What are the Vedas and the Upanishads?

The Vedas are a large body of religious texts from ancient India, composed in Vedic Sanskrit. They form the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. There are four: the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda. The Upanishads are the fourth and last section of each Veda. They contain discussions of meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge. [1] [2]

Each Veda has four layers. The Samhitas are mostly hymns praising gods, together with mantras and benedictions. The Brahmanas mostly describe and explain Vedic rituals. The Aranyakas also concern ritual and sacrifice, and the Upanishads come last. In the Aranyakas and Upanishads there is a growing emphasis on understanding what ritual means. [2] [1]

One textbook gives the date of the four Vedas as between 1500 and 900 BCE, composed by Indo-Aryan tribes in northern India, with the Rigveda the oldest. For hundreds of years the texts were passed on by oral recitation, which is why they are called shruti, meaning what is heard. This sets them apart from smriti, meaning what is remembered. [3] [1]

The Upanishads were composed orally in Sanskrit in a ritual context, yet they mark the start of reasoned inquiry into the nature of being, the self, death and the good life. They contain some of the oldest discussions of atman (the self), brahman (ultimate reality), karma, yoga, samsara and moksha. These terms stayed central to later Indian philosophy. Some passages leave the ritual setting entirely and examine life, death, the body and reality in naturalistic terms. [2]

The word is usually explained as coming from Sanskrit roots meaning near, down and sit, because students sat at their teachers' feet. The texts also mix creation myths, ritual interpretation, teacher lineages and dialogues involving sages and kings. There are 13 principal Upanishads. One source says more than 100 minor ones exist, and another gives the traditional count as 108. [3] [2] [4]

Sources differ on dates. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy places the principal Upanishads between about 700 and 300 BCE. It puts the earlier group, including the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya, at 700 to 500 BCE, before the Buddhist and Jain traditions emerged. It dates the later group, such as the Katha, Isha and Shvetashvatara, to 300 to 100 BCE, and it describes the later texts as more theistic. OpenStax gives a wider range of 800 to 200 BCE. [2] [3]

Academic and traditional views also differ. Academic works often treat the Upanishads as separate from the Veda, while the Hindu tradition regards them as Vedic. Several Hindu schools of philosophy treat all the Vedic Upanishads as timeless revealed knowledge and so do not use a historical chronology. Hindus generally consider the Vedas apaurusheya, meaning not of human origin. [5] [2] [1]