Vedas:

'Veda' means knowledge. 'Vedic' refers to things that come from the original knowledge of the Vedic scriptures of ancient India, revealed by God through sages.

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Vedas:

The most sacred scriptures of the Hindus and the ultimate authority of the Hindu religion and philosophy. They were arranged by Vyasa into four books, namely, the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. According to orthodox Vedic scholars the Vedas consist of the Mantras and the Brahmanas. The Mantras include the Samhita, and the Brahmanas include the Aranyakas and the Upanishads.

(See also: Vedas , Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

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Vedas:

An ancient sanskrit text. The entire body of ancient, sacred revelations of truth. Chief amongst which are the Rigveda, Saamaveda, Yajurveda and the Athharvanaveda. The basis for the Hindu religion, as well as ayurvedic medicine, health etc...

(See also: Vedas , Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas:

Among the most ancient, revered, and sacred of the world's scriptures, the four Vedas are regarded as divinely revealed, eternal wisdom. They are the Rig Veda, Atharva Veda, Sama Veda, and Yajur Veda.

(See also: Vedas , Yoga, Yoga Dictionary, Siddha Yoga, Siddha Yoga Dictionary)

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Vedas (Sanskrit). The "revelation". the scriptures of the Hindus, from the root vid, "to know ", or "divine knowledge". They are the most ancient as well as the most sacred of the Sanskrit works.

The Vedas on the date and antiquity of which no two Orientalists can agree, are claimed by the Hindus themselves, whose Brahmans and Pundits ought to know best about their own religious works, to have been first taught orally for thousands of years and then compiled on the shores of Lake Manasa-Sarovara (phonetically, Mansarovara) beyond the Himalayas, in Tibet. When was this done? While their religious teachers, such as Swami Dayanand Saraswati, claim for them an antiquity of many decades of ages, our modern Orientalists will grant them no greater antiquity in their present form than about between 1,000 and 2,000 B.C.

As compiled in their final form by Veda-Vyasa, however, the Brahmans themselves unanimously assign 3,100 years before the Christian era, the date when Vyasa flourished. Therefore the Vedas must be as old as this date. But their antiquity is sufficiently proven by the fact that they are written in such an ancient form, of Sanskrit, so different from the Sanskrit now used, that there is no other, work like them in the literature of this eldest sister of all the known languages, as Prof. Max Muller calls it. Only the most learned of the Brahman Pundits can read the Vedas in their original. It is urged that Colebrooke found the date 1400 B.c. corroborated absolutely by a passage which he discovered, and which is based on astronomical data.

But if, as shown unanimously by all the Orientalists and the Hindu Pundits also, that

(a) the Vedas are not a single work, nor yet any one of the separate Vedas; but that each Veda, and almost every hymn and division of the latter, is the production of various authors; and that

(b) these have been written (whether as sruti, "revelation ", or not) at various periods of the ethnological evolution of the Indo-Aryan race, then - what does Mr. Colebrooke’s discovery prove? Simply that the Vedas were finally arranged and compiled fourteen centuries before our era; but this interferes in no way with their antiquity.

Quite the reverse; for, as an offset to Mr. Colebrooke’s passage, there is a learned article, written on purely astronomical data by Krishna Shastri Godbole (of Bombay), which proves as absolutely and on the same evidence that the Vedas must have been taught at least 25,000 years ago. (See Theosophist, Vol. II., p. 238 et seq., Aug., 1881.) This statement is, if not supported, at any rate not contradicted by what Prof. Cowell says in Appendix VII., of Elphinstone’ History of India: "

There is a difference in age between the various hymns, which are now united in their present form as the Sanhita of the Rig Veda; but we have no data to determine their relative antiquity, and purely subjective criticism, apart from solid data, has so often failed in other instances, that we can trust but little to any of its inferences in such a recently opened field of research as Sanskrit literature. [ a fourth part of the Vaidik literature is as yet in print, and very little of it has been translated into English (1866).] The still unsettled controversies about the Homeric poems may well warn us of being too confident in our judgments regarding the yet earlier hymns of the Rig -Veda. . . . When we examine these hymns . . . they are deeply interesting for the history of the human mind, belonging as they do to a much older phase than the poems of Homer or Hesiod." The Vedic writings are all classified in two great divisions, exoteric and esoteric, the former being called Karma-Kanda, "division of actions or works ", and the Jnana Kanda, "division of (divine) knowledge", the Upanishads (q.v.) coming under this last classification. Both departments are regarded as Sruti or revelation.

To each hymn of the Rig -Veda, the name of the Seer or Rishi to whom it was revealed is prefixed. It, thus, becomes evident on the authority of these very names (such as Vasishta, Viswamitra, Narada, etc.), all of which belong to men born in various manvantaras and even ages, that centuries, and perhaps millenniums, must have elapsed between the dates of their composition.

(See also: Vedas , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Vedas: the four principal books of sacred knowledge: Rg, Yajur, Sama and Atharva. Each Veda is divined into four sections to guide the four ashramas (stages) of life.

The first, or Samhita, section contains the many mantras, which are hymns, prayers and formulas to be used in the various rituals during the grahastha ashrama.

The second, or Brahmana, section is commentary on the meaning of the mantras with directions for their use in various rituals to produce results in worldly endeavors.

The third section consists of treatises for contemplation and study including the symbolic meanings of the elements of the rituals. These mental exercises are meant to be used by those of the vanaprastha ashrama. This section is therefore named the Aranyaka or forest treatises.

The fourth section contains the philosophical treatises, the Upanishads, intended for the final realization by those in the sannyasa ashrama

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas:

Vedas (Vedhas). Entire body of ancient sacred revelations of truth, chief among which are four books: the Rig-veda, Yajur-veda, Sama-veda, and Atharvana-veda.

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas: the most ancient sacred literature of the Hindus. Most ancient texts revealed to the sages and saints of India which explain and regulate every aspect of life from supreme reality to worldly affairs. Four in number: Rig, Yajur, Sama, Atharava which are further divided into Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishads.

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Yoga, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas

Veda is a generic name for the most ancient Indian sacred literature, i.e. the Rg-veda, Yajur-veda, Sama-veda and Atharva-veda. Each of these books is divided into two portions, mantra and brahmana. The term Veda is generally reserved for the mantras or metrical hymns, especially those of the Rg-veda. Sri Aurobindo has translated and/or commented on many of the Vedic hymns. Most of his writings related to the Vedas have been collected in Volumes 10 and 11of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library(SABCL), The Secret of the Veda, and Hymns to the Mystic Fire.

"I propose...that the Rig-Veda is itself the one considerable document that remains to us from the early period of human thought of which the historic Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries were the failing remnants, when the spiritual and psychological knowledge of the race was concealed, for reasons now difficult to determine, in a veil of concrete and material figures and symbols which protected the sense from the profane and revealed it to the initiated. One of the leading principles of the mystics was the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true knowledge of the Gods.

The Veda...is an inspired knowledge as yet insufficiently equipped with intellectual and philosophical terms. We find a language of poets and illuminates to whom all experience is real, vivid, sensible, even concrete, not yet of thinkers and sytematisers to whom the realities of the mind and soul have become abstractions.

The Vedic Rishis believed that their Mantras were inspired from higher planes of consciousness and contained this secret knowledge. The words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who was himself a seer or mystic; from others the verses withheld their hidden knowledge.

Many of the lines, many whole hymns even of the Veda bear on their face a mystic meaning; they are evidently an occult form of speech, have an inner meaning.

Under pressure of the necessity to mask their meaning with symbols and symbolic words...the Rishis resorted to fix double meanings, a device easily manageable in the Sanskrit language where one word often bears several different meanings, but not easy to render in an English translation and very often impossible....The Rishis, it must be remembered, were seers as well as sages, they were men of vision who saw things in their meditation in images, often symbolic images which might precede or accompany an experience and put it in a concrete form, might predict or give an occult body to it. ...The mystics were and normally are symbolists, they can even see all physical things and happenings as symbols of inner truths and realities, even their outer selves, the outer happenings of their life and all around them."

-- Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, SABCL Vol. 10

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Vedic Scriptures, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

vedas:

the four vedic ancient scriptures of india, namely the Rg, sama, Yajur and Atharva

(See also: vedas , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas: ancient scriptures of India

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas:

four ancient texts- Rig, Yajur, Sama, Atharva, which are further divided into Samhita, Brahmana, Aranayaka and Upanishads. They were revealed to the sages and saints of India which explain and regulate every aspect of life from supreme reality to worldly affairs. The oldest books in the library of mankind.

(See also: Vedas ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Vedas:

Vedas: [see also Vedas] Sacred scriptures of the Hindu religion. (BV-32). The Sacred scriptures revealed by the Supreme Being, adopted by the Hindus. There are four parts: Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvaveda. The original revealed scriptures, first spoken by Lord Krishna.

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas:

Vedas: the most ancient authentic scripture of  the Hindus, a revealed scripture and therefore free from  imperfections.

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

 Vedas:

the sacred scriptures of the Hindus

(See also:  Vedas , Body Mind and Soul)

VEDAS: The most ancient authentic scripture of the Hindus, a revealed scripture and therefore free from imperfections.

(See also: VEDAS ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

vedas:

vedas - the sacred scriptures of the Hindus

(See also: vedas , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas

The original revealed scriptures, eternal like the Supreme Lord and thus in need of no author. Because in Kali-yuga the Vedas are difficult to understand or even study, the Puranas and epic histories, especially Srimad-Bhagavatam, are essential for gaining access to the teachings of the Vedas.

(See also: Vedas , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Yajur Veda: (Sanskrit) "Wisdom of sacrificial formulas."

One of the four compendia of revelatory texts called Vedas (Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharva).

When used alone, the term Yajur Veda generally refers to this Veda's central and oldest portion - the Samhita, "hymn collection." Of this there are two recensions:

1)    the Krishna ("black") Yajur Veda (so-called because the commentary, Brahmana, material is mixed with the hymns); and

2)    the Shukla ("white or clear") Yajur Veda (with no commentary among the hymns).

The contents of these two recensions are also presented in different order. The Yajur Veda Samhita is divided into 40 chapters and contains 1,975 stanzas. About 30 percent of the stanzas are drawn from the Rig Veda Samhita (particularly from chapters eight and nine). This Veda is a special collection of hymns to be chanted during yajna. The Krishna Yajur Veda Samhita exists today in various recensions, most importantly the Taittiriya Samhita and the Maitrayani Samhita. The Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita is preserved most prominently as the Vajasaneyi Samhita.

See: Vedas.

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Vedas:  ancient books of knowledge presenting the spiritual signs of awareness

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