The ancient literature
• The crowning glory of the
Indian civilization.
•No other part of the world
has produced such
voluminous literature of
knowledge and wisdom.
The Vedas
• are the most celebrated
possessions of the Indian
civilization.
• reflect the growth and
development of human
thought
•picture of the transformation
of a prakrit man into a
sanskrit man.
The meaning of the word “Veda”
The word ‘Veda’
originates from the
Sanskrit root Vid.
The Sanskrit verb
‘Vid’ means ‘to
know’. The word
‘Veda’ literally
means knowledge.
The Vedic Literature
•
Shruti literature :
the knowledge attained by the rishis while
doing their Tapasaya or Sadhna or in their
“Supra-normal Consciousness”, as Shri
Aurobindo said.
The Vedic Literature (contd.)
• Smriti literarure :
Smriti literature is
concerned with ‘that what
is remembered’, knowledge
acquired through the
experience or the tradition
• For instance the Manu
Smriti .
The Vedic Literature (contd.)
•The vedic literature has been derived
from Shruti literature.
•The Vedas are considerd divine and
eternal.
•The Vedas : “knowledge par
excellence”.
Origin of Vedas
• The Vedas are among the oldest sacred
texts in the world dating from c. 1500500BCE.
• Rigveda : roughly around 1700-1100
BCE
and the last veda
• Atharvaveda : 900 BCE
Origin of Vedas (contd.)
• However it is
believed that Shri
Ved Vyasa
compiled all the
works of rishis
into four parts
known to us as
the Four Vedas.
The Four Vedas
• The four Vedas are
the Rig Veda;
• the Yajur Veda;
• the Sama Veda and
• the Atharva Veda.
•
The Rig Veda
• The Rig Veda is the oldest of all
the Vedas.
• composed of 10552 mantras.
• knower is known as Ritwik
• contains knowledge of science,
matter of the universe like sun,
moon, air etc.
The Yajur Veda
• smallest of all the four Vedas.
• The knower of this Veda is known as
Adhvaryu.
• gives knowledge of all the deeds
and duties to be performed by men
or women, students, leaders, king,
agriculturist etc.
The Sama Veda
• has 1875 mantras.
• The knower of this Veda is
known as Udgata.
• gives knowledge how to worship
God;
• details of Yoga philosophy is
included in this veda.
The Atharva Veda
• special place in the field of
philosophy and spiritualism.
• knower of this Veda is known as
Brahma.
• has 760 hymns, and about 160 of the
hymns are in common with the RigVeda.
• details of medical science and of
medicine etc. it also contains Mantras
used in marriage and death rituals, as
well as those for kingship,
Vedanta
• The word Vedanta is a compound word made up of
two Sanskrit words: ‘Veda’ and ‘Anta’.
• broadly covers the philosophy enunciated by the holy
Scriptural Trinity –
the Upanishads,
the Brahma-Sutra and
the Bhagavad Gita.
• "The goal, which all Vedas declare, which all austerities
aim at, and which humans desire when they live a life
of continence, I will tell you briefly it is Aum" (1.2.15)
Vedic Impacts
1.Literature
2. Science
3.Mathematics
4.Music
5.Practices and Religion
Literature
• Eliot:
• The Waste Land ends with the
reiteration of the Three Cardinal
Virtues damyata (restraint),
datta (charity) and dayadhvam
(compassion) and
• ends with Shantih shantih
shantih
• Prof. Philip R. Headings has
remarked in his study of the
poet, "No serious student of
Eliot's poetry can afford to
ignore his early and continued
interest in the Bhagavad Gita."
• Henry David Thoreau:
"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the
stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the
Bhagavad Gita."
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) : his poem
Hamatreya was inspired by a passage from the
Vedas. He was concerned with the subject of
illusion –maya and wrote a poem on the same.
• Francois Voltaire stated: "... everything has come
down to us from the banks of the Ganges.“
• Vishnu Sharma’s Panchtantra
Science
Cosmology:
French astronomer Jean-Claude
Bailly stated "the movements
of the stars calculated 4,500
years ago, does not differ by a
minute from the tables of
today.“
Metallurgical Science:
Cast in approximately the 3rd
century B.C., the six and a half
ton pillar has sustained over
two millennia.
• Vedic sounds and mantras :
• A Clinical Test of the Benefits of
Mantra Chanting was performed
on three groups of sixty-two
subjects .
They chanted the Hare Krishna
Maha Mantra twenty-five minutes
each day under strict clinical
supervision.
• Mantra reduces Stress and
depression and helps reduce bad
habits & addictions.
• These results formed a PhD Thesis
at Florida State University
•
Yoga and Ayurveda :
Mathematics
• The decimal system , the introduction of zero
and the concept of infinity.
• Voltaire, the famous French writer and
philosopher) stated that "Pythagoras went to
the Ganges to learn geometry."
• Abraham Seidenberg, author of the
authoritative "History of Mathematics,"
credits the Sulba Sutras as inspiring all
mathematics of the ancient world from
Babylonia to Egypt to Greece.
• The speed of light: Rig veda(I-54)
Yojananam sahastra dwe dwe shate dwe cha
yojane aken nimishardhena krammana
namostute.
•
8
3.0*10( ) m/s upto two decimal places.
Music
• Beatles:
• Recorded the
“White Album” after
their time with an
Indian mystic based
on the antimaterialism and the
vedic transcendental
thoughts.
Commonplace practices and Religion
•
•
•
•
Culture
Rituals and ceremonies
Prayers
lifestyle and thinking.
Misinterpretation of the Vedas
• Caste system
• Irrationality
• Mysticism
Conclusion
• Vedas:
the unexplored ocean of
knowledge.
Bibliography
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas
• http://images.google.co.in/
• http://indianscriptures.50webs.com/