Hari
09-21-2004, 08:02 PM
From http://www.indiadivine.org/vedas1.htm
What are the Vedas?
Veda means knowledge. The original knowledge is the teachings of the Vedas. In the conditioned state our knowledge is subjected to many deficiencies. There are four defects that a conditioned soul has: committing mistakes, subject to illusion, cheating propensity and imperfect senses. These deficiencies make us unfit for having perfect knowledge. Therefore we accept the Vedas as they are.
Vedas are apaurusheya, which means they are not compilations of human knowledge. Vedic knowledge comes from the spiritual world, from Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the beginning the first living creature was Brahma. He received the Vedic knowledge from Krishna.
Vedas are compared to desire tree because they contain all things knowable by man. They deal with mundane necessities as well as spiritual realization. Above and beyond all departments of knowledge there are specific directions for spiritual realization. Regulated knowledge involves a gradual raising of the living entity to the spiritual platform, through varna (brahmana - intellectual, kshatriya - ruler, vaishya - merchant, shudra - worker) and asrama (brahmacharya - student, grihastha - family, vanaprastha - retired, sannyasa - mendicant). The highest spiritual realization is knowledge that the Personality of Godhead is the reservoir of all pleasures, spiritual tastes.
Formerly there was only the Veda of the name Yajur. The sacrifices mentioned in the Vedas were means by which the people's occupations according to their orders of life (namely brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha and sannyasa) could be purified. To simplify the process and make them more easily performable, Vyasadeva (the empowered incarnation of Krishna) divided the one Veda into four, Rg (prayers), Yajur (hymns for oblations), Sama (same prayers and hymns in meters for singing), Atharva (body/world maintenance and destruction) in order to expand them among men.
Thus the original source of knowledge is the Vedas. There are no branches of knowledge either mundane or transcendental, which do not belong to the original texts of the Vedas. They have simply been developed into different branches. They were originally rendered by great seers. In other words, the Vedic knowledge broken into different branches by different disciplic successions (known as shakhas) has been distributed all over the world. No one, therefore, can claim independent knowledge beyond the Vedas.
The texts of the Vedas are known as Samhitas. Within these Samhitas there are portions known as Mantras, which contain prayers in the form of potent sound compounds revealed to great seers for different purposes. In the Vedic civilization three orders of life lived in the forests. Only grihasthas inhabited the cities. The regulated knowledge for living in the city, is revealed in the books known as Brahmanas, whereas the regulated knowledge for living in the forest is revealed in the books known as Aranyakas.
What are the Vedas?
Veda means knowledge. The original knowledge is the teachings of the Vedas. In the conditioned state our knowledge is subjected to many deficiencies. There are four defects that a conditioned soul has: committing mistakes, subject to illusion, cheating propensity and imperfect senses. These deficiencies make us unfit for having perfect knowledge. Therefore we accept the Vedas as they are.
Vedas are apaurusheya, which means they are not compilations of human knowledge. Vedic knowledge comes from the spiritual world, from Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the beginning the first living creature was Brahma. He received the Vedic knowledge from Krishna.
Vedas are compared to desire tree because they contain all things knowable by man. They deal with mundane necessities as well as spiritual realization. Above and beyond all departments of knowledge there are specific directions for spiritual realization. Regulated knowledge involves a gradual raising of the living entity to the spiritual platform, through varna (brahmana - intellectual, kshatriya - ruler, vaishya - merchant, shudra - worker) and asrama (brahmacharya - student, grihastha - family, vanaprastha - retired, sannyasa - mendicant). The highest spiritual realization is knowledge that the Personality of Godhead is the reservoir of all pleasures, spiritual tastes.
Formerly there was only the Veda of the name Yajur. The sacrifices mentioned in the Vedas were means by which the people's occupations according to their orders of life (namely brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha and sannyasa) could be purified. To simplify the process and make them more easily performable, Vyasadeva (the empowered incarnation of Krishna) divided the one Veda into four, Rg (prayers), Yajur (hymns for oblations), Sama (same prayers and hymns in meters for singing), Atharva (body/world maintenance and destruction) in order to expand them among men.
Thus the original source of knowledge is the Vedas. There are no branches of knowledge either mundane or transcendental, which do not belong to the original texts of the Vedas. They have simply been developed into different branches. They were originally rendered by great seers. In other words, the Vedic knowledge broken into different branches by different disciplic successions (known as shakhas) has been distributed all over the world. No one, therefore, can claim independent knowledge beyond the Vedas.
The texts of the Vedas are known as Samhitas. Within these Samhitas there are portions known as Mantras, which contain prayers in the form of potent sound compounds revealed to great seers for different purposes. In the Vedic civilization three orders of life lived in the forests. Only grihasthas inhabited the cities. The regulated knowledge for living in the city, is revealed in the books known as Brahmanas, whereas the regulated knowledge for living in the forest is revealed in the books known as Aranyakas.