Introduction to the Vedas: the Religious Texts from Ancient India

The Vedas are religious texts from Ancient India that inform the religion of Hinduism. The religion of Hinduism is known by adherents as Sanatan Dharma which means “eternal order” and the Vedas are thought to be the literal words of God which convey that order to humanity. The word ‘Veda’ means knowledge, and it is thought that the texts contain fundamental knowledge about the function and personal response to existence.

They were believed to have always been in existence, and were not revealed by certain people, but apprehended by sages from the Universe itself while in deep meditative states. The Vedas are considered one of, if not the oldest religious texts in the world. They were written down in the midst of the Bronze Age, approximately 1500 BCE, but they existed prior to this in oral tradition; passed down from master to student for generations.

There are four texts which make up the Vedas, the Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and the Atharva Veda, with the Rig Veda being both the oldest, and considered the most important. Each of these can be further divided into different texts; Aranyakas which depicts rituals and observances, Brahmanas which is a commentary on the rituals, Samhita which are benedictions, prayers and mantras and the Upanishads which are philosophical narratives and dialogues. It is the Upanishads that are the best known, the most often read, and the first sections to have been translated into other languages.

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— CHAPTERS —
0:00​ Introduction
0:44 Origin and Development of the Vedas
2:41 Breakdown of the Vedas
3:24 The Rig Veda
4:11 Sama Veda
4:38 Yajur Veda
5:00 Atharva Veda
5:43 Why are the Vedas Important?
6:57 Outro

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World History Encyclopedia

[WorldHistoryEncyclopedia]

Do you believe the Vedas are the word of God? Why or why not? Let us know!

[itz_killed]

Aryan migration is a white western interpretation. British colonial mentality.... please do proper research. Their is no evidence of Aryan invasion it is only a hypothesis by British colonial lotters of India. Come to India for proper research and without white man bias....

[Ganesh-ptit]

Probably the best site Google has suggested me.
Loads of Love World History Encyclopedia ❤

[kraut]

Vedas literally means ‘(what is) said’ not knowledge per say. The collection of the Veda together provide guidance or knowledge and hence they are equated as ‘Vidya’ (knowledge) given by Veda.

[Sanjeev]

Thank you so much for making this video 😍🇮🇳
Vedanta= Veda means knowledge and anta means conclusion so Vedanta means conclusion to the knowledge. Vedas includes science, astronomy, philosophy etc.
Don't consider the Vedas as religious texts like abrahamic religions have only one book..
Don't see everything from western perspective.
Vedas are only one part of sanatana Dharma apart many are there like puranas, vedangas, ramayana& Mahabharata, avatars, research and discovery based texts like
*Surya Siddhanta deals about space.
*Lilavati which deals about maths.
*Vaisesika Sutra about atomic and nuclear energy.
*YOGA
* Ayurveda about health
* Om is the sound of Black hole in space.
*Etc etc.

[sudhir]

Thank you so much for making this video. I must say you have covered all the relevant details about Vedas in a short video .
❤from India.

[agastyakapoor]

Vedas aren't religious scriptures. Hinduism isn't a religion - it's a way of life. Vedas are more like a manual for life.

[kiannahom]

The Nomadic migration theory is entrenched in a variety of conclusions as a result of its cascading effect. However its concept was based out of a thought flow at a time when the cultural impact of a conquest process was at its height. That blinds us to the possibility of Vedic and Hindu thought being a result of a intellectual process that was not based on conquest migration but emanating from an organic symbiotic growth. For example, some of the southern languages like Malayalam, Kannada have a greater colloquial usage of Sanskrit terms than most other Indian languages. The Ayurveda which is supposed to be linked to Atharvaveda has its best observable structure of practice based in Kerala which is the southern most part of India.

[sashasg]

thank you for this perfectly explained understanding of what Hinduism is as a literary religion. xo 👍😇💖🙌

[ankitjoon]

You are wrong in telling that vedas came from aryans & middle east. They have been part of India since time immemorial.

[destob]

This was very informative. Thier knowledge of geometry and building
Astronomy and self awareness could b compared to any other civilization at that time. I believe theses ancient text is what started the Ancient building boom. Is there any accounts of traveling or knowledge of other lands in the Verda

[nishantsrivastava]

This western academic read history and taught history and history means his story

[GDworld]

It's weird they decide the indo aryans brought the Vedas and Hinduism to India, because they have not found any forms of worship in the Harrappan Ruins, a civilization they didn't even know existed before it was rediscovered

[saranya_]

Vedas are to be heard from a Astanga yogi who practices samadhi , who is also Acharya . You need to ask them and do whatever practices they ask you to do and spend years of your life in that. No one else can understand Vedas from scriptures directly.

Thing is such yogis won’t preach to all people voluntarily and easily. That’s the problem .

[nishantsrivastava]

Indo Aryan please stop seeing everything western academic lens

[emppulina]

Really written down in the bronze age? (1.30) Could you give a source to this new and revolutionary information? As far as I understand that oldest ones were most likely composed in the spoken form in the bronze age (some might have been even older), some developed to their final verbal form ca 700-500 BCE and written down aroun 250-200 BCE. This poked me on the eye, because I just breviously learned of the earliest known sanskrit scripts, so called brahmi script, is from the era around 250 BCE and not earlier, which was surbrice for me when I learned it, as I thought it was older, because Indian culture is one of the earliest highly urbanised cultures.

[Dr.stoic]

It was considered as sin to write vedas because of which it had took too much time to write it.

[dsbdsb]

Word of God question is a trick ques. since everything evolves over time & many ancient concepts function as tautology to provide common grounding at centre while they keep evolving at their peripheris just like modern legal systems.

[torussaga]

Upanishads help towards non-dual Advaita Vedanta understanding where God is all pervasive in self / heart and not any icon of religion for Advaita Vedanta is not religion.

[Ben-qbbd]

No it's not true at all
Vedas didn't came from Indo Aryan culture !!!
Vedas were written by Brahmha
The God of creation ..
And not to mention that
There are proofs which tell Vedas are from Bharat itself.
Come to India
In Delhi, in dwapar yug there was a war between Pandav and kaurav
And the place, kurukshetra was chosen and in present, the sand is too much red that it appears it is blood, ( from the war )