The ancient literature The crowning glory of the Indian civilization. No other part of the world has produced such voluminous literature of knowledge.

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. 1500-500BCE.

• 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 Rig-Veda.

• 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.

• 3.0*10(8) m/s upto two decimal places.

Music

• Beatles:• Recorded the

“White Album” after their time with an Indian mystic based on the anti-materialism 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/