness, in the famous Satapatha-Brahmāna, the Brahmana of the Hundred Paths, so called because it consists of 100 lectures. Next to the Rig-Veda and Atharva-Veda this work is the most important production in the whole range of Vedic literature. Two Brahmanas belonging to independent schools of the Sama-Veda have been preserved, that of the Tandins, usually designated as the Pancavimgśa-Brāhmana and that of the Talavakaras or Jaiminiyas. To the Atharva-Veda is attached the very late and secondary Gōpatha-Brāhmana, though its contents are in reality foreign to the spirit of the Atharvan hymns.

A later development of the Brahmanas are the Aranyakas, or Forest Treatises. (See BRAHMANA and BRAHMNISM.) Their later character is indicated both by the position they occupy at the end of the Brahmanas and by their theosophical character. The two important Aranyakas are the Aitareya and the Taittiriya, belonging, of course, to the Vedic schools of these names. The chief value of the Aranyakas is that they form in contents and tone a transition to the Upanishads, which are either embedded in them, or, more usually, form their concluding portions. See UPANISHAD.

Both Mantra and Brahmana are regarded as part of revelation (śruti); the rest of Vedic literature as tradition (smrti) derived from holy men of old. This literature has a characteristic style of its own, being written in the form of brief rules, or sūtras. (See SUTRA.) They are, in the main, of three classes, each of which is associated with a particular Vedic school, reaching back, as a rule, to the school distinctions of the Samhitas and Brahmanas. The first class of Sutras are the Srāuta or Kalpa Sūtras, which may be translated Sutras of the Vedic Ritual. They are rule books compiled, with the help of oral priestly tradition, from the Brahmanas. They are brief manuals of the Vedic sacrifices, as distinguished from the more diffusive Brahmanas, whose ritual acts are interrupted by elaborate explanation and illustrative legends. To the Rig-Veda belong two Srauta Sutras corresponding to its Brahmanas, the Asvalayana to the Aitareya Brahmana, and the Sankhayana to the Brahmana of the same name. To the White Yajur-Veda belongs the Srauta Sutra of Katyayana, closely adhering to the Satapatha Brahmana. No less than six Srauta Sutras belong to the Black Yajur-Veda, but only two of them have as yet been published, that of Apastamba, belonging to the school of the Taittiriya, and the Manava, belonging to the school of the Maitrayaniya. The Sama-Veda has two Srautas, that of Latyayana and Drahyayana, belonging respectively to its two schools of Kauthuma and Ranayaniya; and the Atharva-Veda has the late and inferior Vaitana.

Of far greater, indeed of universal, interest is the second class of Sutras, the Grhya Sūtras, or House Books. These are treatises on home life which deal systematically with a well-defined body of facts connected with the everyday existence of the individual and the family. Though composed at a comparatively late Vedic period, they contain practices and prayers of great antiquity, and supplement most effectively the contents of the Atharva-Veda. They also are distributed among the four Vedas and their schools. The Rig-Veda has the Grihya Sutras of Asvalayana and Sankhayana; the White Yajur-Veda that of Paraskara; the Black Yajur-Veda a large number, as those of the schools of Apastamba, Hiranyakesin, and Manava; the Sama-Veda has the Gabhila and the Khadira; to the Atharva-Veda belongs the important Kausika Sutra, which, in addition to the domestic ritual, deals with the magical and medicinal practices specially characteristic of that Veda.

The third. kind of Sutras are the Dharma Sūtras, or Law Sutras, which also deal to some extent with the customs of everyday life, but are engaged for the most part with religious and secular law. These Sutras also are either attached to the body of canonical writings of a certain Vedic school, or are shown by inner criteria to have originated within such a school. The oldest legal Sutras are the Apastamba and Baudhayana, belonging to the Black Yajur schools of the same name, the Gautama belonging to the Sama-Veda, the Vishnu belonging to the Katha school of the Black Yajur-Veda, and the Vasishtha (q.v.) of less certain associations. The earliest metrical law books, written in classical Sanskrit, are also based on lost Sutra collections of definite Vedic schools. The most famous of these, the Mānava Dharma Sāstra, or Law Book of Manu (see MANU), is founded upon the Dharma Sutra of the Manava, or Maitrayaniya school of the Black Yajur-Veda, while the briefer Law Book of Yajnavalkya derives its origin from a school of the White Yajur-Veda. See BRAHMANISM; HINDUISM.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 43-46.