20 Facts About Vedas

1.

Vedas are, distinguishing them from other religious texts, which are called ("what is remembered").

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2.

Hindus consider the Vedas to be apauruseya, which means "not of a man, superhuman" and "impersonal, authorless, " revelations of sacred sounds and texts heard by ancient sages after intense meditation.

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3.

Vedas have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE with the help of elaborate mnemonic techniques.

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4.

The mantras, the oldest part of the Vedas, are recited in the modern age for their phonology rather than the semantics, and are considered to be "primordial rhythms of creation", preceding the forms to which they refer.

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5.

Vedas are called Marai or Vaymoli in parts of South India.

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6.

Vedas are, distinguishing them from other religious texts, which are called ("what is remembered").

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7.

Hindus consider the Vedas to be apauruseya, which means "not of a man, superhuman" and "impersonal, authorless.

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8.

Vedas gives 150 BCE as a terminus ante quem for all Vedic Sanskrit literature, and 1200 BCE (the early Iron Age) as terminus post quem for the Atharvaveda.

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9.

Vedas were orally transmitted since their composition in the Vedic period for several millennia.

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10.

The authoritative transmission of the Vedas is by an oral tradition in a sampradaya from father to son or from teacher to student (shishya), believed to be initiated by the Vedic rishis who heard the primordial sounds.

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11.

Jack Goody has argued for an earlier literary tradition, concluding that the Vedas bear hallmarks of a literate culture along with oral transmission, but Goody's views have been strongly criticised by Falk, Lopez Jr,.

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12.

Vedas were written down only after 500 BCE, but only the orally transmitted texts are regarded as authoritative, given the emphasis on the exact pronunciation of the sounds.

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13.

Each of the four Vedas were shared by the numerous schools, but revised, interpolated and adapted locally, in and after the Vedic period, giving rise to various recensions of the text.

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14.

The Vedas each have an Index or Anukramani, the principal work of this kind being the general Index or.

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15.

For example, memorization of the sacred Vedas included up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text.

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16.

Vedas were orally transmitted by memorization for many generations and was written down for the first time around 1200 BCE.

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17.

However, all printed editions of the Vedas that survive in the modern times are likely the version existing in about the 16th century AD.

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18.

Aranyakas layer of the Vedas include rituals, discussion of symbolic meta-rituals, as well as philosophical speculations.

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19.

These auxiliary fields of Vedic studies emerged because the language of the Vedas, composed centuries earlier, became too archaic to the people of that time.

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20.

The Anandabhairava-tantra for example, states that "the wise man should not elect as his authority the word of the Vedas, which is full of impurity, produces but scanty and transitory fruits and is limited.

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