Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Vedas

Like all other religions Hinduism, too, has its authorized sacred text, called the Vedas. They are ancient sacred texts of hindus that were revealed by god to the enlightened rishis of India. For hindus there is no higher scriptual authority than the vedas. All other hindu texts derive their source and authority from the vedas. The Vedas were orally transmitted from generation to generation in the form of mantras. The four main vedas are Rig, Yajur, Sama and atharva. The Rig Veda is the oldest and contains 10,522 mantras offering prayers to God and devas. The Yajur veda has 2,000 mantras that deal with rituals of worship. The Sama Veda has 2000 mantras that are sung in Yagnas. The Athara Veda contains 6,500 mantras that deal with medicine, victory, frienship, progeny,etc. The Vedas, also known as the shruti shastras, consist of samhitas (mantras), Brahmana texts (application of mantras in Samhitas for various yagnas or religious offerings, Aranyakas or forest texts (deals with contemplation) and the Upanishads (sublime texts that contain the essence of Indian Philosophy, dealing with the nature and relation of god, jiva, moksha..etc). The Orthodox hindu schools of thought and sampradays are called astik becausee their beliefs and practices are based on vedas, brahmanas, aranyakas and upanishads. Heny David Thoreau reflects upon the vedas, "What extracts from the vedas I have read fall on me like a radiant light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes a loftier course through a purer stratum'. Hari Om.

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