The Vedas

Rgveda

The oldest portion of the Vedas is the Rgveda.

• It was composed outside India.

The remaining portions were the Yajurveda and Atharvaveda.

• These were partly Indian and partly non-Indian.

Sámaveda is not a separate Veda by itself.

• It is the compilation of the lyrical and musical portions of the different Vedas.

Only the Rgveda is the ancient relic of the non-Indian Aryan civilization.

The Yajurveda was composed in Iran, Afghanistan, northwest India and parts of Russia.

• It is not entirely non-Indian since Afghanistan (Gándhár) and some parts of Russia were part of India at that time.

The original Rgvedic civilization belonged, in spirit and language, to the non-Indian Aryans.

But the Yajurveda was composed by a particular branch of the Vedic Aryans who, when the Aryans later began to spread out in search of food (especially wheat), migrated to India via Iran (Áryańya Vraja) and Afghanistan. When we say “Indo-Aryan civilization”, we basically mean the civilization of these people.

These nomadic Aryans came in contact with the people of:

• Iran
• Afghanistan
• northwest India

This led them to take up:

• farming and
• strategic warfare.

This new thought gave them a refined intelligence.

In the beginning, during the Rgvedic era, the cattle-rearing Aryans were only acquainted with barley and a few other crops.

• After they came to Iran, they learned to cultivate wheat and, to some extent, rice, from the Asuras, the primitive natives of Iran.
• They learned the use of boiled rice in India.
• Yet their staple was generally barley.

They developed during the Yajurvedic era.

• This led to the Brahmaváda or the doctrine of monotheism.

During this era, there was a noticeable intellectual development among the Aryans.

among the munis [intellectuals or seers] and the rśis, philosophy and spirituality also attained a brilliant height of expression.

The Brahmaváda was a lot deeper and clearer than that of the Rgveda.

The Atharvaveda was initially composed in India.

During the composition of this Veda, the Aryans came in close contact with the non-Aryans. This resulted in an exchange of thought between the two.

The Tantra of the non-Aryans had a marked influence on the Atharvaveda.

Being non-Aryan, the Atharvaveda cannot be regarded as a representation of Aryan civilization.

In the subtle philosophy of the Atharvaveda, particularly of the Nrsiḿha Tápańiiya Shruti, there is a far greater influence of the non-Aryan Tantra than of the Aryan Veda.

The migrating Aryans first settled in the hilly valleys of northern India.

Although there was not much intermixture of blood between the Aryans and the inhabitants of this area, the Aryans were greatly influenced by non-Aryan culture. The Aryans settled down in this area, which was known as Kash (or Khash) after defeating its ancient non-Aryan inhabitants.

Using the original name, Kash, they renamed the area “Kashmeru” or “Kashmiira” [Kashmir]. Although the Aryans of Kashmiira did not give up their Vedic study, in the spiritual field they did cultivate the indigenous Indian Tantra.

As the southern part of Kashmiira was littered with pebbles resembling the jambu fruit [Eugenia jambolana Lam], the Aryans named it “Jambu Dviipa” (modern Jammu). Subsequently, Jambu Dviipa came to mean the whole of India. Possibly in the sandy beds of the many rivers that transect Jambu Dviipa they discovered gold for the first time, and so gold came to be known as jámbunada.

When still later they settled throughout the entire land of India, they realized that it was ideal not only for habitation, but also for self-development. Thus they named it “Bháratavarśa”. Bhara means “that which feeds”; ta means “that which gives”, or “that which helps in the process of expansion”; and varśa means “a vast stretch of land”. Thus, bháratavarśa means “a vast expanse of land which helps in the all-round development of its inhabitants”.

The Aryans did not have their own script.

• They learned the written alphabet after coming in contact with the Dravidians of the Harappa and Mahenjodaro civilizations of India who were already using the Saendhavii script.
• After the Aryan migration into India, that script transformed into the Bráhmii and Kharośt́hi scripts.

Due to their old superstitions, most of the Aryans were reluctant to write down the Vedas.

• They adhered to their illogical reasoning even after the scripts came into being
• They thought that the rśis had not written out the Vedas because:

1. It was improper
2. The Vedas were named shruti

However, much later, in Kashmiira,(1) the Vedas were written down in the Sáradá script in use there at the time.

• This was because there was almost nobody left who knew all the Vedas by heart.
• The number of people who knew even parts of them was very small.

When the Kashmiira scholars finally did write down the Vedas, they discovered that many parts of them were missing for good.