Veda08- How big are the Vedas?

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Sometimes, we have a tendency to associate importance with size. If a Guru has billions of followers then he must be a great Guru; if someone has millions of followers on the social media then whatever that person says should be important; if a religious scripture is voluminous, then what it contains must be the truth, and so on. But that is not necessarily true. I sometimes joke that greater the following a Guru has, more mediocre he is 😉 You find more people at the base of the intellectual pyramid!

 

The greatness does not necessarily follow from the size, but from its inherent strength. For example, among all the Upanishads, the Mandukya Upanishad is probably the shortest with only 12 Mantras. But great philosophers like Sankara considered that Upanishad as the most important among all other Upanishads in the Vedic literature.

 

So, I am not talking about the ‘bigness’ of the Vedas to show how ‘great’ they are. My purpose is something else, which will become clearer as we move on.

 

Let me start from basics for the uninitiated.

 

There are 4 Vedas – Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, and Atharva Veda. There are lot of speculations on the chronology of these, and so on. Let us not get into those aspects which in my view are neither fully understood nor very important.

 

Though there are 4 Vedas, most ancient Indian religious literature including the Bhagavad Geetha talk about only the first three as the Vedas. They call them as ‘Trayee’ – which literally means three. Atharva Veda is not normally counted. Even today, I am told, there are very few in India who really follow the Atharva Veda. The reasons could be many, such as - it’s not so divine in origin, the occult practices mentioned in it, it’s somewhat later addition to the Vedic canon, and so on.

 

In general, each Veda is roughly divided into 4 parts – Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanishads. But these divisions are not very clear cut. There is often lot of overlap. You should bear in mind that the Vedas are not the creation of one single individual at one particular time. Many people have contributed to them at different times and they are not like a single author book which has a well-defined structure. In some ways, they are like our modern idea of ‘wiki pages’. May be ‘wiki’ is a bad comparison which often tends to be a collection of incoherent things put together by people with conflicting interests😉

 

Samhita part of a Veda has metrically composed verses with a high flavor of poetry. They are called the Mantras or Riks. The Brahmana parts are prose description of various rituals enlisted in the Vedas. They are descriptive, step by step instructions, and sometimes are like running commentaries on the rituals.

 

The Aranyaka parts describe symbolic rituals for people who neither need, nor expected to perform physical rituals. For example, the people who are in Vanaprastha or forest dweller stage of their life. The word Aranya in Aranyaka probably indicates that. In Sanskrit language Aranya means forest. Vanaprastha is the third stage in one’s life during which he/she lives in a forest, isolated from rest of the world, along with other similar people. It is preparatory to the fourth stage in one’s life namely Sanyasa. You can find more details on this in my book “Ancient wisdom – modern viewpoints”, Chapter “Manu’s way of balanced living”.

 

Upanishads are the final parts of the Vedas. So, they are also called Vedanta – last parts of the Vedas. Most people who have interest in Indian philosophy, are familiar with these Upanishads. Though it has become more of an intellectually stimulating exercise these days, originally these Upanishads are meant for people who are preparing for the final stage of their life. The goal of these people is ultimate liberation or Moksha. So, Upanishads talk about ultimate truth and ways of attaining that truth through meditation and deep pondering. You can read more on these in my book “Upanishads – A journey into the unknown”.

 

Now coming to numbers.

 

The Samhita part of Rigveda has around 10500 mantras each with variable number lines and words, depending on the metrical rule used to compose them. Since it is quite voluminous, it is normally divided into 10 chapters or Mandalas. Each chapter is further divided into collection of Mantras called Sukta. Each Sukta has variable number of Mantras in it. Though, some modern historians assign chronological order to these chapters, traditional Indians don’t recognize any such chronology to them since all of them are parts of the whole, the whole that ever existed and beyond the concept of time.

 

Samhita part of Yajurveda has around 2000 to 3000 mantras, depending on which version of the Yajurveda – The White one or The Black one. But most part of the Yajurveda is in the Brahmanas. That is why this Veda is called ‘Yajur’ Veda, ‘Yajus’ meaning fire rituals described in these Brahmanas.

 

The Samaveda Samhita has almost the same Mantras as in the Rigveda. The major difference is in the way these mantras are recited. In Samaveda, these mantras are sung rather than chanted as in the Rigveda. That gives this Veda the name Samaveda – Veda containing hymns that are sung.

 

The Samhita part of the Atharva Veda has around 6000 mantras, some of which are adaptations of the mantras from the Rigveda.

 

 

The Brahmana parts of all these Vedas also have variable number of prose texts which are called Brahmanas. Aitareya Brahmana is the most important Brahmana of Rigveda. Similarly, the Shatapatha Brahmana forms part of Yajurveda among others. Pancavimsha Brahmana is one of the Brahmanas of Samaveda. The Atharvaveda has Gopatha brahmana as one of the important Brahmanas.

 

Then we have the Aranyakas. Each Veda has its own set of Aranyakas. There is Aitareya Aranyaka in Rigveda, Brihadaranyaka in Yajurveda and so on.

 

And lastly, we have the Upanishads or the Vedanta. There are many Upanishads in each of the Vedas. 10 of these are considered to be most important and are well-studied. They are Aitareya Upanishad - from Rigveda; Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Taitariya Upanishad, Ishopanishad, Kathopanishad - from Yajurveda; Chandogya Upanishad, Kenopanishad - from Samaveda; Mandukya Upanishad, Mundaka Upanishad, Prashnopanishad - from Atharva Veda;

 

In addition to these primary texts, there are secondary texts connected with each of the Vedas. These are called Shruata Sutra, Grahya Sutra, Dharma Sutra and so on. These are in the form of brief notes attributed to various sages.

 

 

You probably are amazed at the voluminous nature of these Vedas. The size is so huge that the great Sage Vyasa who is supposed to have classified these Vedas into various groups had to employ several of his disciples to study and categorize them.

 

And now comes the most important part. This whole mass of scriptures was passed on from generation to generation, for thousands of years, in a purely oral tradition. That means they were never written down but memorized and passed on from teacher to disciple in a long chain of teacher to student stages over generations that spanned several thousands of years! Why did they not write them down? Were they all illiterates as many modern historians seem to conjecture?!

 

We will see that in the next episode.

 

 

A series discussing the most ancient of the Indian scriptures, nay the world scriptures namely the Vedas. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2021