VEDA. This word (from the Sanskrit radical rid, to know '— kindrtal with the Latin rid-, Greek is., Gothic reit) literally means knowing,' or ' knowledge ;' but is emphatically used as the name of those ancient Sanskrit works which constitute the basis of Brahmanic belief, and are held by the Hindus to have been revealed to them by their deities. These works wore originally three, namely, the R'igreda, the rajarreda, and the Sdmareda. At a more recent period a fourth Veda was added to them, but it never obtained that degree of sanctity which was allowed to its predecessors ; it is not mentioned, for instance, in the ninth verse of the Purusha-afikta of the Irigveda, which speaks of the It'ig-, Same-, and Yajur-veda; nor in the ChhIndogya-Upanishad ; nor even in the law book of Mans* for though the latter refers on several occasions to the three Vedas, it speaks only ones (xl. 33) of " the revelations of the Atharvangirasas," by this expression alluding to, but not naming by name, the Atharvaveda; and even the writers on the Minitinatt, a doctrine that has for its object to clear up doubtful passages and to reconcile discrepancies of vaidik texts, sue merely concerned in those of the three former Vedas, not in those of the Atharvaveda.
Each of these four Vedas consists of two distinct parts : a Sanhitd or collection of Mantras, and a portion called Brahman'a.
dlantra (from man,' to think, that by which thinking is effected) mama a hymn or prayer. According to the definition given by the celebrated commentator of the Vedas,—in his work on the 31tmAnsel, the Jalmin1ya-nyttya-mtd5.vistara, and in hie introductions to the frigreda and Aitareya-brahman'a,—a Mantra is sometimes addressed to the divinity with a verb in the first person ; (sometimes it ends with the verb ' thou art,' or with the word ' thee;' now it mentions the performance of ritual acts, then it contains praises, invocations, injunctions, reflections, complaints, puts questions or re turns answers, 8:e. (Colobrooke, ' Misc. Ess.' i. p. 308; tiller, 'Ancient Sanskrit Literature,' p. 343 ; Goldstticker, ' Introduction to the Mituara Kalpa Sears, or MOW, p. 69.) The author of a Mantra, as wo should sey--or am the Hindu authorities state, the saint " by whom it was first spoken," the "seer" or " rememberer" of its text—in short the person age to whom the Mantra is supposed to have been revealed, is called its /CAL The deity to whom " the Rishi seeking for the accomplishment of his objects, addresses his praise," is its Deratd (YAska's Nirukta,' vii. 1). But since there are slfantras which contain neither petition nor adoration, the subject of such Mantras is considered as the deity that is spoken of ; for example, the praise of generosity is the Deratd of many entire hymns addreseed to princes from whom gifts were by the authors. (Colebr.,' Muse. Ens.' p, p. 22.) A Brdhman'a (neuter,—not to be confounded with the masculine word, or the name of the sacerdotal casto),—from Brahman, prayer, is twofold ; awarding to 3lielhava, it contains " either comsuandmenta or explanations;" hi other words, it gives directions for the performance of sacrificial acts, and explains the origin and object of the rite, by giving citations of hymn.", illustrations and legendary narratives, also by
speculatiors of a mystical and philosophical kind. The Iledlcman'a portion of the Vedas, is therefore the foundation of the Vaidik ritual, which became fully developed and systematised in the ritual works called the Ka/pa-Satra, ; and it is also the source whence sprang those mystical and theosophical writings, the A'ren'yales and rramislateb, which at a Later period expanded into the orthodox l'esidnta philosophy, and which are frequently referred to even by the other philosophical schools, though their orthodoxy is extremely doubtful and widely different from that of the Ved.Inta doctrine.
That there was originally but one text of each of the four Vedas is plausible enough. Tradition records that the son of Parfts'ara " having compiled and arranged the scriptures, theogonies and mythological poems, taught the several Vedas to as many disciples, namely, the lt'igveda to Pails, the Yajurveda to N'ais'ampslyana, the Sasnavedit to Jaintini, and the Atharvaveda to Sumantu." (Colebr., Misc. Has.' L p. 14. ; Wilson, lt'igveda, I. p. xx.) But inasmuch as these saints taught the lessons they had learned to their pupils, who in their turn communicated their knowledge to their disciples, and so forth, it is obvious that great variations must have crept into:the text ; and we know as a fact, that gradually many schools or Charon as arose, each giving preference to its own readings, and, as particularly in the case of the Yajurveda, to its own arrangement and distribution of the sacred text. Hence it came to pass, that each of these Vedas branched off into various S'aluis (branches), or as wo might say, into various editions, which though in the main concurring in their contents, nevertheless contained verbal differences enough to account for the divisions of their respective schools. A work which treats of these schools, the Charctn'aryaha, enumerates several of them by name, and states that five, sixty-eight, a thousand, and nine were the respective numbers of the Cb3.11111'aa of the .R'ig-, fajur-, Sdma-, and A tharra-recla. Very few only of these editions have comp down to us, and the loss of the greatest part of them is the more to be deplored, as they would probably hero enabled us to account for some (and important) differences in the verses common to some or all of these Vedas, and perhaps also for euperstitions of later times, which are said to be founded on, but aro not countenanced by, the text, as we possess it now, of the Itigveda Sophia.