A Veda is a collection of poems or hymns composed in archaic Sanskrit by Indo-European-speaking peoples who lived in northwest India during the 2nd millennium BCE. The hymns formed a liturgical body that in part grew up around the soma ritual and sacrifice and were recited or chanted during rituals. What are the four Vedas?
What are some Hindu hymns?
Vedic Hymns. Aditya Hridayam. Agni Suktam. Bhagya Suktham. Bhoo Suktam. Chamakam. Devi Suktam [Vaak Sutam] Durga Suktam. Laghu Nyasa.
Are Vedic hymns created by sages?
In the Vedic hymns themselves it is mentioned that they were the creation of sages. The Vedas are four: Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. Together they form the Chatur Veda. The main Veda is the Rigveda, and all agree with each other in form, language and content, except the Atharvaveda.
When were the first hymns written in Sanskrit?
The separation of proto-Indo-Iranian language into Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit is estimated, on linguistic grounds, to have occurred around or before 1800 BCE. The date of composition of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda is vague at best, generally estimated to between 2000 and 1500 BCE.
What is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text?
The Rigveda is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text. Its early layers are one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. The sounds and texts of the Rigveda have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE.
What is the meaning of Vedic hymns?
Vedic chant, religious chant of India, the expression of hymns from the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of Hinduism. The practice dates back at least 3,000 years and is probably the world's oldest continuous vocal tradition. The earliest collection, or Saṃhitā, of Vedic texts is the Rigveda, containing about 1,000 hymns.
What is a Vedic hymn called?
The main collections of Vedic hymns are called Samhita.
What is Veda Sanskrit?
Veda, (Sanskrit: “Knowledge”) a collection of poems or hymns composed in archaic Sanskrit by Indo-European-speaking peoples who lived in northwest India during the 2nd millennium bce.
When were the Vedic hymns written?
The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities. The books were composed by poets from different priestly groups over a period of several centuries between c. 1500 and 1200 BC, (the early Vedic period) in the Punjab (Sapta Sindhu) region of the northwest Indian subcontinent.
Who composed hymns in Vedas?
The Rig Veda is a collection of over 1000 sacred hymns of praise composed in Vedic Sanskrit. It is one of the four great canonical texts of Hinduism, known as the Vedas....Gustav Holst's Choral hymns from the Rig Veda.Full title:Gustav Holst: Choral hymns from the Rig Veda for SATB chorus and orchestra, Groups I and IV, op. 26, H.97, H.100.Creator:Gustav Holst5 more rows
Who taught the hymns of the Vedas?
The Vedas formed the earliest segment of Vedic literature and amongst them vedas, Rigveda is the oldest. This is a type of literature which is taught by priests to students and was made to recite and memorize them. There are four vedas.
Who wrote Vedas in Sanskrit?
The Vedas, translated as “knowledge” in Sanskrit, are a collection of hymns presenting key Hindu teachings regarding the Divine. Deemed eternal truths, the Vedas were passed down via an oral tradition for thousands of years before Veda Vyasa is believed to have compiled them in written form.
What is the difference between Vedic Sanskrit and classical Sanskrit?
Vedic Sanskrit differed from classical Sanskrit in that there was more use of the middle voice, fuller use of the tenses, moods, infinitives, inflected participles and genuine prepositions. However, the difference between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit is not as great as between Old English and Modern English.
What are the 4 types of Vedas?
There are four types of Vedas – Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, and Atharvaveda.
Is Sanskrit a Vedic language?
Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE....Vedic Sanskritqnk RigvedicIETFsa-vaidika9 more rows
Who Wrote 4 Vedas?
VyasaAccording to tradition, Vyasa is the compiler of the Vedas, who arranged the four kinds of mantras into four Samhitas (Collections).
Who composed the hymns?
People who composed hymns described themselves as Aryas. They also called their opponents dasas or dasyus.
What are Hindu chants called?
mantra, in Hinduism and Buddhism, a sacred utterance (syllable, word, or verse) that is considered to possess mystical or spiritual efficacy. Various mantras are either spoken aloud or merely sounded internally in one's thoughts, and they are either repeated continuously for some time or just sounded once.
What is a Ghanapati?
The Ghanapatha or the "Bell" mode of chanting is so called because the words are repeated back and forth in a bell shape. The sonority natural to Vedic chanting is enhanced in Ghana. In Jatapatha, the words are braided together, so to speak, and recited back and forth.
What is meant by sukta?
The Sukta is a hymn and is composed of a set of Riks. 'Rik' means - an incantation that contains praises and Veda means knowledge. The knowledge of the Suktas itself is the literal meaning of Rigveda. The Rigveda Richas comprises mainly of the praises of God.
Is hymn a mantra?
Sikhism. In the Sikh religion, a mantar or mantra is a Shabad (Word or hymn) from the Adi Granth to concentrate the mind on God.
What does the Vedanta literature say about sound?
Portions of the Vedantic literature elucidate the use of sound as a spiritual tool. They assert that the entire cosmic creation began with sound: "By His utterance came the universe." ( Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.2.4). The Vedanta -sutras add that ultimate liberation comes from sound as well (anavrittih shabdat).
What are the 4 tones of Vedic chanting?
Vedic chantings use 4 tones – Udatta उदात्त (middle tone), Anudaatta अनुदात्त (lower tone), Svarita स्वरित (higher tone) and Deergha Svarita दीर्घस्वरित (High tone extended). These are usually marked with intuitive svara marks – an underline for lower tone, a small vertical line above the letter for a higher tone and two vertical lines for Deergha Svarita.
What is Krama Patha modified?
Krama-patha modified: the same step-by-step recitation as above, but without euphonic-combinations (or free form of each word); this method to verify accuracy is credited to Vedic sages Babhravya and Galava in the Hindu tradition, and is also mentioned by the ancient Sanskrit grammarian Panini;
What is a Krama Patha?
Krama-patha: a step-by-step recitation where euphonically-combined words are paired successively and sequentially and then recited; for example, a hymn "word1 word2 word3 word4 ...", would be recited as "word1word2 word2word3 word3word4 ..."; this method to verify accuracy is credited to Vedic sages Gargya and Sakalya in the Hindu tradition and mentioned by the ancient Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini (dated to pre-Buddhism period);
How many ways of reciting the Vedas are there?
The various pathas or recitation styles are designed to allow the complete and perfect memorization of the text and its pronunciation, including the Vedic pitch accent. Eleven such ways of reciting the Vedas were designed – Samhita, Pada, Krama, Jata, Maalaa, Sikha, Rekha, Dhwaja, Danda, Rathaa, Ghana, of which Ghana is usually considered ...
What is the purpose of mantras?
Mantras, or sacred sounds, are used to pierce through sensual, mental and intellectual levels of existence (all lower strata of consciousness) for the purpose of purification and spiritual enlightenment. "By sound vibration one becomes liberated" (Vedanta-sutra 4.22).
Why do Shakhas preserve pronunciation?
The shakhas thus have the purpose of preserving knowledge of uttering divine sound originally cognized by the rishis .
How were the Rigveda hymns written?
According to Barbara West, it was probably first written down about the 3rd-century BCE. The manuscripts were made from birch bark or palm leaves, which decompose and therefore were routinely copied over the generations to help preserve the text.
When was the Rigveda Samhita composed?
The philological and linguistic evidence indicates that the bulk of the Rigveda Samhita was composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, most likely between c. 1500 and 1000 BCE, although a wider approximation of c. 1900–1200 BCE has also been given.
How many manuscripts are there in the Rigveda?
Of these thirty manuscripts, nine contain the samhita text, five have the padapatha in addition. Thirteen contain Sayana's commentary. At least five manuscripts (MS. no. 1/A1879-80, 1/A1881-82, 331/1883-84 and 5/Viś I) have preserved the complete text of the Rigveda. MS no. 5/1875-76, written on birch bark in bold Sharada, was only in part used by Max Müller for his edition of the Rigveda with Sayana's commentary.
How many books are in the Rigveda Samhita?
The Rigveda Samhita is the core text, and is a collection of 10 books ( maṇḍala s) with 1,028 hymns ( sūkta s) in about 10,600 verses (called ṛc, eponymous of the name Rigveda ). In the eight books – Books 2 through 9 – that were composed the earliest, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology and praise deities.
Why is the Rigveda so difficult to translate?
The Rigveda is considered particularly difficult to translate, owing its length, poetic nature, the language itself, and the absence of any close contemporary texts for comparison. Staal describes it as the most "obscure, distant and difficult for moderns to understand". As a result, he says, it "is often misinterpreted" – with many early translations containing straightforward errors – "or worse: used as a peg on which to hang an idea or a theory." Another issue is technical terms such as mandala, conventionally translated "book", but more literally rendered "cycle". According to Slocum, the fact that many translations are influenced by early commentaries such as the Brāhmaṇas, which often decided to attribute elaborate ritual significance to ordinary words, is partly responsible for the perception of the Rigveda as "deliberately obscure".
When was the Rigveda codified?
According to Michael Witzel, the codification of the Rigveda took place at the end of the Rigvedic period between ca. 1200 and 1000 BCE, in the early Kuru kingdom. Asko Parpola argues that the Rigveda was systematized around 1000 BCE, at the time of the Kuru kingdom.
What is the rishi in the rigveda?
Tradition associates a rishi (the composer) with each ṛc (verse) of the Rigveda. Most sūktas are attributed to single composers; for each of them the Rigveda includes a lineage-specific āprī hymn (a special sūkta of rigidly formulaic structure, used for rituals). In all, 10 families of rishis account for more than 95 per cent of the ṛcs
What is the oldest form of Sanskrit?
By Ancient Sanskrit we mean the oldest known form of Sanskrit. The simple name 'Sanskrit' generally refers to Classical Sanskrit, which is a later, fixed form that follows rules laid down by a grammarian around 400 BC.
What is Whitney's Sanskrit grammar?
In addition to the works by Macdonell, Whitney's nineteenth-century Sanskrit Grammar, which includes the early language, is useful in regularly clarifying what may seem unduly complex. His supplementary volume, The Roots, Verb-forms and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language, arranges nominal forms under the verbal roots to which they belong, and is a guide to the regularly transparent word formation of Sanskrit (see section 49 in Lesson 10).
Why is the Rigveda open to imaginative exegesis?
The Rigveda remains open to imaginative exegesis because Indologists continue to believe that its poems are deliberately obscure. "As the Brāhmaṇas tell us so often, 'the gods love the obscure'... and in investigating Vedic matters, we must learn to cultivate at least that divine taste" (Jamison The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun. Myth and Ritual in Ancient India, 1991, p. 41). But the Brāhmaṇas came into existence because the meaning of the poems had become lost. The ancient commentators didn't understand the Rigveda, and they were trying to work out what the poems were about. The American linguist William Dwight Whitney, writing over a century ago, had little time for "their misapprehensions and deliberate perversions of their text, their ready invention of tasteless and absurd legends to explain the allusions, real or fancied, which it contains, their often atrocious etymologies" (Oriental and Linguistic Studies, 1873, p. 110), but to be fair to the authors of the Brāhmaṇas, they lacked modern resources: a written text and a concordance, for example. Without the ability to compare contexts decipherment is extremely difficult, and "ready invention" is a tempting alternative. Indology today, which has these resources, nonetheless adheres to the ancient methods of investigation. In her paper quoted at the beginning of this introduction, Stephanie Jamison propounds the thesis that "many of the most obscure images and turns of phrase in the Rig Veda make sense as poetic realisations of specific ritual activities, and whole hymns and hymn complexes can poetically encode the sequences and procedures of a particular ritual," citing as an example "Joel Brereton's recent brilliant explanation of the fiendishly opaque mythology of the divine figures, the R̥bhus, as reflecting in remarkable detail the Third Pressing of the Soma Sacrifice" (p. 7). This is the approach that first buried the Rigveda from view in ancient times, and in continuing to apply it modern Indology is simply throwing earth onto the mound.
What is the significance of the Upanishads?
2.1. The continuing influence of 'the Veda'.
What does the word "sandhi" mean in Sanskrit?
The word sandhi is used to describe the way in which sounds change as a result of adjacent sounds, both within words and across word boundaries, and it is a natural phenomenon in speech. Consider the English nasal sounds described in the previous section, for example. Because the extensiveness of its occurrence in Sanskrit is unparalleled in any other language, the Sanskrit name saṃ-dhi 'putting-together' has come to be used to describe this phenomenon in other languages.
What is Arnold's historical Vedic grammar?
Arnold's Historical Vedic Grammar, while not for the beginner, is a rich statistical resource for the historical study of pre-Classical Sanskrit.
What is the earliest poem in the Indo-European language?
The earliest surviving anthology of poems in any of the Indo-European languages is in Ancient Sanskrit. Composed long before Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , it consists of over a thousand songs of considerable merit celebrating the riches of nature, whose forces are frequently deified.
What does the Vedic hymn mean?
These were passed down from generation to generation. Hindu followers believe that the Vedas are Apaurusheya, meaning that they were created by humans but from the supernatural. In Sanskrit, the Vedas mean Svatah Pramana (means of evident knowledge). The epic Mahabharata states that the Supreme Creator Brahma created the Vedas. In the Vedic hymns themselves it is mentioned that they were the creation of sages.
Where did the Vedic hymns originate?
The most modern texts bordering on philosophy originated in and around the Haryana region . The sages composed the hymns and verses, with fervent believers of the Hindu Dharma claiming that God taught the Vedic hymns to the sages who passed them down to later generations through oral recitation.
How many Vedas are there?
The Four Vedas. The Vedas are four: Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. Together they form the Chatur Veda. The main Veda is the Rigveda, and all agree with each other in form, language and content, except the Atharvaveda. Each of the Vedas has four main types of text:
How many mantras are in the Atharvaveda?
The Atharvaveda is a collection of 730 hymns containing 6,000 mantras. This Veda contains three Upanishads. The Atharvaveda belongs to the second millennium BC. The Samhitas in this Veda talk about medical and surgical procedures, with mantras and verses offering treatment for ailments.
What does the Vedas mean in Sanskrit?
In Sanskrit, the Vedas mean Svatah Pramana (means of evident knowledge). The epic Mahabharata states that the Supreme Creator Brahma created the Vedas. In the Vedic hymns themselves it is mentioned that they were the creation of sages.
How many hymns are there in the Rigveda?
The Rigveda. This is made up of the oldest texts of the Indian civilization dating back to the Aryans. A collection of Vedic hymns, they are a collection of 1,028 hymns and 10,600 verses. The Rigveda originated around 1600 BC.
How many verses are in the Samaveda?
The first part consists of Saman – four collections of melodies and Arcika – the collection of verse book, a group of hymns. Except for 75 verses, all of them emanate from the Rigveda. The compilation of the Samaveda occurred around 1200 to 1000 BC.
Overview
History
The separation of Proto-Indo-Iranian language into Proto-Iranian and Proto-Indo-Aryan is estimated, on linguistic grounds, to have occurred around or before 1800 BCE. The date of composition of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda is vague at best, generally estimated to roughly 1500 BCE. Both Asko Parpola (1988) and J. P. Mallory (1998) place the locus of the division of Indo-Aryan from Iranian in the Bronze Age culture of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (B…
Phonology
Vedic differs from Classical Sanskrit to an extent comparable to the difference between Homeric Greek and Classical Greek.
The following differences may be observed in the phonology:
• Vedic had a voiceless bilabial fricative ([ɸ], called upadhmānīya ) and a voiceless velar fricative ([x], called jihvāmūlīya )—which used to occur as allophones of vis…
See also
• Vedic Sanskrit grammar
• Vedic metre
• Vedic period
• A Vedic Word Concordance
• Avestan, a closely related sister language.
Glossary
1. ^ 'compiled', 'put together'
2. ^ from vid-, 'to know', cognate with Eng. 'wit'
3. ^ vā́ta-, wind
Bibliography
• Brereton, Joel; Jamison, Stephanie (2020). The Rigveda, A Guide. Oxford. ISBN 9780190633363.
• Burrow, T. (2001). The Sanskrit language (1st Indian ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 9788120817678.
• Clackson, James (2007). Indo-European Linguistics. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-65313-8.
External links
• Unicode signs for Vedic Sanskrit
• index of Vedic texts (TITUS)
• Ancient Sanskrit Online by Karen Thomson and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin