ESSENCE OF VEDAS

Vedas; the first book of India contains the highest knowledge. This knowledge was attained by some of the greatest human beings that walked on the Earth. The rishis or seers received this when they meditated, underwent tapasya.

Divine manifestation

The Vedas are intuitional revelations and are held to be ‘Apauruseya’ or entirely superhuman. It is explained in the scriptures – after the creation of the universal element Brahma was born. Brahma was the first living entity in the universe and helped engineer different form of humans, vegetations, insects, planetary system etc. Brahma found himself all alone in the universe and questions like ‘what is this material world’ and ‘who he was’ bothered him. So Brahma meditated to the One Supreme Lord who directly manifests the material ingredients, and the Supreme Lord became satisfied with him and from Brahma’s heart awakened all transcendental knowledge and creative power. At first all the Vedas were included into one mantra –pranava; AUM or OM. And from this AUM or OM, Brahma evolved the alphabet, comprising Antahsthas; semi vowels, Usmas; aspirants, Swaras; vowels, Sparsas; sibilants and the short, long and prolated measures of sound. From this knowledge Brahma manifested the four Vedas. Brahma, in turn taught this knowledge to other great sages who became manifest, including Narada Muni. Then these great sages taught this great knowledge to others. This is where the oral tradition began and how Vedas was carefully spoken from one person to another for thousands of years.

For the betterment of man

Then in the twenty eight Dvapara Yuga, in the age of Vaivasvata Manu, the leaders of the universe; along with Brahma, requested the Supreme Lord to save the principles of religion. That Supreme Lord, exhibiting a divine spark of a portion of His plenary portion, then appeared in the womb of Satyavati wife of Sage Parashara. As the son of Sage Parashara, Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa was born. It was Krishna Dvaipayana, an incarnation of the Supreme Lord who divided the one Veda; which He had arranged in former age, into four distinct Veda books, known as Rig Veda, Atharva Veda, Yajur Veda and Sama Veda. The first Veda; the original one consisted of 100,000 stanzas, had ten kinds of sacrificial rituals. It is written in the sacred books that Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa could see that in future men would have very short life, would be quarrelsome, impatient and easily angered, and that their memory would be inefficient, thus he felt the need to divide the one original Veda into four Vedas. Dividing it into four parts, Vyasa instituted the sacrificial rite that is administered by four kinds of priest, in which, Adhvaryu priest recite the prayers, Hotri priests repeat the hymns, Udgatri priests chant other hymns and the Brahmana priests pronounce the Atharva. Thus Vyasa collected the hymns called Richas he compiled the Rig Veda, with the prayers and directions termed the Yajushas he formed the Yajur Veda, with those called Sama, he formed Sama Veda, and, with the Atharva he composed the rules of all the ceremonies suited to kings and the function of the Brahmanas to practice the Atharva Veda. Once the original Veda was divided and compiled into four Vedas, Vyasa called four of his disciples instructing each one of the Veda: to the first, Paila Rishi, he taught Rig Veda, called it Bahvricha, to the second, Vaishampayana Rishi, he taught Yajur Veda, called Nigada, to the third, Jaimini Rishi, he taught Sama Veda, and, to the fourth, Sumantu Rishi, he taught Atharva Veda. Thus these scholars in turn rendered their entrusted Vedas unto their many disciples, grand disciples and great grand disciples – resulting in respective the branches of Vedas Samhita; collection – Rig Veda Samhita, Yajur Veda Samhita, Sama Veda Samhita and Atharva Veda Samhita. Each of these Samhitas was followed gradually by explanations and dissertations in prose and in verse for elucidating the meaning, allusion, legends etc of the hymns and their application – called Brahmanas. And, the concluding portion of these are discussions and speculations of a philosophical and spiritual import based certainly on the ideas and texts found in hymns – called Aranyakas and Upanishads.   

Rig Veda

The Rig Veda consists of metrical hymns called sukta, which are associated with the traditionally assigned the devatas and the rishis. In some of the hymns, there may be different devatas and different rishis for different verses; mantras. Paila Rishi, the disciple of Vyasa, divided his Samhitas into two parts and taught them to Indrapramiti and Bashkala. Bashkala divided his collection into four more parts and spoke them to his disciples Badhya, Yajnavalkya, Parashar and Agnimitra. Indrapramiti taught his collection to his son, Mandukeya, whose disciple Devamritra took the division to Surbhari. Then Shakalya, son of Mandukeya, divided his collection into five and gave one subdivision each to Vatsya, Mudgala, Shaliya, Gokhalya and Shishira. Sage Jatukarnye divided his Samhita into three parts and also added a Vedic glossary, which became the fourth part. Jatukarnye taught one of these parts each to his disciples: Balaka, Paila, Jabala and Viraja. The son of Bashkala, Bashkali, brought together three collections of mantras from all the three branches of Rig Veda, called the Valakhilya Samhita, and gave it to his disciples Valayani, Bhajya and Kashara. In this way, various Samhitas of the Rig Veda were maintained through the succession of disciples of these seer or rishis. In Rig Veda, the number of hymns is 1,028 containing in all 10,589 verses; although there is some difference of opinion about the exact number of verses, they have been arranged in two classifications: one divides them amongst eight Khanda, portion or more popularly called astakas, each of which is again divided into eight adhyagas. The other classification – classifies each hymns under ten mandals; book or circles, subdivided into 85 anuvakas, sub section. There is a further sub divided of hymns into vargas; in total 2424 or paragraphs of about five stanzas each, and this sub divides into vargas.          

Yajur Veda

Vaishampayana; the disciple of Vyasa, compiled 27 branches of Yajur Veda and in turn taught to many disciples, known as Charvakas, for following the strict vows to free their guru from the sin of killing a brahmin. However, Yajnavalkya; one of the disciples, made a demeaning comment about the other disciples, boasting that he would perform a powerful penance. Vaishampayana became angry told him to leave, but before that return everything he had learned. Yajnavalkya spit out the mantras of the Yajur Veda and went away. The other disciples became jealous and are said to have taken form like partridges, and picked them up. That is why this division became known as Taittiriya Samhita, the hymns collected by partridges. Yajnavalkya performed intense worship to Sun god and he pleased by the worship gave Yajnavalkya the ‘Ayatayama’ ‘unstudied mantras’ that had been previously unknown to human society. And from these Yajnavalkya complied fifteen new branches; known as Vajasaneyi Samhita, because they were produced from the hair of the horse; Sun god appeared and took the form of a horse. Then Sage Kanva and other disciples of Yajnavalkya added fifteen additional branches; this is also known as White Yajur Veda. This Veda contains sentence in prose and concern mainly with the sacrifice and intended to be used by Adhvarya priest at the ceremonies of some offering and other scarifies. There are two principal divisions of Yajur Veda: the Sukla; White and the Krsna; Black. Though the subject matter of these two Samhitas is principally same, but their collection and arrangement are different. In the Krsna Yajur Veda the Samhita and the Brahmana portion have been blended together, while in the Sukla Yajur Veda the Samhita and the Brahmana are kept separate; like in the case of Rig Veda.        

Sama Veda

Jaimini Rishi, disciple of Vyasa, spoke parts of Sama Veda to his son Sumantu and to Sutvan, Sumantu’s son. Sukarma divided Sama Veda into1000 Samhitas. Then Sukarma’s disciples: Hiranyanabha, Paushyanji and Avantya worked on Sama Veda. The five hundred disciples of Paushyanji and Avantya became known as the Northern Singers of the Sama Veda. Laugakshi, Mangali, Kulya, Kushida and Kukshi received one hundred Samhitas each. The disciple of Hiranyanabha, Krita, spoke 24 Samhitas. The remaining Samhitas were given to Sage Avantya. ’Saman’ literary means ‘tune’ or ‘melody’ a mode of singing which is practiced on the particular group of words, the Sama Veda is therefore also called the Vedas of tunes. There are 1875 mantras in Sama Veda of which 261 are repetitions, so the number of mantras in the Sama Veda is 1549, which is divided into two books called arcikas or collection of rks and ganas. 

Atharva Veda

Sumantu Rishi, disciple of Vyasa, taught Atharva Veda to Pathya and Vedadarsha. Pathya had – Kumuda, Shunaka and Jajali as disciples, and, Shauklayani, Brahmabali, Modosha and Pippalayani were Vedadarsha’s pupils. Shunaka’s disciples, Babhru and Saindhavayana, studied the two divisions of Shunaka’s Artharva Veda from which sprang the Saindhava and Munjakeshar schools. Other prominent authorities of the Atharva Veda included Nakshatrakalpa, Shantikalpa, Kashyapa, Agnirasa etc. About 6000 mantras of the Atharva Veda have been divided into 20 kandas, 38 prapathakas, 90 anuvakas and 730 suktas. There are believed to be nine sakhas of the Atharva Veda, but at present only two sakhas, the Saunaka and Paippalada are found, the Paippalada sakha is followed only in Kashmir.

Women

The divine truth of Rig Veda is revealed to women Sages as the hymn, 10.125, tenth mandal, one hundred twenty five sukta or hymn, is attributed to woman Sage Vak Ambrini. There are more thirty women sages in Rig Veda with specific hymn associated with them. There are also many hymns in the Rig Veda indicating the high status accorded to women, for example, hymn 10.85, the marriage hymn, states that the daughter-in-law should be treated as a queen, samrajni by all the members of the family. Although a woman’s role is portrayed as a wife, but several aspects of feminine form are also suggested by various names. For instance: a woman as wife is denoted by three words – jaya, jani and patni. Jaya is the woman who gives birth to one’s progeny. Jani is the mother of children. And, patni is the co-partner in the religious duties.   

The core

Vedas are eternal, without a beginning or an end. They treat four classes of subjects: vijnana; philosophy of metaphysics, karma; action, upasana; communion with God and jnana; knowledge. And out the four vijnana is the most important as it is the realization of all things, and the foremost thing to realize is God – highest of all entities. Karma the second subject matter of the Vedas is concerned with activities, as acquisition of learning and knowledge will remain incomplete if there were no action. And, this action is sub divided into two: to attain moksha; salvation and to achieve success in the affairs of the world. The third subject matter of the Vedas is upasana which lay stress on the worship of the God; Supreme Lord. Jnana the fourth subject matter of the Vedas lay stress that Vedas are the true books of all the knowledge. In simpler words it can be said that – Rig Veda deals with vijnana, the Yajur Veda with religious activities, the Sama Veda with worship and the Atharva Veda with all types of specific science.     

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