Vedas

吠陀

The Vedas are the earliest Hindu scriptures. The large body of texts known as the Vedas was composed roughly between 1500 and 500 BCE, and was predominantly orally transmitted until around 1000 CE. The Vedas are considered śruti (“what is heard”), meaning they were directly revealed from the divine realm and not the original work of human beings. The core of the Vedas are the Samhitas, four collections of mantras and hymns: the Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda, and Atharva-Veda. The Brahmanas are prose commentaries on the Samhitas that detail the rituals to be performed with each Samhita mantra. The Aranyakas contain further discussion and interpretation of the rituals in the Brahmanas, along with other material. Many schools of Hindu thought have left behind much of the ritualism of the Vedas, stressing instead their philosophical teachings and using post-Vedic literature as the predominant source of scriptural authority.