Thursday, January 07, 2010

Hindu Scriptures – The Srutis

By Narayana Bhat

Mr. Bhat is a member of the Hindu Cultural Center of North Alabama, Huntsville, Alabama. Mr. Bhat will be writing for our Hindu Religion column on bi-monthly basis and will choose his topic from readers’ questions. Please send your questions to Mr. Bhat at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

The Vedas are the oldest texts of Hindu literature, stemming from an oral tradition believed to be of unknown origin so much so that they are held to be transcendental and immutable gospels (apourusheya prabhu samhitas). They are the eternal truths revealed by God to the great Rishis of India. The word Rishi means a seer, from the root dris, to see. The Rishi is the Mantra-Drashta, a seer of Mantra or thought. The thought was not his (her) own. The Rishis saw the truths or heard them. Therefore, the Vedas are what are heard (Sruti). The Rishi did not write. He (or she) did not create it out of his (or her) mind. He (she) was the seer of thought which existed already. He (she) was only the spiritual discoverer of the thought. He (she) was not the inventor of the Veda.

The Hindus have received their religion through Vedas. They are the glorious pride of the Hindus, may be of the whole world!

There are three Vedas: the Rig Veda, the Sama Veda, and the Yajur Veda, which constitute “threefold knowledge” (trayi vidya), while the Atharva Veda, added during the Vedic period is considered as the fourth branch of the Vedas. The Yajur-Veda is again divided into two parts: Sukla Yajur-Veda and Krishna Yajur-Veda. The Krishna or the Tattiriya is the older book and the Sukla or Vajasaneya is a later revelation to Sage Yajnavalkya from the resplendent Sun-God.

The term Veda comes from the root Vid, to know. The word Veda means knowledge. When it is applied to a scripture, it signifies a book of knowledge. The Vedas comprise Mantra Samhitas (hymns), Brahmanas (rituals and ceremonies), Aranyakas (forest speculations) and the philosophical Upanisads (The essence or the knowledge portion of the Vedas). At present, most of these Vedic texts have disappeared due to the influence of time. We can only find a mere 6% of the entire Vedic knowledge base!

The division of the Vedas into four branches is to suit the four stages in a person’s life.

The Mantra-Samhitas are hymns in praise of the Vedic God for attaining material prosperity here and happiness hereafter. They are metrical poems comprising prayers, hymns and incantations addressed to various deities, both subjective and objective. The Mantra portion of the Vedas is useful for the Brahmacharins (celibate; one who belongs to the first of the four Asramas or orders of life; one who lives in purity and studies the Veda; the first 25 years of life).

The Brahmana portions guide people to perform sacrificial rites. They are prose explanations of the method of using the Mantras in the Yajna or the sacrifice. The Brahmana portion is suitable for the householder (Grihastha; one who belongs to the second of the four Asramas or orders of life; from 25 to 50 years of age).

The Aranyakas are the forest books, the mystical sylvan texts which give philosophical interpretations of the Rituals. The Aranyakas are intended for the Vanaprasthas or hermits who prepare themselves for taking Sannyasa (Vanaprastha = one who leads the third stage of life; from 50 to 75 years of age).

The Upanishads are the most important portion of the Vedas. The Upanishads contain the essence or the knowledge portion of the Vedas. The philosophy of the Upanishads is sublime, profound, lofty a soul-stirring. The Upanishads speak of the identity of the individual soul and the Supreme Soul. They reveal the most subtle and deep spiritual truths. The Upanishads are useful for the Sannyasins (Sannyasi or Sannyasin = a monk; one who has embraced the life of complete renunciation; one belonging to the fourth or the highest stage of life; from 75 to 100 years of age).

Rigveda

The word Rik from which Rig-Veda is derived means ‘praise’. The Rigveda consists of 1,017 hymns addressed to various gods, grouped in 10 mandalas and each hymn being called a Sukta. The poems themselves are of different authorship and date from widely different periods. The actual date of these ancient scriptures is a nebulous topic. The hymns are composed in a variety of metres - from those consisting of 24 syllables to those consisting of 104 syllables. It is the belief of many that these texts were and are the oldest in the world. They express philosophies, realities and truths about life. The texts themselves show that the collection is the result of the work of generations of poets, extending over many centuries. Originally there were 21 Sakhas or recensions for this Veda but only six are prevalent now. They are Sakala, Bashkala, Ashwalayana, Sankayana, Mandukayana and Aiterey.

Yajurveda

The Yajurveda, as the name implies, is purely devoted to the use in rites and rituals. It has two branches, the Krishna Yajurveda (Black) and Shukla Yajurveda (White). There are 101 recensions for the Krishna Yajurveda and 17 for Shukla Yajurveda. There are a few extant recensions of the former: Taittiriya, Kathaka, Maitrayani and Kapishthala Sakhas.

In Shukla Yajurveda, there are two recensions called Madhyandina and Kanva Sakhas. The main difference between Krishna and Shukla is that in the former, explanatory portions are included whereas the latter consists only of the Mantras. This Veda contains some prose passages also.

Samaveda

The Sama-Veda (“Veda of chants”) consists of 1,549 stanzas, taken entirely (except for 75) from the Rig-Veda. Its purpose was purely practical, to serve as a text-book for the udgatar or priest who attended the Soma sacrifice. The arrangement of the verses is determined solely by their relation to the rites attending this function. The hymns were to be sung according to certain fixed melodies; hence the name of the collection. Though only two recensions are known, the number of schools for the Veda is known to have been very large.

The Sama Veda is ritualistic in content and highly poetic in form. Only a small portion is original, the bulk being selected from the Rig Veda, grouped together for ritualistic purpose, being meant to be sung in certain tunes at the time of sacrifices and rituals. It consists of two sections – Purvaarchika and Uttaraarchika. Two recensions of this Veda, the Gautama and Jaimineeya, are prominent.

Atharva Veda

The Atharva Veda (“Veda of the atharvans or fire priests”) is not strictly considered as a Veda by some. This Veda differs widely from the other Vedas in that it is not essentially religious in character and not connected with the ritual of the Soma sacrifice. It explains for the most part rituals connected with Shantika, Paushtika and Abhicharaka Vidyas i.e., for curing of diseases, acquiring wealth etc.; in other words, for specific purposes in material life. There are also some exquisite philosophical and poetic passages. This Veda consists of about 6000 verses constituting 731 hymns grouped into 20 books. Most of the hymns are common to the other three Vedas.

The Upa-Vedas

There are four Upa-Vedas or subsidiary Vedas. Each of them forms an appendage to one each of the four Vedas in the respective order.

1. The Ayurveda (science of life and health)
2. The Dhanurveda (science of war)
3. The Gandharva Veda (science of music)
4. The Arthasastra (science of polity)

Ayurveda, as the name suggests, is the science of life and health, including medicine. Although the Vedas as such have little to do with medicine, the science finds a place in the community of the Vedas for the reason that a healthy body is necessary for functioning in a healthy society.

Treatises on the above subject have been composed by Brahma, the Ashvini Devatas, Dhanvantari, Indra, Rishis Bharadwaja, Atri, Agnivesha and others.

Subsequently Charaka collected this knowledge in a book of his, known as Charaka Samhita. Later, Susruta followed him. Still later Vagbhata composed a work on the subject. Besides medicine, surgery and even injections appear to have been known to them.

The authorship of Dhanur Veda or the science of archery is attributed to Sage Viswamitra. This work, comprehending earlier works of Brahma and others, consists of four chapters, dealing with Diksha, Sangraha, Siddhanta, and Prayoga. Both the offensive and defensive modes are treated. Missiles like Chakra, the sword, and propelled forms of weapons, form part of it. Brahmastra, Vaishnavastra, Pashupatastra, Agneyastra are some of the missiles treated in this work. The deities to be invoked, the spells to be uttered, the description of weapons, and mock warfare are all dealt with.

Gandharva Veda deals with the science of music and dance. It is said to have been composed by Sage Bharata comprehending earlier works by Nandikeshwara, Narada and Hanuman. Vocal and instrumental music and dances constitute this science. The object of this science appears to be spiritual i.e., to obtain concentration of mind in the worship of God.

The last of the Upa-Vedas is Arthasastra dealing with the acquisition of material things like wealth by righteous means. Under this head, Nitisastra, Shilpasastra, the sixty-four Kalas and also other physical and metaphysical subjects are included.

The Vedangas

There are six Angas or explanatory limbs, to the Vedas:
1. The Siksha of Maharshi Panini (Phonetics)
2. Vyakarana of Maharshi Panini (Sanskrit Grammar)
3. The Chhandas of Pingalacharya (Prosody metre)
4. The Nirukta of Yaska (Philosophy or etymology)
5. The Jyotisha of Garga (Astronomy and astrology)
6. The Kalpas (Srauta, Grihya, Dharma and Sulba) belonging to the authorship of various Rishis.

While a self study of the Vedas is strongly discouraged in the scriptures for one is advised to receive the Vedic knowledge through an experienced teacher, an extensive mastery over the Vedangas is a pre-requisite.

Rigveda is in the form of poetry, Yajurveda in prose and when music is added to the two, they become the Samaveda. If Vedas are considered the full grown trees, the seed (beeja mantra) from which they originated is the cosmic sound ‘Aum’ consisting of 8 letters only 4 of which are heard. Hence the first letter of Rigveda starts with ‘a’ and Samaveda ends with the letter ‘m’. While ‘a’ signifies Krishna, ‘u’ signifies Rama, ‘m’ signifies Narasimha and the fourth letter ‘nada’ (the sound that follows ‘m’) signifies Varaha.

Vedas are considered universal and immutable truths heard directly from the Brahman contain no time dependent knowledge and hence are rightly called the Prabhu Smahitas.

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