So, in the last video, we just quickly understood that there are four Vedas. What we will do now is, we will spend a little more time and try to see what these are. Not in a very detailed fashion, but we will do a quick introduction. Vedas actually existed for a long time.
Historicity of Vedas, people have not been able to establish. although some of the researchers have taken it to 5000 years back and so on or 8000 years back and so on. But since they existed for a long time, there was a need to organize them very systematically. That need was felt so that the society can put it to a certain kind of a use.
So all these were thought about and Krishna Dwipayana, who was also known as Vyasa, What he did was, he did this important task of collecting all of them and putting it into certain sort of compartments, if I may say. And he appointed four disciples to propagate it down the generations. And that's how the four Vedas came, Rig Veda, Ajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda.
So let us very quickly know a couple of things about each of them. Rig Veda is represents the earliest sacred book of India, oldest and biggest amongst all four Vedas. 10,700 odd mantras are there in Rig Veda Samhita. And these are nothing but the utterances of the Vedic sages on variety of topics in the form of poetry.
Just now, in the previous video, I recited a mantra which is actually about origin of the universe. So, a lot of different topics. in which they have thought through and then contemplated and recorded all of them.
And as I already showed you, we saw earlier, the Rig Veda priest is known as Hotha or Hothra, who employs the mantras to sing the praise of the Devata invoked. In that Yajna, the Rig Veda people sing hymns in praise of the Devata, the Devata is invoked. The Yajur Veda act.
actually does the Yajna. They know the know-how. They are entitled to do actual Yajna.
Then the Samyavedas take some of the Rig Veda mantras and beautifully sing a song. Even today, when we invite somebody for a dinner or some socialization, maybe when we are having a dessert, there is a nice music we play at the background. So, it is something like that. So, the Samyavedins actually sing in praise by nice songs and so on. So, we will see all of them.
So Rig Veda priest is Hotha. That's what it is. And as I told you, Rig Veda has discussed a variety of topics. Origin of universe, marriage, nature and its importance.
So many of them. In another video, we will see a little more details of what kind of issues. So I'm not really getting into the details now. We will see it in some detail also.
Rig Veda is organized. That also we will see a little later. I am only quickly introducing to you what it has in a couple of sentences and so on.
Then comes Yajur Veda, the second one. And Yajur Veda, the word is derived from the root Yaj. Yaj means to worship with sacrifice, to perform a sacrifice.
From that only the word Yaj has come. All mantras in Yajur Veda are called Yajus. All mantras in Rig Veda is called Riks.
So, you know, that's how it is. And as I told you, Yajur Veda confines itself to the major issue of conducting the sacrifices. They are the ones who will do.
Therefore, Yajur Veda has details on various Yajnas that are to be performed. And what is different from Rig Veda is Rig Veda is in poetic form. They are all in... you know meters, two line, four line like that. Whereas, Yajurveda is in a prose form.
It is in paragraphs. That is the difference because these are all instructions and so on. So typically they are all written in you know certain paragraphs and so on. And as I told you Yajurveda priest is called Advaryu.
and he is in charge of the performance of the sacrifices. As I showed you, he may have three more assistants to help him with the act of doing the sacrifice and so on. And Yajurveda has two major branches.
One branch is called Krishna Yajurveda. Krishna means black. And another is called Shukla Yajurveda. Shukla means white.
Why it is called black and white? There are some stories. Let us not worry too much about that.
The fact is there is a Krishna Yajurveda. and a Shukla Yajurveda. And the Krishna portion is a mixture of prose and poetry. On the other hand, if you take the Shukla Yajurveda, it's entirely in poetry.
So, the Shukla Yajurveda is similar to Rig Veda because everything is in poetic form. And as I already told you, the major topic in Yajurveda is sacrifice. Of course, every Veda has many other topics because it is an opportunity to share the knowledge.
That was the idea of all these Vedas. So therefore, the other topics discussed in Yajur Veda includes human anatomy, metals, constellation, seasons, numbers, geometry, grains, yogic insights, like this. These kinds of issues are also found in Yajur Veda. The third Veda is Sama Veda.
And again, this word Sama Veda is derived from the Sanskrit root Sama. Sama means to please, pacify or satisfy. So basically that is their job.
They will beautifully sing a song which are there in Rig Veda in praise of certain Devatas. They will sing it so that they can satisfy and please the gods. That is the role that they are supposed to play. And the Sama Veda priest is called Udgathra or Udgatha and he sings all these mantras once the offering is made by the Ejurvayas. So look at the structure now.
The Rig Veda people bring the Devata. Ejur Veda people make the offering. And the Samo Veda people sing in praise of the Devata and please them. So that is how, this is exactly what we do if we want a promotion also in today's life. You know, we want our boss and then we want to be nice to the boss.
We tell you are good and all that, you get your promotion. So if you want some material riches, looks like there is a way by which we need to do things. So we see a very similar kind of a pattern there.
And the Rig Veda mantras are said to music because it is for singing. If you actually listen to Samaveda music, it is so good actually. The mantras are related to musical scales, similar to the seven scales of classical music which we have now.
So in some sense, one can say the origin of Indian classical music actually lies in Samaveda. So that's what we see in Samaveda. So, thousand branches existed in Samaveda, which merely indicates how versatile the singing of the mantras has been. That's why you have thousand branches.
But unfortunately, almost all of them are extinct now. I think there are only three remaining now. Even three are endangered species, actually. Now, there are two parts. Samaveda can be broadly looked at as two parts.
The first part is called Purvarchikam. and the second part is called Uttararchikam. And in terms of how many mantras, I think there are varied numbers, not exactly known.
People count anywhere between 1550 to 1950 kind of mantras. I also don't know exactly how many because different sources are saying different things. But one thing that we can say is, except for a very few set of mantras, I think some 75 or so, the rest are all borrowed from Rig Veda. It borrows the Rig Veda hymns and sings them. That's something which we are aware of.
Then the last Veda is Atharva Veda. See, if you read the Indian scriptures and some of these old scriptures, they will say Trayi or Tri Veda. Earlier, it was just three parts.
And I think it was Vyasa who felt maybe we can cull out a certain set of portion and make the fourth part of it. Therefore, Atharva Veda is in some sense believed to be a later, rather than saying addition, maybe part of it is addition, part of it is reclassification of the original set from the other three Vedas. That's how we can take it. And Atharva Veda priest is known as Brahma. whose main job is the overall coordination and monitoring of the entire Vedic ritual, which I already talked about earlier.
And one-sixth of the mantras in Atharva Veda are taken from Rig Veda. So, Rig Veda is the primordial source in some ways. Even Yajur Veda also has taken some mantras from Rig Veda. And Atharva Veda in all has about 6077 mantras. which are organized under 736 Suktas.
That's how they are all organized. So this is how is the quick understanding of the Vedas which are divided into four major portions. But each Veda is also divided. That we will see in a later video.