The Vedas are the foundational scriptures of Hinduism and the oldest texts in any Indo-European language still used in worship today. The word veda comes from the Sanskrit root vid, 'to know.' The Vedas are 'knowledge,' specifically knowledge that was 'heard' (shruti) by ancient rishis, or seers, in deep meditation, and then passed down unchanged through an unbroken chain of oral recitation for at least 3,500 years. The Rig Veda, the oldest of the four, is usually dated between 1500 and 1200 BCE from its language, though traditional Hindu chronology and some newer revisionist scholars push it much earlier, with a few proposing that astronomical references in the text date certain hymns to 6,000 to 8,000 BCE. The dating matters less than the content. What are the Vedas, and what do they actually say?
The four Vedas are not one unified book. They are collections, called samhitas, of hymns, ritual formulas, ceremonial instructions, and philosophical reflection, put together by different priestly schools over centuries. The Rig Veda is the oldest and most honored: 10,552 mantras arranged in 10 mandalas, or books, mostly hymns to the devas, the divine forces, such as Agni (fire), Indra (thunder and rain), Varuna (cosmic order), Soma (the sacred plant and moon), Ushas (dawn), and Surya (the sun). On the surface these are hymns to nature. On a deeper level, the rishis used the language of natural forces as a rich symbolic vocabulary for inner states: Agni is both the fire of digestion and the fire of awareness; Indra is the power of awakened consciousness; Varuna is the moral order that governs both nature and human conduct; Soma is the nectar of bliss that arises in deep meditation, or through the ritual use of some unknown intoxicating plant.
The Sama Veda is the Veda of melody. It is mostly a rearrangement of Rig Veda hymns into set musical patterns for chanting during soma sacrifices. Indian classical music ultimately traces back to the Sama Veda tradition, and its melodies (samans) are among the oldest recorded musical compositions in human history. The Yajur Veda is the Veda of ritual action. It holds the exact formulas and prose instructions for performing yajna, the sacrificial rite at the center of Vedic religion. It comes in two versions: the Krishna (Black) Yajur Veda, which mixes commentary in with the ritual formulas, and the Shukla (White) Yajur Veda, which keeps them apart. The Atharva Veda is the youngest and most varied of the four: a mix of hymns for healing, magic, protection, and philosophy that some schools were slow to accept into the Vedic canon.
Each Veda comes with its own supporting literature: Brahmanas (ritual commentary), Aranyakas ('forest texts,' a bridge between ritual and philosophy), and Upanishads (philosophical conclusions, the subject of Lesson 2). Each Veda also has its own set of sub-sciences called Vedangas, the 'limbs of the Vedas': shiksha (phonetics), chandas (meter), vyakarana (grammar; Panini's grammar of Sanskrit, from the 4th century BCE, is still one of the most sophisticated language analyses ever made), nirukta (etymology), jyotisha (astronomy and astrology), and kalpa (ritual procedure). This layout, the Vedas at the root surrounded by a full ecosystem of supporting sciences, is why the tradition calls the Vedic system a civilization. It is not just a set of religious texts. It is a complete framework for understanding and organizing human life, knowledge, and practice.