Om Nasada Sino Sada Asit Tadanim Nasit Rajonuvyo Oma Paroyat Kimavari Vakuhakasya Sharmanam Vakimasit Mantra is being uttered for a Hindu ritual. Actually, this is the first two mantras from Rig Veda, Samhita. And in the 10th mandala, there is a very famous suktam called Nasadiya suktam, which has seven mantras. And these seven mantras indeed talk about the origin of the universe.
So there are a lot of people all over the world. actually reading these seven mantras and trying to understand what it is talking about the origin of the universe. So this is a sample from the Vedic corpus.
Since we are going to talk about Vedic corpus, I thought let me just recite this mantra to tell you that there are a lot of such very important and interesting things which are part of the Vedas. So now the question is what are Vedas? We will start from there. The word Veda is generally derived from the Sanskrit root Vid.
Vid means to know. So Veda in some way is a set of knowledge, vast body of knowledge. And what is this knowledge? This is about eternal spiritual values and principles, practices for gainful and happy living. And these are actually ideas revealed to the rishis through their deep meditation.
And of course, these are preserved and transmitted through an oral tradition. Therefore, Vedas are called Shruti. Shruti means that which is heard. So this is what Vedas is in a nutshell.
Now, Hindu tradition accords Vedas the highest position in its canonical literature. I would say, rather than Hindu tradition, I would say Sanatana Dharma tradition accords Vedas the highest position in its canonical literature. And it is revered as the basic scriptures.
It is also considered the fountainhead of Indian culture and human civilization. And you may be surprised to know, UNESCO has recognized Vedas as a heritage for preservation. See, normally what happens, heritage is some building, some monument, some kind of old structure and so on.
But this is nothing but an assemblage of sound. But UNESCO felt that this must be preserved as a heritage. That's very interesting about Vedas.
And of course, there has been a lot of Western approach in the last 200 plus years to study the Vedas. And for them, it is more an intellectual and a linguistic exercise because they have not been part of the culture. So they may not know the cultural angle, but it is more as an intellectual and a linguistic exercise. Now there are three broad issues. addressed in Vedas.
It's easy to put it in roughly three sort of compartments. The first one, one can call it as Karmakanda. Basically, it's about a lot of things that we can do in our day-to-day life, how to lead a life from morning to evening.
But if you look at it, it basically nudges an individual to obtain purity of mind at the end of the day as we actively engage in the world. So those kind of ideas... I may call it as Karmakanda. Then you have what is called a second set called Upasana Kanda. Upasana means focusing on something.
So Upasana Kanda helps an individual develop single-pointedness of mind through contemplation and focus. Therefore, there are exercises to contemplate and focus on something. That kind of ideas are there, which is very important to us at some point in time. It's very very important for us.
And the third is Jnana Kanda which indeed opens the mind of an individual to its limits. and facilitates much deeper inquiry about oneself, about nature, about the universe. So many things that we always want to know. Such ideas are also there which we call it as Jnana Kanda. Now before we go further, let me show you a quick graphic.
Because in Vedic living, one of the primary thing is doing sacrifices, Yajnas. So I am just showing you here. A nice pictorial representation of the Yajna. So basically there is an Yajna, the altar is there, right? That's where the Aghuti, everything they do.
And it is done by the Ejamana and his Ejamana Patni, his wife, because they are the Adhikaris. They are the one who are going to do the Yajna. And you see there, there are four groups of people.
You have Hothirgana, which means there is a Hotha who is sort of a captain. and three assistants for them. Similarly, you have Advaryugana, again an Advaryu who is the head and three more people to assist.
You have Udgatrugana, you have the Udgatha, again three of his assistants and Brimmagana, there is one Brimma and assisted by three people. So, four into four, sixteen. These Ejamana and Ejamana Patni, so the eighteen people make up the structure and each one of them come from a particular Veda.
For example, the Hothir Gana is from Rig Veda, the Advariya Gana is from Yajur Veda, the Udgathir Gana is from Sama Veda and the Brahma Gana is from Atharva Veda and all of them have specific roles to play. So essentially it is a nice sort of a project management kind of a structure where there are definite roles, people take responsibilities. And, you know, for example, the Brimma Gana is like a supervisory role.
They need to make sure what the other three Ganas are doing or doing properly. And if there are issues and real-time challenges, they will have to refer back to the Brimma Gana. And so they take responsibility for quality control.
So many of what we talked today were all in existence. So I thought I will just show you. So all that I have now done to you is very quickly introduce to you that there are four Vedas. By showing this Egnia, I have only tried to tell you that there are four Vedas. I think we need to understand it in a little more detail, which we will do going forward.