Some of the Rig-Veda verses are repeated more than once. It consists of 1549 stanzas, taken entirely (except 78) from the Rig-Veda. The name of this Veda is from the Sanskrit word saman which means a metrical hymn or song of praise. The Sama-Veda is the ‘Veda of chants’ or ‘Knowledge of melodies’.
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The literary value of Yajurveda is mostly for its prose, which consists of short terse sentences full of meaning and cadence. Those of White Yajurveda are Madhyanadina and Kanva. The recensions of Black Yajurveda are Taittirya, Katthaka, Maitrayani and Kapishtthala. While both contain mantras or incantations to be chanted at rituals, Black Yajurveda also has many explanations. It has two branches, Krishna or Black and Shukla or White. Yajurveda refers to acts of worship such as oblations made into Agni or Fire.
Of the Black Yajurveda four major recensions survive, all showing by and large the same arrangement, but differing in many other respects, notably in the individual discussion of the rituals but also in matters of phonology and accent. It differs widely from the Black Yajurveda, which incorporates such explanations in the work itself, often immediately following the verses. The White Yajur-Veda contains only the verses and sayings necessary for the sacrifice, while explanations exist in a separate Brahmana work. The origin and meaning of these designations are not very clear. There are two major recensions of this Veda known as the ‘Black’ and ‘White’ Yajur-Veda. Its purpose was practical, in that each mantra must accompany an action in sacrifice but, unlike the Sama-Veda, it was compiled to apply to all sacrificial rites, not merely the Soma offering. The Yajur-Veda (‘Veda of sacrificial formulas’) consists of archaic prose mantras and also in part of verses borrowed from the Rig-Veda. Rigveda is the oldest, largest and most important of the Vedas, containing ten thousand verses forming 1017 poems in 20 groups.
According to others, the people in the times of the Rigveda had a settled home, definite mode of life, developed social customs, political organizations, and even arts and amusements. According to some, the concerns of Rigveda are those of simple, nomadic, pastoral Aryans. Rigveda contains a sense of intimate communion between Nature and the Rishis or visionaries. Some animals like horses, some rivers, and even some implements (like mortar and pestle) were deified. There are references to a divine creeper, the Soma, whose juice was an energizer. Other Rigvedic gods include Rudra, the two Ashvins,Savitar and Surya, Varuna, the Maruts and the Ribhus. About two-thirds of Rigveda is about the gods Agni (Fire) and Indra (Ruler of the gods). But it also dealt with other subjects, like the procedure of wedding, the folly of gambling. Rigveda means the Veda of Adoration and mostly contains verses adoring or adulating deities. There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities between the Rigveda and the early Iranian Avesta, deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times, often associated with the Andronovo culture the earliest horse-drawn chariots were found at Andronovo sites in the Sintashta-Petrovka cultural area near the Ural mountains and date to ca. Michael Witzel believes that the Rig Veda must have been composed more or less in the period 1450-1350 BCE.
The books were composed by sages and poets from different priestly groups over a period of at least 500 years, which Avari dates as 1400 BCE to 900 BCE, if not earlier According to Max Müller, based on internal evidence (philological and linguistic), the Rigveda was composed roughly between 1700-1100 BCE (the early Vedic period) in the Punjab (Sapta Sindhu) region of the Indian subcontinent. The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities.
It is a collection of 1,028 Vedic Sanskrit hymns and 10,600 verses in all, organized into ten books (Sanskrit: mandalas). The Rig-Veda Samhita is the oldest significant extant Indian text. The mystic dimensions and applications of these mantras as a way of obtaining the physical immortality was elaborated in Sri Aurobindo’s, The Secret of the Veda. Vedic mantras are recited at Hindu prayers, religious functions and other auspicious occasions. They came to us in written form between 4-6,000 years ago.Īccording to Hindu tradition, the Vedas are ‘not of human agency’, having been directly revealed, and thus are called sruti (‘what is heard’). Initially the Vedas were considered so sacred that they were only transmitted orally from one generation to the next spanning 100,000 years. They also had a vast influence on Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The Vedas are the primary texts of Hinduism. There are four Vedas, the Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. They form the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism. The Vedas are a large body of texts containing hymns, poems, and ceremonial formulas originating in Ancient India.