Vedāṅgas
These are auxiliary disciplines which ensure the study and practice of the Vedas are perfect with no dilution to their purity, while also ensuring that their tradition and transfer to the next generation is protected along with its precision. A lot like ‘secured documents’. For example, in right pronunciation lies right meaning, and in right meaning lies the usage, purpose and right execution. Right execution reaps right results… And why is this a vidyāsthāna? Because during an era where there was no written document, knowledge transfer was oral and that needed to ensure completeness, accuracy and purity of transfer. These Vedāṅga were built-in trackers that ensured this purity, the authenticity, the process-propriety, one may say. Very importantly, guarding it against any frivolous corrupt additions.
1. For ṛg, the Vedāṅga associated to its essential content is śikṣā or the art of pronunciation, so crucial to Vedic mantra chanting, or uccāraṇa-śāstra. Even a hrasva in the place of a dīrgha would alter the meaning. Hence śikṣā. And it is śikṣā that has been the ready vehicle upon which the Vedas have ridden into the next generation, then the next, then the next, via oral tradition. We are able to immediately understand this, for the ṛg is about prayers and adorations of the deities, hence pronunciation is core to such prayers as they form a communication with the gods. It is said that the energy of a mantra lies in its pronunciation. Therefore, there is an inseparable connection between the śabda of an object and its artha. This is why the Taittirīya upaniṣad begins with the śīkṣāvallī—which deals with śikṣā or the study of phonetics or pronunciation. So it begins thus:
aum śīkṣām vyākhyāsyāmaḥ| varṇaḥ svaraḥ| mātrā balam| sāma santānaḥ ityuktaḥ śīkṣādhyāyaḥ|| Aum, we shall now explain the subject of pronunciation. The letters, tone, emphasis, articulation and combination. Thus, is explained as the study of pronunciation.
This call comes right at the start, getting the student to first get the pronunciation right. For, for any adoration, praise, glorification to reach the deities it is critical that it is intoned correctly! The correct meaning lies in the right intonation.
2. For the Yajur, the Vedāṅga is Kalpa. This Vedāṅga concerns itself with the procedures and ceremonies associated with Vedic ritual practice, hence the karma-kāṇḍa.
There are four Kalpa-sūtra—
Śrauta-sūtra that relate to the use of the śruti corpus in ritual (‘kalpa’) and the correct performance of these rituals.
Dharma-sūtra deal with customs, rituals, duties and law—in short, behaviours and conducts recognised by a community. Hence, all the saṁskāras—the ṣoḍaśa saṁskāras starting from garbhādāna saṁskāras to śrāddha saṁskāras.
Śulba-sūtra deal with the mathematical methodology to construct altar geometries for the Vedic rituals, hence all laws of geometry are included in this. For example one of the Baudhāyana-śulbasūtra state that the squares of any rectangle’s width and length add up to the square of its diagonal. This is known in western literature as the Pythagorean theorem.
One aspect that śulba-sūtra concern themselves with is constructing the yajñavedī, the altar where offerings are made to Lord Agni. No wonder then that geometry is core to this kalpa-sūtra.
The gṛhya-sūtra prescribe Vedic rituals, pertaining to wedding, birth celebration, name-giving and coming of age.
The gṛhya-sūtra are the codes of conduct and rituals governing householders, detailing these across the four āśrama s that his life will traverse, the varṇa s, their characteristics and the corresponding Āpad-dharma too, i.e., conduct that are permitted during calamities (when one’s own dharma may be in conflict.
The above are explained in more detail just to give the flavour. But other Vedāṅgas which too are extremely crucial to the preservation and propagation of the Vedas are: vyākaraṇa—grammar, nirukta (a dictionary that concerns itself with correct interpretation of Sanskrit words in the Vedas, demanding a grounding in vyākaraṇa ). Grammar is readily understood as all languages are scaffolded in grammar. Nirukta is a sort of glossary that explains the old world Sanskrit words that find common usage in the Vedas.
Chhandas or prosody is brilliant. It is like an automatic auditor. Every Veda is in a given meter. So if anyone either through scribal error or accident changes the mātrā of a word, or adds an extra akṣara, the meter will go wrong and Chhandas is what catches this error from flowing into the future. All these have to be understood from the standpoint of an era that was dedicated to the Vedas and worked at passing on an error-free heritage through checks and balances found in the Vedāṅga s.
Jyotiṣa or astronomy one of the oldest natural sciences that studies everything that originates outside the Earth’s atmosphere. This is not the science of prediction as we have commonly known jyotiṣa in the modern limited world, but the science of perfect timing for yajña.
Thus, the 14 vidyāsthāna are the four Vedas, the four Upavedas and the six Vedāṅgas and everything out there in the realm of education is linked to one of these in inscrutable ways and these constitute the bedrock of all knowledge in the Indian Tradition.
So what we see is that at the heart of all these knowledge centers, is the Veda itself.
Meaning, Origin, Authorship of Vedas
The word Vedas is derived from root, ‘Vid’ and mean: *to be, to know, to contemplate/ponder, to obtain, prāptau. Hence Veda is ‘exists’, is knowledge, gives us enough to contemplate upon and Veda is the means to obtain the mundane or the transcendental.
Vedokhilo dharmamūlam—
The roots of Dharma are founded in the Vedas OR,
the Vedas are the foundation and roots of Dharma.
The entire root of Sanātana-dharma lies in the Vedas. The Sāyaṇācārya of the 14th Century has written: the purpose of Veda is iṣṭaprāpti (to help a person realise his material desires) and aniṣṭaparihārārtham (ward off or dispel unwelcome, unwanted, unpleasant outcomes) through the use of worship practices prescribed in the Vedas. The Vedas are that scripture which indicate the means by which you get what you desire and dispel, get rid of what is undesirable.
Even as the means to our peace and happiness resides in the Vedas, it is lost to us, and this accounts for why we are plunged in darkness. What does that mean?
The key to the hidden treasure of Indian Knowledge Tradition and the key to accessing this treasure is silk-wrapped in Sanskrit and we are not giving importance to the language, and that is what will unravel all that we need. How fabulous and yet how frightening. Frightening because if we do not propagate and grow the Sanskrit language, this treasure will be lost to us forever. Fabulous, because there remain some scholars who hold this key and they have the compassion to share the treasure with us, in a language we comprehend.
So where lies the origin of the Vedas? In the answer to this, if we pay attention, lies a truth that is marvellous.
The Atharva Veda says:
Vedas were created by Time from the remnants of sacrifice and are but a breath of the Brahman—
… the exhalation of the great being Brahman, so affirm other texts too. Śrī Ādi Śaṅkara interprets this as: For Brahman, the Vedas are as natural as inhalation and exhalation.
This means that Knowledge is the very essence of Brahman and does not have a distinct point of origination. If Brahman is beginningless and endless, so is Knowledge and the Vedas are a modification of that same Brahman. Hence, the Vedas too are without beginning or end and to allude any origination to them distinct from Brahman is faulty.
It is said that the Vedas were ‘revealed’ to some rishis and it was they who composed the Vedic hymns. This can be understood similar to how the Theory of Gravity revealed itself to Newton. Gravity was always there, but he figured it, experimented with it and then concluded the knowledge, and gave it name and explanation. Hence, in ordinary definition, the Vedas are not ‘composed’, or manmade. They are apauruṣeya.
And Maharṣi Veda-vyāsa who collated and compiled the Vedas, gave one each to each of his disciples: ṛg was given to Paila—(the sabhāparva and śāntiparva of the Mahābhārata say Paila rṣi attended the rājasūya-yajña of Yudhiṣṭhira and also visited Bhīṣma on his bed of arrows!); Yajur-veda was given to Vaiśampāyana; Sāma-veda to Jaiminī and Atharva-veda to Sumantu.
