SmartSurat  #  Hinduism

The Vedas

It is the four Vedas -  Rug, Sama, Yajur and Atharva - which give us a picture of Vedic religion but not a totally accurate picture, for when they were eventually committed to written form after a long period of oral tradition and more elaborate developments in religious practices, the composite material which resulted only partially reflected this ancient period of Hinduism. Indeed, the major text, the Rug Veda, as we now know it, must have contained some material which was obsolete even when the Aryans migrated to India as well as some which was adopted after their settlement. It is difficult to assign dates to any part of it though scholars normally indicate as wide a dating as 1500-900 BCE for its collection of hymns. The picture of Aryan/Vedic religion which can be gained from the texts, then, is never wholly clear.        The term Vedic religion needs some clarification: Strictly speaking it refers to the religion outlined in the Vedic scriptures and this would include the whole of the Upanisads. This latter corpus of material, however, is of such a completely different nature to the earlier Vedic material that there is a tendency to treat it separately under the category of Vedanta - the 'end of the Vedas'. This Vedantic material, therefore, will be dealt with in a separate chapter. The religious practices depicted by the four Vedas are termed Aryanism or Vedism. This is really to distinguish this particular period of Hindu tradition from all later traditions which, though informed by Vedism, no longer practise it. The religion of this early Vedic period is also sometimes called Brahmanism (Brahminism) after the Brahmin priestly influence which came to dominate it. This last term, however, is less accurate. since Brahmanism was really a development within Vedic religion and was less evident in the very early period. It was also something which extended well beyond the Vedic period, even to the present day. It is the Rug Veda which dominates the Aryan sacred writings: indeed, the Sama and Yajur Vedas draw much of their material from the Rug. The Atharva Veda is somewhat different. It is more overtly magical in its nature, containing incantations and spells for all sorts of aspects of life such as success in gambling, reluctant mistresses, successful economy and wealth. While it is not devoid of more philosophical aspects it is replete with demons, sorcerors, witches and goblins and possibly contains some features of pre-Harappan animism. While it would be easy to memorize incantations and spells, the hymns of the Rug Veda require genius feats of memory to acquire the ability to recite faultlessly its content of more than a thousand hymns. And yet the priests could do this: with the absence of writing, oral memory excels, and the hymns were handed down in exact form to each generation of priests. Even when writing - the language of Sanskrit - was widespread in India there was a reluctance to commit these sacred texts to the written word.