SACRED WRITINGS IN HINDUISM
1. Mahabharata
One of the longest epic poems ever written is the Mahabharata. It is estimated that
it may have taken more than 600 years to create because it contains more than 200,000
verse lines and 1.8 million words. The oldest known writing is thought to have been written
around 400 BCE. Some others think that Ganesha, the Hindu god of fresh beginnings,
wrote down the poem and that the Mahabharata was initially narrated by Vyasa, who is
thought to be the greatest sage (really wise person) in Hindu history. The name
"Mahabharata" means "the great tale of the Bhrata dynasty" in Sanskrit. How majestic and
epic.
Two sets of cousins, the Pandava brothers and the Kauravas brothers, are the subject
of the poem's major narrative. These relatives engaged in a vicious war for control of a
region known as Hastinapur. The Kurukshetra War, a horrific eighteen-day combat that is
thought to have claimed the lives of 1.66 billion soldiers, brought this warfare to a close.
Arjuna played a significant role in this conflict and eliminated numerous Kauravas warriors
who were important and powerful. Along with adventure stories, there are also significant
teachings and advice on how to live a happy life. Things like sticking up for what you
believe in, the value of friendship, and the fact that greed is terrible and can bring you to
ruin.
2. Brahmana
Brahmana, any of a number of prose commentaries attached to the Vedas, the
earliest writings of Hinduism, explaining their significance as used in ritual sacrifices and
the symbolic import of the priests’ actions. The word brahmana may mean either the
utterance of a Brahman (priest) or an exposition on the meaning of the sacred word; the
latter is more commonly accepted by scholars.
The Brahmanas date from between 900 and 700 BCE, a time when the compilation
of religious songs into Samhitas (or "collections") had grown to be a significant Brahman
endeavor. They provide a summary of accumulated teachings on numerous ritual topics
and the hidden meanings of the sacred writings, portrayed by myth and legend. They are
the earliest surviving texts on the history of Indian ritual, and they mostly address sacrifice.
Chapters that are comparable in language and style to the Brahmanas but have a deeper
philosophical focus have been appended. These chapters clearly state that the subject
matter of these chapters should only be taught in the forest, away from the community.
Between the Brahmanas and the Upanishads, the speculative philosophical texts that make
up the most recent branch of Vedic literature, those later writings, known as Aranyakas,
functioned as a bridge.
3. Ramayana (Sanskrit for "The Romance of Rama" or “The Career of the Rama”)
A magnificent 24,000-verse epic poem. It is divided into seven books and
chronicles the exploits of Rama, also known as Ramachandra, the King of Ayodhya and
the God of Truth. The poem is credited to the poet Valmiki, but it was likely produced by
a number of authors, and over the ages, additional authors added to it. Not only in India
but also in other South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, the Ramayana is an essential
part of both religion and literature. Although it was initially written in Sanskrit, several
other languages have since been adapted. There are lots of variations. In terms of structure
and plot, the Ramayana is similar to the Odyssey. The tales may be based on Rama, a reallife ruler who contributed to the development of Hindu and Aryan ideologies in India.
Given their conviction, Hindu nationalists attacked a mosque in Adoyda in the 1980s that
was allegedly constructed on the site of Rama's birth.
4. Bhakti
A movement emphasizing the mutual intense emotional attachment and love of a
devotee toward a personal god and of the god for the devotee. According to the
Bhagavadgita, a Hindu religious text, the path of bhakti, or bhakti-marga, is superior to the
two other religious approaches, the path of knowledge (jnana) and the path of ritual and
good works (karma).
Bhakti arose in South India in the 7th to 10th centuries in poems that the Alvars
and the Nayanars composed in Tamil to the gods Vishnu and Shiva, respectively. Drawing
on earlier Tamil secular traditions of erotic poetry as well as royal traditions, bhakti poets
applied to the god what would usually be said of an absent lover or of a king. Bhakti soon
spread to North India, appearing most notably in the 10th-century Sanskrit text the
Bhagavata-purana. Muslim ideas of surrender to God may have influenced Hindu ideas of
bhakti from the start, and later poet-saints such as Kabir (1440–1518) introduced Sufi
(mystical) elements from Islam.
5. Rigveda
The Rig Veda is the earliest of the four Vedas and one of the most important texts
of the Hindu tradition. It is a large collection of hymns in praise of the gods, which are
chanted in various rituals. They were composed in an archaic language named Vedic that
gradually evolved into classical Sanskrit. The Rig Veda consists of 1028 hymns, organised
into ten books known as maṇḍalas. Each maṇḍala has sūktas (hymns) formed by individual
strophes called ṛc (ric) from which the name Rig Veda. The philological and linguistic
evidence indicates that the Rig Veda is one of the oldest existing texts in any IndoEuropean language and that probably originated from the region of present day Pakistan,
between 1500 and 1200 BCE. This manuscript, written on coarse paper by various scribes,
is a Padapātha version representing a word-by-word recitation of the hymns. The
accentuation marks in red are used to signal three main accents: udātta, acute; anudātta,
unmarked low, and svarita, grave accent.
References
Coleman, C. (2022). Mahabharata. Royal Armouries. Retrieved from
https://royalarmouries.org/stories/a-story-of-epic-proportions-mahabharata/
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Brahmana. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brahmana
Hays, J. (2018). Hindu texts: The Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana. Facts and
Details. Retrieved from https://factsanddetails.com/world/cat55/sub354/item1357.html
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.-a). Bhakti. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from
https://www.britannica.com/topic/bhakti
Rigveda. British Library. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/rig-veda