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What are the Vedas?
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- If we look through different lists of the biggest religions in the world, Hinduism is often at somewhere at the top of that list. It is often ranked as
- the maybe third or fourth largest religion in the world with an enormous following of over 1 billion people. In this series of videos, I want to explore
- the vast religion of Hinduism as well as other religions with origins in the Indian subcontinent which are often known as the Dharmic religions. But I
- will have a bit of a different approach to this. I will not be asking questions like what is Hinduism as that would be plagued with a lot of problems. What we
- call Hinduism is such a vast and broad term that it's questionable if it can even be called a religion at all. It should really properly be seen as an
- umbrella term for a vast amount of different religious traditions from India which can sometimes be drastically different from each other. Now much of
- this can of course be said about other religions too. Christianity is also an umbrella term of sorts for a vast amount of different traditions as is Islam. But
- when it comes to Hinduism, this is true to an unusual degree. Some even want to say that Hinduism is actually many different religions altogether that is
- only artificially sort of unified into a single whole. And while this may be a question of semantics, I generally don't like to go
- this far. Sure, Hinduism is a very slippery term that denotes many different sometimes very loosely connected religious traditions in India.
- But they all have certain characteristics or core features that unify them and which also separates them from other religions in the region like
- Buddhism or Janism. And the primary unifying characteristic of this vast category called Hinduism. What ties it all together, you could say, is its
- basis in and relationship to the scriptures known as the vadas. [Laughter] [Applause]
- So in this series I will not be asking questions like what is Hinduism as I said but instead I will be focusing on specific subjects particular subjects
- that will serve as representations of this vast religion. So that includes the different scriptures, different great theologians and philosophers as well as
- how Hinduism functions as a living religion both historically and today. And what better place to start than with the foundational and most important
- sacred scriptures in Hinduism, the Vedas. Now, Hinduism is sometimes called the oldest still existing religion in the world. And this is somewhat of an
- oversimplification since many of the core features that we recognize as Hinduism appears quite late in history and a few centuries into the common era.
- Um but at the same time some of the foundations of what we call Hinduism date back very far back in history. Indeed the earliest Va scriptures are
- some of the oldest surviving religious literature in all of history. While they weren't written down until much later it is said that the earliest parts of the
- vadas were written sometime around 1500 B.CE. The vadas are considered revealed scripture called shruti in Sanskrit. In other words, they were not written by
- human hands, but revealed directly by the gods to the ancient sages who then memorized them. These sages and quote unquote authors of the vados are called
- rishies. And the revelations that these rishies received are all in the language called Sanskrit, which is a language that belongs to the larger Indo-Iranian
- and Indo-Uropean language group. The origins of this culture and its textual tradition is somewhat shrouded in mystery and there are many different
- theories. Generally, it is thought that the Vadic culture as it has become known immigrated into this Indian subcontinent during the second millennium B.CE from
- west from the west and is part of the ethnic group known as the Arians. It was thus not native to India but came from further west and shares cultural
- and religious origins with the people of what is today Iran and with the greater Persian region. Although this can be quite a controversial subject for some
- and as I said much of this is quite uncertain still. What is clear is that the earliest Va text appeared in a religious context in northern India
- accompanied with certain ritual traditions that involved ritual sacrifice. Now the vadas can be quite complicated in their structure and and
- different parts but generally they are divided into four categories. The rigveda the sama the yayurveda and the aarveda. The earliest of these is the
- rigveda composed as early as around 1500 B.CE. The others were written during the following centuries being composed somewhere between 1,200 to 800 B.CE. The
- vadas were originally oral traditions and were not written down until later. Uh so if we take the oldest for example the rig vda the hymns and mantras that
- it contains were orally transmitted between masters and students with minute detail both the words and sounds but also specific melodies and
- pronunciations. This tradition even continues to this day so that when you listen to priests reciting the vadas today, you are
- listening to the exact way that they would have sounded thousands of years ago. To quote Michael Witell, it's quote something like a tape recording of circa
- 1500 to 500 B.CE. The main part of these four vdic collections are consists of hymns to the gods and mantras to be recited while performing the ritual
- sacrifice. The vadic culture and religion that had emerged at this time was a highly ritualized religion in which a class of priests called the
- brahinss would perform various rights. One of the central rituals and one that is mentioned a lot in the vadas is the s ritual. Now, Soma was a drink that was
- consumed. And so, naturally, a lot of speculation has gone into figuring out what this drink actually was and or consisted of. We don't actually know for
- sure. Naturally, of course, many people have speculated that it may have contained certain psychedelic compounds and that maybe the rishies who composed
- the vadas did so under the influence of this soma drink. Another very important ritual at this time was the shroud which involved a ritual fire. In this ritual,
- the priests would offer different objects like food and drink to the gods by throwing them into the fire while reciting certain mantras and prayers.
- This fire throwing, this fire sacrifice or fire offering was the main ritual in all of the early vadic religion and was central to the worldview and the order
- of the universe for the Vadic people generally. The ritual sacrifice and the offerings functioned as a kind of exchange. The gods were given gifts and
- in return human beings received blessings of different sorts. And this exchange between the human and divine world is what kept the universe, society
- and nature in its proper order. So all of these vadas are deeply interconnected with the ritual practices of the Brahman religion. They are the contents of and
- you could say guide books for how to perform these vadic rights. And the hymns that these vdas contain give us some loose idea of what the theology of
- the time looked like. There are certain gods that are especially prominent like Agny, the god of fire and Indra among many others. But the specifics of how
- these gods functions is a difficult question to answer. There are clearly many different gods mentioned in the vadas which indicates a polytheistic
- religion. But we also find statements like the following in the Rigveda. Quote, "God is one. Men call him by various names." which seems to indicate
- a theology where there is one god in reality and the other gods mentioned are only different names or aspects of this god and this does seem to predict
- certain later developments in Hinduism. Some deities in the hymn seem to be personifications of things like natural phenomena but not all of them are. Some
- of the gods probably were bad old kings or human beings that were deified after death which was a very common practice for ancient polytheistic religions. But
- we're going to make things even more complicated. So these four vdas the rigveda the sama the yajuveda and the aurveda are also divided into different
- sections. So number one is the samitas which this is the part that we discussed so far. This is the oldest and main part of the vdas, the hymns and mantras to
- the gods. This is what we've been talking about. Sometimes when we talk about the vadas in a more narrow sense, it is simply only referring to the
- samitas. So this is really the the central the main part of the vdic corpus. But usually when we say the vdas, we're talking about a larger
- collection of texts than simply the samitas. And this includes these other categories which includes number two the brahmanas which are commentaries that
- try to explain and contextualize the deeper meanings of the vic rituals. There is the aranyakas which discuss the ritual sacrifice and its deeper meanings
- as well. And lastly there are the upanishads which is quite different from the rest. The opanishads are philosophical texts
- that discuss various aspects of life and death. the soul, meditation and much much else. So to make things extra clear, each of the four vadas has all of
- these four sections or layers to them. The last part of the vadas, the opanishads are especially fascinating in this context and would come to play a
- very significant and important role in the later development of what we recognize as Hinduism today. Whereas the other parts of the vadas are usually
- only really interested in uh the the rituals the vdic rituals and their meaning the upanishads are highly speculative philosophical and they
- introduce many new concepts and and ideas that are not present or doesn't seem to be present at least in the other parts of the vadas. The upanishads are
- also sometimes referred to as vanta which literally means the end of the vadus because it is literally the end of the vadus. Both in in the sense of being
- the last part of the vadus that was written but also functions as the last section of the vadus written sometime in the middle of the first millennium BCE.
- The upanishads continue the you say speculation and tradition of the Brahmana texts by trying to find the deeper meanings of the vadic rituals.
- But it probably also has origins outside of this ritual culture. Primarily in the northeastern part of India there had appeared what is known as the shramana
- movement. There is some disagreement on whether this was a part of the Vadic religion that grew out of this already existing Vadic tradition or if it was an
- independent movement altogether. In any case, the shamana movement was characterized by individuals living aesthetic lives trying to find
- enlightenment or liberation through turning inward. So instead of the vdic focus on external ritual and the centrality of the sacrifice for
- upholding the universe, the shamana aesthetics looked within themselves to find the answers. And indeed it seems like it was with the shamana movement
- that some of the more characteristic aspects of the dharmic religions originated. ideas like karma and samsara that is ideas about reincarnation and
- that our actions not just the ritual sacrifice but all our actions determine the nature of that reincarnation. There is also among these shamana
- mystics there was the idea of moka or liberation. The idea that the goal of life should be to end this cycle of rebirths and to be liberated from them
- altogether. And this does not seem to have been present as an idea in the earlier vadic religion. For those scholars who argue that the shamana
- movement was something separated from the vadic religion originally, they argue that it was as a result of the meeting of the vadic ritualized
- religion and the shamra movement that produced the upananishads. This kind of synthesis between these two religious traditions. The upanishads in fact seem
- to take ideas and concepts and themes from the earlier vada scriptures and give them a new philosophical meaning inspired by the ideas of the shramana
- movement. But others interpret them not as new meanings but simply as deeper meanings or understandings of the already existing vadic concepts. So
- there's a bit of disagreement here as well. For example, the concept of Brahman which had previously signified the power of the ritual sacrifice and
- its ability to uphold the world became a central theme in the uponads and was extended even further to mean the very foundation and ground of existence and
- the universe. Everything comes from the Brahman. Everything returns to the Brahman and according to some interpretation, everything is the
- Brahman. Another very important theme that appears in the uponads is the idea of the atman or the transcendent self which seems in some way to be connected
- to part of or even identical with the Brahman. Now many different traditions and interpretations of these upanishads appeared over the coming centuries which
- have together often come to be known as vidanta. Um so and and this can look very different. So for example the scholar Adi Shankara interpreted the
- upanishads in a very in a nondual way which gave rise to the school known as Advita Vidanta whereas on the other hand the scholar Madvacharia interpreted them
- in a dualistic way and gave rise to Dwighta vidanta which is quite different and we will indeed be exploring many of these thinkers and schools in future
- videos. Indeed, these sages behind the upanishads can in some way represent a form or a certain strand of the shramana movement that adopted the earlier vadic
- text as authoritative scriptures. Whereas other shamana movement indeed religions like Buddhism and Janism actually originated as shamana movements
- and and but they can be seen as shamana aesthetics that did not accept the authority of the vadas. The vadas are not sacred scriptures to either the
- Buddhists or the Janes. Uh so this is a difference between them. There were shaman aesthetics who did not accept the authority of the vadas which created
- things like Buddhism and Janism. But the sages that did accept the authority of the vadas. It is they who seem to have produced the the upupanads and which
- also then led to Hinduism. Thus through the meeting of the shamana movement and the core tradition of Brahmana vdic ritual religion and their consolidation
- in the literature of the upanishads the vdic religion was fundamentally transformed. Ideas like samsara karma and moka became central concepts that
- would remain cornerstones of all the traditions the religious traditions in India that followed. In other words, through this last part of the Vadas and
- their influence, we are one step closer to something resembling Hinduism today. To put it simply, the Vadas are a massive collection of texts of many
- different parts and different kinds of texts. And it would take further centuries of an enormous amount of different commentaries and and
- interpretations and schools of thought before we reach something that resembles Hinduism. So let me know in the comments if there's any other specific topic
- within this larger subject of Hinduism or the Dharmic religions that you would like me to to tackle or cover. Um this there's a lot to to go through here of
- course and and and I have a lot of things that I want to talk about of course but I would love to hear your suggestions as well. As always I want to
- thank my Patreon supporters uh who make this channel possible. It is really only through your support that I'm able to for example buy books to research these
- videos and and for many other things. So it is really you guys who keep this channel going. Uh so thank you. Thank you so much. As always of course I would
- like to also go through some of the recent arrival to our patron team. I would like to thank Muhammad Babiker, Yasir Khan, Yachuba Davis, Ethan Ross, W
- Muhammad, and Perves Rashid. Thank you all so much for your support. I hope this introduction to the most sacred scriptures of Hinduism wasn't too
- complicated. It is a difficult topic of course and a vast one and one that is shrouded in a lot of mystery. And yet, it is one that is very important to
- understand. Hinduism which is after all one of the largest and most influential religions in the world. So I'll see you next time.
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