Introdction and Sacred Scriptures -11

Vyasa

Vyasa (Devanagari:  स, vyāsa) is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is also sometimes called Veda Vyasa ( , veda vyāsa), (the one who classified the Vedas in to four parts) or Krishna Dvaipayana (referring to his complexion and birthplace). He is the author as well as a character in the Mahabharata and considered to be the scribe of both the Vedas, and the supplementary texts such as the Puranas. A number of Vaishnava traditions regard him as an Avatar of Vishnu.^[1] Vyasa is sometimes conflated by some Vaishnavas with Badarayana, the author of the Vedanta Sutras. Vyāsa is also considered to be one of the seven Chiranjivins (long lived, or immortals), who are still in existence according to general Hindu belief. He is also the fourth member of the Rishi Parampara of the Advaita Guru Paramparā of which Adi Shankara is the chief proponent.
The festival of Guru Purnima, is dedicated to him, and also known as Vyasa Purnima as it is the day, which is believed to be his birthday and also the day he divided the Vedas.

In the Mahabharata

Vyasa appears for the first time as the author of, and an important character in the Mahābhārata. He was the son of Satyavati, daughter of a ferryman or fisherman,^[4] and the wandering sage Parashara. He was born on an island in the river Yamuna. The place is named after him as Vedvyas, possibly the modern-day town of Kalpi in the Jalaun district of Uttar Pradesh. He was dark-complexioned and hence may be called by the name Krishna (black), and also the name Dwaipayana, meaning 'island-born'.
Vyasa was grandfather to the Kauravas and Pandavas. Their fathers, Dhritarashtra and Pandu, adopted as the sons of Vichitravirya by the royal family, were fathered by him. He had a third son, Vidura, by a serving maid.

Veda Vyasa

Hindus traditionally hold that Vyasa categorised the primordial single Veda into four. Hence he was called Veda Vyasa, or "Splitter of the Vedas," the splitting being a feat that allowed people to understand the divine knowledge of the Veda. The word vyasa means split, differentiate, or describe.
It has been debated whether Vyasa was a single person or a class of scholars who did the splitting. The Vishnu Purana has a theory about Vyasa.^{[citation needed]} The Hindu view of the universe is that of a cyclic phenomenon that comes into existence and dissolves repeatedly. Each cycle is presided over by a number of Manus, one for each Manvantara, that has four ages, Yugas of declining virtues. The Dvapara Yuga is the third Yuga. The Vishnu Purana (Book 3, Ch 3) says:
In every third world age (Dvapara), Vishnu, in the person of Vyasa, in order to promote the good of mankind, divides the Veda, which is properly but one, into many portions. Observing the limited perseverance, energy, and application of mortals, he makes the Veda fourfold, to adapt it to their capacities; and the bodily form which he assumes, in order to effect that classification, is known by the name of Veda-vyasa. Of the different Vyasas in the present Manvantara and the branches which they have taught, you shall have an account. Twenty-eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara... and consequently eight and twenty Vyasas have passed away; by whom, in the respective periods, the Veda has been divided into four. The first... distribution was made by Svayambhu (Brahma) himself; in the second, the arranger of the Veda (Vyasa) was Prajapati... (and so on up to twenty-eight).

Author of the Mahābhārata

Vyasa is traditionally known as author of this epic. But he also features as an important character in it. His mother later married the king of Hastinapura, and had two sons. Both sons died without issue and hence their mother asked Vyasa to go to the beds of the wives of her dead son Vichitravirya.
Vyasa fathers the princes Dhritarashtra and Pandu by Ambika and Ambalika. Vyasa told them that they should come alone near him. First did Ambika, but because of shyness and fear she closed her eyes. Vyasa told Satyavati that this child would be blind. Later this child was named Dhritarāshtra. Thus Satyavati sent Ambālika and warned her that she should remain calm. But Ambālika's face became pale because of fear. Vyasa told her that child would suffer from anaemia, and he would not be fit enough to rule the kingdom. Later this child was known as Pāndu. Then Vyasa told Satyavati to send one of them again so that a healthy child can be born. This time Ambika and Ambālika sent a maid in the place of themselves. The maid was quite calm and composed, and she got a healthy child later named as Vidura. While these are his sons, another son Śuka, born of his wife, sage Jābāli's daughter Pinjalā (Vatikā),^[5] is considered his true spiritual heir. He makes occasional appearances in the story as a spiritual guide to the young princes.
In the first book of the Mahābhārata, it is described that Vyasa asked Ganesha to aid him in writing the text, however Ganesha imposed a condition that he would do so only if Vyasa narrated the story without pause. To which Vyasa then made a counter-condition that Ganesha must understand the verse before he transcribed it.
Thus Lord VedVyas narrated the whole Mahābhārata and all the Upanishads and the 18 Puranas, while Lord Ganesha wrote.
Vyasa is supposed to have meditated and authored the epic by the foothills of the river Beas (Vipasa) in the Punjab region^{[citation needed]}.
There is an ashram of vedavyasa in Vedhagiri. It is believed that pandavas visited vyasa at vedhagiri and got advise during there vanavasa (exile period). The remnants of the ashram is still there on the top of Vedhagiri hill.^{[citation needed]}

Vyasa's Jaya

Vyasa's Jaya, the core of Mahābhārata is structured in the form of a dialogue between Dhritarashtra (the Kuru king and the father of the Kauravas, who opposed the Pāndavas in the Kurukshetra War) and Sanjaya, his advisor and chariot driver. Sanjaya narrates each incident of the Kurukshetra War, fought in 18 days, as and when it happened. Dhritarāshtra sometimes asks questions and doubts and sometimes laments, knowing about the destruction caused by the war, to his sons, friends and kinsmen.
In the beginning Sanjaya gives a description of the various continents of the Earth, the other planets, and focuses on the Indian Subcontinent and gives an elaborate list of hundreds of kingdoms, tribes, provinces, cities, towns, villages, rivers, mountains, forests etc. of the (ancient) Indian Subcontinent (Bhārata Varsha). He also explains about the 'military formations adopted by each side on each day, the death of each hero and the details of each war-racings. Some 18 chapters of Vyasa's Jaya constitutes the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred text of the Hindus. Thus, this work of Vyasa, called Jaya deals with diverse subjects like geography, history, warfare, religion and morality.

Ugrasrava Sauti's Mahābhārata

The final version of Vyasa's work is today's Mahābhārata, structured as a narration by Ugrasrava Sauti who was a professional story teller, to an assembly of (rishis) who had just attended the 12 years sacrifice of Saunaka also named as kulapati in the forest of Naimisha. Bharata^{[clarification needed]} is embedded inside it, and within it Jaya.^{[citation needed]}

Reference to writing

Within the Mahābhārata, there is a tradition in which Vyasa wishes to write down or inscribe his work:

The Grandsire Brahma (creator of the universe) comes and tells Vyasa to get the help of Ganapati for his task. Ganapati writes down the stanzas recited by Vyasa from memory and thus the Mahābhārata is inscribed or written. Ganapati could not cope with Vyasa's speed and he misses many words or even stanzas.^{[citation needed]}

There is some evidence however that writing may have been known earlier based on archeological findings of styli in the Painted Grey Ware culture, dated between 1100 BC and 700 BC.^[6][7][8] and archeological evidence of the Brahmi script being used from at least 600 BC.^[9]
The difficulty faced by Ganapati (Ganesha) in writing down Mahābhārata as described in the tradition, could be real, and was most probably faced by those people who first attempted to write it down as some reciter recited it continuously. This is because, the reciter will not be able to stop in the middle of recitation and then resume it, as the lines are committed to his memory as a continuous recording.

In the Puranas

Vyasa is also credited with the writing of the eighteen major, if not all, Purāṇas. His son Shuka is the narrator of the major Purāṇa Bhagavat-Purāṇa.

In Buddhism

Within Buddhism Vyasa appears as Kanha-dipayana (the Pali version of his name) in two Jataka tales: the Kanha-dipayana Jataka and Ghata Jataka. Whilst the former in which he appears as the Bodhisattva has no relation to his tales from the Hindu works, his role in the latter one has parallels in an important event in the Mahabharata.
In the 16th book of the epic, Mausala Parva, the end of the Vrishnis, clansmen of Vyasa's namesake and Krishna is narrated. The epic says: One day, the Vrishni heroes .. saw Vishvamitra, Kanwa and Narada arrived at Dwaraka. Afflicted by the rod of chastisement wielded by the deities, those heroes, causing Samba to be disguised like a woman, approached those ascetics and said, ‘This one is the wife of Vabhru of immeasurable energy who is desirous of having a son. Ye Rishis, do you know for certain what this one will bring forth?Those ascetics, attempted to be thus deceived, said: ‘This heir of Vasudeva, by name Samba, will bring forth a fierce iron bolt for the destruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.
The important Bhagavata Purana (book 11) too narrates the incident in a similar manner and names the sages as Visvāmitra, Asita, Kanva, Durvāsa, Bhrigu, Angirâ, Kashyapa, Vâmadeva, Atri, Vasishthha, along with Nârada and others - it does not explicitly include Vyasa in the list.
The Ghata Jataka has a different version: The Vrishnis, wishing to test Kanha-dipayana's powers of clairvoyance, played a practical joke on him. They tied a pillow to the belly of a young lad, and dressing him up as a woman, took him to the ascetic and asked when the baby would be born. The ascetic replied that on the seventh day the person before him would give birth to a knot of acacia wood which would destroy the race of Văásudeva. The youths thereupon fell on him and killed him, but his prophecy came true .

Vyas In Sikhism

In Brahm Avtar composition present in Dasam Granth, Second Scripture of Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh mentioned Rishi Vyas as avtar of Brahma.^[10] He is considered as fifth incarnation of Brahma. Guru Gobind Singh had written brief account of compositions of Rishi Vyas, which he wrote about great kings like King manu, King Prithu, king Bharath, KingJujat, King Ben, King mandata, King Dilip, King RaghuRaj and King Aj.^[10][11] Guru Gobind Singh attributed him the store of vedic learning^[12]

In the Arthashastra

Arthashastra of Chanakya (Kautilya), Vyasa has an interesting entry. In chapter 6 of the first Department, it says:
'Whosoever is of reverse character, whoever has not his organs of sense under his control, will soon perish, though possessed of the whole earth bounded by the four quarters. For example: Bhoja, known also by the name, Dándakya, making a lascivious attempt on a Bráhman maiden, perished along with his kingdom and relations; so also Karála, the Vaideha... Vátápi in his attempt under the influence of overjoy to attack Agastya, as well as the corporation of the Vrishnis in their attempt against Dwaipáyan.
This reference matches the Jataka version in including Vyasa as the sage attacked by the Vrishnis, though Vyasa does not die here.

Author of Brahma Sutra

The Brahma Sutra is attributed to Badarayana — which makes him the proponent of the crest-jewel school of Hindu philosophy, i.e., Vedanta. Vyasa is conflated with Badarayana by Vaishnavas with the reason that the island on which Vyasa was born is said to have been covered by Badara (Indian jujube/Ber/Ziziphus mauritiana) trees. Apart from Adi Shankara who refers to these two separately rather than as a single individual, many modern historians also think these were two different personalities.

Author of Yoga Bhashya

This text is a commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Vyasa is credited with this work also, though this is impossible, if Vyasa's immortality is not considered, as it is a later text.
Guru Gita
The Guru Gita (Song of the Guru) is a Hindu scripture authored by the sage, Vyasa, it is also used as chanting. The 352-verses text is a part of the larger Skanda Purana. It describes a conversation between the Hindu God, Lord Shiva and his wife, the Hindu Goddess Parvati, in which she asks him to teach her about the Guru. Shiva answers her by describing the Guru principle, the proper ways of worshiping the Guru and the methods and benefits of repeating the Guru Gita

Rigveda

The Rigveda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, a compound of ṛc "praise, verse"^[1] and veda "knowledge") is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns.^[2] It is counted among the four canonical sacred texts (śruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas.^[3] Some of its verses are still recited as Hindu prayers, at religious functions and other occasions, putting these among the world's oldest religious texts in continued use. The Rigveda contains several mythological and poetical accounts of the origin of the world, hymns praising the gods, and ancient prayers for life, prosperity, etc.^[4]
It is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Philological and linguistic evidence indicate that the Rigveda was composed in the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, roughly between 1700–1100 BC^[5] (the early Vedic period)

Text

The surviving form of the Rigveda is based on an early Iron Age (c. 10th c. BC) collection that established the core 'family books' (mandalas 2–7, ordered by author, deity and meter ^[6]) and a later redaction, co-eval with the redaction of the other Vedas, dating several centuries after the hymns were composed. This redaction also included some additions (contradicting the strict ordering scheme) and orthoepic changes to the Vedic Sanskrit such as the regularization of sandhi (termed orthoepische Diaskeuase by Oldenberg, 1888).
As with the other Vedas, the redacted text has been handed down in several versions, most importantly the Padapatha that has each word isolated in pausa form and is used for just one way of memorization; and the Samhitapatha that combines words according to the rules of sandhi (the process being described in the Pratisakhya) and is the memorized text used for recitation.
The Padapatha and the Pratisakhya anchor the text's fidelity and meaning^[7] and the fixed text was preserved with unparalleled fidelity for more than a millennium by oral tradition alone. In order to achieve this the oral tradition prescribed very structured enunciation, involving breaking down the Sanskrit compounds into stems and inflections, as well as certain permutations. This interplay with sounds gave rise to a scholarly tradition of morphology and phonetics. The Rigveda was probably not written down until the Gupta period (4th to 6th century AD), by which time the Brahmi script had become widespread (the oldest surviving manuscripts date to the Late Middle Ages).^[8] The oral tradition still continued into recent times.
The original text (as authored by the Rishis) is close to but not identical to the extant Samhitapatha, but metrical and other observations allow to reconstruct (in part at least) the original text from the extant one, as printed in the Harvard Oriental Series, vol. 50 (1994).^[9]

Organization

The text is organized in 10 books, known as Mandalas, of varying age and length. The "family books": mandalas 2–7, are the oldest part of the Rigveda and the shortest books; they are arranged by length and account for 38% of the text. The eighth and ninth mandalas, comprising hymns of mixed age, account for 15% and 9%, respectively. The first and the tenth mandalas are the youngest; they are also the longest books, of 191 suktas each, accounting for 37% of the text.
Each mandala consists of hymns called sūkta (su-ukta, literally, "well recited, eulogy") intended for various sacrificial rituals. The sūktas in turn consist of individual stanzas called ṛc ("praise", pl. ṛcas), which are further analysed into units of verse called pada ("foot"). The meters most used in the ṛcas are the jagati (a pada consists of 12 syllables), trishtubh (11), viraj (10), gayatri and anushtubh (8).
For pedagogical convenience, each mandala is synthetically divided into roughly equal sections of several sūktas, called anuvāka ("recitation"), which modern publishers often omit. Another scheme divides the entire text over the 10 mandalas into aṣṭaka ("eighth"), adhyāya ("chapter") and varga ("class"). Some publishers give both classifications in a single edition.
The most common numbering scheme is by book, hymn and stanza (and pada a, b, c ..., if required). E.g., the first pada is

• 1.1.1a agním īḷe puróhitaṃ "Agni I invoke, the housepriest"

and the final pada is

• 10.191.4d yáthā vaḥ súsahā́sati

Recensions

The major Rigvedic shakha ("branch", i. e. recension) that has survived is that of Śākalya. Another shakha that may have survived is the Bāṣkala, although this is uncertain.^[10][11][12] The surviving padapatha version of the Rigveda text is ascribed to Śākalya.^[13] The Śākala recension has 1,017 regular hymns, and an appendix of 11 vālakhilya hymns^[14] which are now customarily included in the 8th mandala (as 8.49–8.59), for a total of 1028 hymns.^[15] The Bāṣkala recension includes 8 of these vālakhilya hymns among its regular hymns, making a total of 1025 regular hymns for this śākhā.^[16] In addition, the Bāṣkala recension has its own appendix of 98 hymns, the Khilani.^[17]
In the 1877 edition of Aufrecht, the 1028 hymns of the Rigveda contain a total of 10,552 ṛcs, or 39,831 padas. The Shatapatha Brahmana gives the number of syllables to be 432,000,^[18] while the metrical text of van Nooten and Holland (1994) has a total of 395,563 syllables (or an average of 9.93 syllables per pada); counting the number of syllables is not straightforward because of issues with sandhi and the post-Rigvedic pronunciation of syllables like súvar as svàr.

Rishis

See also: Anukramani

Tradition associates a rishi (the composer) with each ṛc of the Rigveda.^[19] Most sūktas are attributed to single composers. The "family books" (2–7) are so-called because they have hymns by members of the same clan in each book; but other clans are also represented in the Rigveda. In all, 10 families of rishis account for more than 95% of the ṛcs; for each of them the Rigveda includes a lineage-specific āprī hymn (a special sūkta of rigidly formulaic structure, used for animal sacrifice in the soma ritual).

Family	Āprī	Ṛcas[20]
Angiras	I.142	3619 (especially Mandala 6)
Bharadwaj		75 in Mandala 6 and a few more
Kanva	I.13	1315 (especially Mandala 8)
Vasishtha	VII.2	1276 (Mandala 7)
Vishvamitra	III.4	983 (Mandala 3)
Atri	V.5	885 (Mandala 5)
Bhrgu	X.110	473
Kashyapa	IX.5	415 (part of Mandala 9)
Grtsamada	II.3	401 (Mandala 2)
Agastya	I.188	316
Bharata	X.70	170

Manuscripts

There are, for example, 30 manuscripts of Rigveda at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, collected in the 19th century by Georg Bühler, Franz Kielhorn and others, originating from different parts of India, including Kashmir, Gujarat, the then Rajaputana, Central Provinces etc. They were transferred to Deccan College, Pune, in the late 19th century. They are in the Sharada and Devanagari scripts, written on birch bark and paper. The oldest of them is dated to 1464. The 30 manuscripts of Rigveda preserved at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune were added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2007.^[21][22]
Of these 30 manuscripts, 9 contain the samhita text, 5 have the padapatha in addition. 13 contain Sayana's commentary. At least 5 manuscripts (MS. no. 1/A1879-80, 1/A1881-82, 331/1883-84 and 5/Viś I) have preserved the complete text of the Rigveda. MS no. 5/1875-76, written on birch bark in bold Sharada, was only in part used by Max Müller for his edition of the Rigveda with Sayana's commentary.
Müller used 24 manuscripts then available to him in Europe, while the Pune Edition used over five dozen manuscripts, but the editors of Pune Edition could not procure many manuscripts used by Müller and by the Bombay Edition, as well as from some other sources; hence the total number of extant manuscripts known then must surpass perhaps eighty at least^[23]

Contents

See also: Rigvedic deities

The Rigvedic hymns are dedicated to various deities, chief of whom are Indra, a heroic god praised for having slain his enemy Vrtra; Agni, the sacrificial fire; and Soma, the sacred potion or the plant it is made from. Equally prominent gods are the Adityas or Asura gods Mitra–Varuna and Ushas (the dawn). Also invoked are Savitr, Vishnu, Rudra, Pushan, Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati, as well as deified natural phenomena such as Dyaus Pita (the shining sky, Father Heaven ), Prithivi (the earth, Mother Earth), Surya (the sun god), Vayu or Vata (the wind), Apas (the waters), Parjanya (the thunder and rain), Vac (the word), many rivers (notably the Sapta Sindhu, and the Sarasvati River). The Adityas, Vasus, Rudras, Sadhyas, Ashvins, Maruts, Rbhus, and the Vishvadevas ("all-gods") as well as the "thirty-three gods" are the groups of deities mentioned.
The hymns mention various further minor gods, persons, phenomena and items, and contain fragmentary references to possible historical events, notably the struggle between the early Vedic people (known as Vedic Aryans, a subgroup of the Indo-Aryans) and their enemies, the Dasa or Dasyu and their mythical prototypes, the Paṇi (the Bactrian Parna).

• Mandala 1 comprises 191 hymns. Hymn 1.1 is addressed to Agni, and his name is the first word of the Rigveda. The remaining hymns are mainly addressed to Agni and Indra, as well as Varuna, Mitra, the Ashvins, the Maruts, Usas, Surya, Rbhus, Rudra, Vayu, Brhaspati, Visnu, Heaven and Earth, and all the Gods.
• Mandala 2 comprises 43 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra. It is chiefly attributed to the Rishi gṛtsamada śaunahotra.
• Mandala 3 comprises 62 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra and the Vishvedevas. The verse 3.62.10 has great importance in Hinduism as the Gayatri Mantra. Most hymns in this book are attributed to viśvāmitra gāthinaḥ.
• Mandala 4 comprises 58 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra as well as the Rbhus, Ashvins, Brhaspati, Vayu, Usas, etc. Most hymns in this book are attributed to vāmadeva gautama.
• Mandala 5 comprises 87 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra, the Visvedevas ("all the gods'), the Maruts, the twin-deity Mitra-Varuna and the Asvins. Two hymns each are dedicated to Ushas (the dawn) and to Savitr. Most hymns in this book are attributed to the atri clan.
• Mandala 6 comprises 75 hymns, mainly to Agni and Indra, all the gods, Pusan, Ashvin, Usas, etc. Most hymns in this book are attributed to the bārhaspatya family of Angirasas.
• Mandala 7 comprises 104 hymns, to Agni, Indra, the Visvadevas, the Maruts, Mitra-Varuna, the Asvins, Ushas, Indra-Varuna, Varuna, Vayu (the wind), two each to Sarasvati (ancient river/goddess of learning) and Vishnu, and to others. Most hymns in this book are attributed to vasiṣṭha maitravaruṇi.
• Mandala 8 comprises 103 hymns to various gods. Hymns 8.49 to 8.59 are the apocryphal vālakhilya. Hymns 1–48 and 60–66 are attributed to the kāṇva clan, the rest to other (Angirasa) poets.
• Mandala 9 comprises 114 hymns, entirely devoted to Soma Pavamana, the cleansing of the sacred potion of the Vedic religion.
• Mandala 10 comprises additional 191 hymns, frequently in later language, addressed to Agni, Indra and various other deities. It contains the Nadistuti sukta which is in praise of rivers and is important for the reconstruction of the geography of the Vedic civilization and the Purusha sukta which has great significance in Hindu social tradition. It also contains the Nasadiya sukta (10.129), probably the most celebrated hymn in the west, which deals with creation. The marriage hymns (10.85) and the death hymns (10.10–18) still are of great importance in the performance of the corresponding Grhya rituals.

Dating and historical context

The Rigveda's core is accepted to date to the late Bronze Age, making it one of the few examples with an unbroken tradition. Its composition is usually dated to roughly between 1700–1100 BC.^[24] The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (s.v. Indo-Iranian languages, p. 306) gives 1500–1000 BC.^[25] Being composed in an early Indo-Aryan language, the hymns must post-date the Indo-Iranian separation, dated to roughly 2000 BC.^[26] A reasonable date close to that of the composition of the core of the Rigveda is that of the Indo-Aryan Mitanni documents of c. 1400 BC.^[27] Other evidence also points to a composition close to 1400 BC^[28][29]
The Rigveda is far more archaic than any other Indo-Aryan text. For this reason, it was in the center of attention of western scholarship from the times of Max Müller and Rudolf Roth onwards. The Rigveda records an early stage of Vedic religion. There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the early Iranian Avesta,^[30] deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times,^[31][32] often associated with the early Andronovo culture of ca. 2000 BC.^[33]
The text in the following centuries underwent pronunciation revisions and standardization (samhitapatha, padapatha). This redaction would have been completed around the 6th century BC.^[34] Exact dates are not established, but they fall within the pre-Buddhist period (500, or rather 400 BC).
Writing appears in India around the 3rd century BC in the form of the Brahmi script, but texts of the length of the Rigveda were likely not written down until much later. While written manuscripts were used for teaching in medieval times, they were written on birch bark or palm leaves, which decompose fairly quickly in the tropical climate, until the advent of the printing press from the 16th^{[dubious – discuss]} century CE. Some Rigveda commentaries may date from the second half of the first millennium CE. The hymns were thus preserved by oral tradition for up to a millennium from the time of their composition until the redaction of the Rigveda, and the entire Rigveda was preserved in shakhas for another 2,500 years from the time of its redaction until the editio princeps by Rosen, Aufrecht and Max Müller.
After their composition, the texts were preserved and codified by an extensive body of Vedic priesthood as the central philosophy of the Iron Age Vedic civilization. The Brahma Purana and the Vayu Purana name one Vidagdha as the author of the Padapatha.^[35] The Rk-pratishakhya names Sthavira Shakalya of the Aitareya Aranyaka as its author.^[36]
The Rigveda describes a mobile, semi-nomadic culture, with horse-drawn chariots, oxen-drawn wagons, and metal (bronze) weapons. The geography described is consistent with that of the Greater Punjab: Rivers flow north to south, the mountains are relatively remote but still visible and reachable (Soma is a plant found in the high mountains, and it has to be purchased from tribal people). Nevertheless, the hymns were certainly composed over a long period, with the oldest (not preserved) elements possibly reaching back to times close to the split of Proto-Indo-Iranian (around 2000 BC)^[37] Thus there was some debate over whether the boasts of the destruction of stone forts by the Vedic Aryans and particularly by Indra refer to cities of the Indus Valley civilization or whether they rather hark back to clashes between the early Indo-Aryans with the BMAC in what is now northern Afghanistan and southern Turkmenistan (separated from the upper Indus by the Hindu Kush mountain range, and some 400 km distant).
While it is highly likely that the bulk of the Rigvedic hymns were composed in the Punjab, even if based on earlier poetic traditions, there is no mention of either tigers or rice^[38] in the Rigveda (as opposed to the later Vedas), suggesting that Vedic culture only penetrated into the plains of India after its completion. Similarly, there is no mention of iron as the term ayas occurring in the Rig Veda refers to useful metal in general.^[39] The "black metal" (kṛṣṇa ayas) is first mentioned in the post-Rigvedic texts (Atharvaveda etc.). The Iron Age in northern India begins in the 10th century in the Greater Panjab. There is a widely accepted timeframe for the initial codification of the Rigveda by compiling the hymns very late in the Rigvedic or rather in the early post-Rigvedic period, including the arrangement of the individual hymns in ten books, coeval with the composition of the younger Veda Samhitas. This time coincides with the early Kuru kingdom, shifting the center of Vedic culture east from the Punjab into what is now Uttar Pradesh. The fixing of the samhitapatha (by keeping Sandhi) intact and of the padapatha (by dissolving Sandhi out of the earlier metrical text), occurred during the later Brahmana period.
Some of the names of gods and goddesses found in the Rigveda are found amongst other belief systems based on Proto-Indo-European religion, while words used share common roots with words from other Indo-European languages.
The horse (ashva), cattle, sheep and goat play an important role in the Rigveda. There are also references to the elephant (Hastin, Varana), camel (Ustra, especially in Mandala 8), ass (khara, rasabha), buffalo (Mahisa), wolf, hyena, lion (Simha), mountain goat (sarabha) and to the gaur in the Rigveda.^[40] The peafowl (mayura), the goose (hamsa) and the chakravaka (Anas casarca) are some birds mentioned in the Rigveda.

Ancillary texts

Rigveda Brahmanas

See also: Brahmana

Of the Brahmanas that were handed down in the schools of the Bahvṛcas (i.e. "possessed of many verses"), as the followers of the Rigveda are called, two have come down to us, namely those of the Aitareyins and the Kaushitakins. The Aitareya-brahmana^[41] and the Kaushitaki- (or Sankhayana-) brahmana evidently have for their groundwork the same stock of traditional exegetic matter. They differ, however, considerably as regards both the arrangement of this matter and their stylistic handling of it, with the exception of the numerous legends common to both, in which the discrepancy is comparatively slight. There is also a certain amount of material peculiar to each of them.
The Kaushitaka is, upon the whole, far more concise in its style and more systematic in its arrangement features which would lead one to infer that it is probably the more modern work of the two. It consists of thirty chapters (adhyaya); while the Aitareya has forty, divided into eight books (or pentads, pancaka), of five chapters each. The last ten adhyayas of the latter work are, however, clearly a later addition though they must have already formed part of it at the time of Pāṇini (ca. 5th c. BC), if, as seems probable, one of his grammatical sutras, regulating the formation of the names of Brahmanas, consisting of thirty and forty adhyayas, refers to these two works. In this last portion occurs the well-known legend (also found in the Shankhayana-sutra, but not in the Kaushitaki-brahmana) of Shunahshepa, whom his father Ajigarta sells and offers to slay, the recital of which formed part of the inauguration of kings.
While the Aitareya deals almost exclusively with the Soma sacrifice, the Kaushitaka, in its first six chapters, treats of the several kinds of haviryajna, or offerings of rice, milk, ghee, &c., whereupon follows the Soma sacrifice in this way, that chapters 7–10 contain the practical ceremonial and 11–30 the recitations (shastra) of the hotar. Sayana, in the introduction to his commentary on the work, ascribes the Aitareya to the sage Mahidasa Aitareya (i.e. son of Itara), also mentioned elsewhere as a philosopher; and it seems likely enough that this person arranged the Brahmana and founded the school of the Aitareyins. Regarding the authorship of the sister work we have no information, except that the opinion of the sage Kaushitaki is frequently referred to in it as authoritative, and generally in opposition to the Paingya—the Brahmana, it would seem, of a rival school, the Paingins. Probably, therefore, it is just what one of the manuscripts calls it—the Brahmana of Sankhayana (composed) in accordance with the views of Kaushitaki.

Rigveda Aranyakas

See also: Aranyaka

Each of these two Brahmanas is supplemented by a "forest book", or Aranyaka. The Aitareyaranyaka is not a uniform production. It consists of five books (aranyaka), three of which, the first and the last two, are of a liturgical nature, treating of the ceremony called mahavrata, or great vow. The last of these books, composed in sutra form, is, however, doubtless of later origin, and is, indeed, ascribed by Hindu authorities either to Shaunaka or to Ashvalayana. The second and third books, on the other hand, are purely speculative, and are also styled the Bahvrca-brahmana-upanishad. Again, the last four chapters of the second book are usually singled out as the Aitareyopanishad, ascribed, like its Brahmana (and the first book), to Mahidasa Aitareya; and the third book is also referred to as the Samhita-upanishad. As regards the Kaushitaki-aranyaka, this work consists of 15 adhyayas, the first two (treating of the mahavrata ceremony) and the 7th and 8th of which correspond to the 1st, 5th, and 3rd books of the Aitareyaranyaka, respectively, whilst the four adhyayas usually inserted between them constitute the highly interesting Kaushitaki (brahmana-) upanishad, of which we possess two different recensions. The remaining portions (9–15) of the Aranyaka treat of the vital airs, the internal Agnihotra, etc., ending with the vamsha, or succession of teachers.

Medieval Hindu scholarship

According to Hindu tradition, the Rigvedic hymns were collected by Paila under the guidance of Vyāsa, who formed the Rigveda Samhita as we know it.^{[citation needed]} According to the Śatapatha Brāhmana, the number of syllables in the Rigveda is 432,000, equalling the number of muhurtas (1 day = 30 muhurtas) in forty years. This statement stresses the underlying philosophy of the Vedic books that there is a connection (bandhu) between the astronomical, the physiological, and the spiritual^{[citation needed]}.
The authors of the Brāhmana literature discussed and interpreted the Vedic ritual. Yaska was an early commentator of the Rigveda by discussing the meanings of difficult words. In the 14th century, Sāyana wrote an exhaustive commentary on it.
A number of other commentaries bhāṣyas were written during the medieval period, including the commentaries by Skandasvamin (pre-Sayana, roughly of the Gupta period), Udgitha (pre-Sayana), Venkata-Madhava (pre-Sayana, ca. 10th to 12th century) and Mudgala (after Sayana, an abbreviated version of Sayana's commentary).^[42]

In contemporary Hinduism

Hindu revivalism

Since the 19th and 20th centuries, some reformers like Swami Dayananda Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj and Sri Aurobindo have attempted to re-interpret the Vedas to conform to modern and established moral and spiritual norms. Dayananda considered the Vedas (which he defined to include only the samhitas) to be source of truth, totally free of error and containing the seeds of all valid knowledge. Contrary to common understanding, he was adamant that Vedas were monotheistic and that they did not sanction idol worship.^[43] Starting 1877, he intended to publish commentary on the four vedas but completed work on only the Yajurveda, and a partial commentary on the Rigveda. Dayananda's work is not highly regarded by Vedic scholars and Indologist Louis Renou, among others, dismissed it as, "a vigorous (and from our point of view, extremely aberrant) interpretation in the social and political sense."^[44][45]
Dayananda and Aurobindo moved^{[clarification needed]} the Vedantic perception of the Rigveda from the original ritualistic content to a more symbolic or mystical interpretation.^{[dubious – discuss]} For example, instances of animal sacrifice were not seen by them as literal slaughtering, but as transcendental processes.

"Indigenous Aryans" debate

Further information: Indigenous Aryans and Out of India theory

Questions surrounding the Rigvedic Sarasvati River and the Nadistuti sukta in particular have become tied to an ideological debate on the Indo-Aryan migration (termed "Aryan Invasion Theory") versus the claim that Vedic culture, together with Vedic Sanskrit, originated in the Indus Valley Civilization (termed "Out of India theory"), a topic of great significance in Hindu nationalism, addressed for example by K. D. Sethna and in Shrikant G. Talageri's The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis. Subhash Kak (1994) claimed that there is an "astronomical code" in the organization of the hymns. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, also based on astronomical alignments in the Rigveda, in his "The Orion" (1893) had claimed presence of the Rigvedic culture in India in the 4th millennium BC, and in his The Arctic Home in the Vedas (1903) even argued that the Aryans originated near the North Pole and came south during the ice age.
Debate on alternative suggestions on the date of the Rigveda, typically much earlier dates, are mostly taking place outside of scholarly literature. Some writers out of the mainstream claim to trace astronomical references in the Rigveda, dating it to as early as 4000 BC,^[46] a date well within the Indian Neolithic.^[47] Publications to this effect have increased during the late 1990s to early 2000s in the context of historical revisionism in Hindu nationalism, notably in books published by Voice of India

Sahasranama

A sahasranama (Sanskrit:सहस्रनाम; sahasranāma) is a type of Hindu scripture in which a deity is referred to by 1,000 or more different names. Sahasranamas are classified as stotras, or hymns of praise, a type of devotional scripture. Sahasra means a thousand, or more generally, a very large number. Nama (nāman) means name. The literal translation of sahasranama is "a thousand names".
A sahasranama provides a terse but encyclopedic guide to the attributes and legends surrounding a deity. There are also many shorter stotras, called ashtottara-shata-nāma stotras, which have only 108 names.

The role of sahasranamas in spiritual practice

Many religions include praise of the Divine Name as an important part of their tradition. In Hinduism all of the most widely-known forms of the divine have sahasranama stotra devoted to them. Recitation and study of these often constitute part of the daily routine of formal worship both at home and in temples.
Among the Nine Expressions of Bhakti, usually elaborated in Hindu tradition, four have relevance to the use of sahasranamas:

• shravana, listening to recitals of names and glories of God
• nama-sankirtana (nāma-sankīrtana), reciting the names of God either set to music or not
• smarana, recalling divine deeds and teaching of divine deeds.
• archana (archanā), worshipping the divine with ritual repetition of divine names.

Laksharchana

A Lakshārchanā involves the repetition of names one hundred thousand times. Laksha, in Sanskrit, means one hundred thousand. This is an intensive version of the Sahasra-nāma-archanā. It involves the repeated chanting of sahasranamas, multiplying the number of the performances by the number of the people who joined in the chorus.
To achieve this goal several people sit together and perform repetition of the names in chorus. This continues for a prefixed time duration, usually for several days, chanting for a certain number of hours each day. The recital of the different participants for the several days adds up to at least 100,000 repetitions of divine names.
There are occasions when a Koti archanā is also performed to the deity by counting up to 100 Lakshārchanās. Koti (crore, in English) is one hundred lakshas; that is, ten million.
Such elaborate devotions usually mean a good deal of expense and so they are usually done in temples or public organizations which can obtain the necessary sponsorship.

Common sahasranāmas

The most well-known and widely-used include the following:

• Vishnu sahasranama is found in the Mahabharata.^[1][2]
• Shiva sahasranama has eight different versions.^[3] The best-known version is from Book 13 of the Mahabharata.^[4]

• Lalita sahasranama.^[5][6][7] This is part of the Lalitopākhyāna, one of the apocrypha added to the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa.^[8]

• Ganesha sahasranama has two different major versions, with subvariants of each version. One major version is based on I.46 of the Ganesha Purana.^[9][10] The second major version is completely alliterative, with all of the names beginning with the letter "g" (ग्).

Tantrikas chant the Bhavani Nāma Sahasra Stuti and the Kali Sahasranāma.
While the Vishnu and Shiva Sahāsranamas are popular amongst all Hindus, the Lalita Sahasranama is mostly chanted in South India. The Ganesha Sahasranama is mainly chanted by Ganapatya. The Bhavani Nāma Sahasra Stuti is the choice of Kashmiri Paṇḍits and the Kali Sahasranāma is mostly chanted by Bengalis.

Bhakti

Bhakti (also spelled Bhakthi, Sanskrit: भक्ति^[1]) in Hinduism and Buddhism is religious devotion in the form of active involvement of a devotee in worship of the divine. Within monotheistic Hinduism, it is the love felt by the worshipper towards the personal God, a concept expressed in Hindu theology as Iṣṭa-devatā (also as Svayam Bhagavan in Gaudiya Vaishnavism).
Bhakthi can be used of either tradition of Hindu monotheism, Shaivaism or Vaishnavism.^[2] While bhakti as designating a religious path is already a central concept in the Bhagavad Gita,^[3] it rises to importance in the medieval history of Hinduism, where the Bhakti movement saw a rapid growth of bhakti beginning in Southern India with the Vaisnava Alvars (6th-9th century CE) and Saiva Nayanars (5th-10th century CE), who spread bhakti poetry and devotion throughout India by the 12th-18th century CE.^[4][5] The Bhagavata Purana is text associated with the Bhakti movement which elaborates the concept of bhakti as found in the Bhagavad Gita.^[6]
The Bhakti movement reached North India in the Delhi Sultanate and throughout the Mughal era contributed significantly to the characteristics of Hinduism as the religion of the general population under the rule of a Muslim elite. After their encounter with the spreading faith of Islam, Bhakti proponents, whom are traditionally referred to as "saints," elaborated egalitarian doctrine that transcended the caste system and encouraged individuals to seek personal union with the divine.^[7] Its influence also spread to other religions during this period,^{[clarification needed][8][9][10][11]} and became an integral aspect of Hindu culture and society in the modern era

Terminology

The Sanskrit and old Hindi noun bhakti is derived from the verb root bhaj, whose meanings include "to share in", "to belong to", and "to worship".^[12] It also occurs in compounds where it means "being a part of" and "that which belongs to or is contained in anything else."^[13] Bhajan, or devotional singing to God, is also derived from the same root.^[14] "Devotion" as an English translation for bhakti doesn't fully convey two important aspects of bhakti—the sense of participation that is central to the relationship between the devotee and God, and the intense feeling that is more typically associated with the word "love".^[12] An advaitic interpretation of bhakti goes beyond "devotion" to the realization of union with the essential nature of reality as ananda, or divine bliss.^[13] Bhakti is sometimes used in the broader sense of reverence toward a deity or teacher. Bhaktimarga is usually used to describe a bhakti path with complete dedication to one form of God.^[12]
A more literal translation of bhakti would be "participation";^[15] The sage Narada defines Bhakti as "intense love" for God.^[16] Similarly Sage Shandilya defines Bhakti as "intense attraction" for God.^[17] One who practices bhakti is called a bhakta,^[18] while bhakti as a spiritual path is referred to as bhakti marga, or the bhakti way.^[19][20] Bhakti is an important component of many branches of Hinduism, defined differently by various sects and schools.^[12]
Bhakti emphasises religious devotion and sentiment above ritual and orthopraxy. In this sense it parallels the early 20th century movement of Pentecostalism in Christian history, where direct personal experience of God was also emphasized over liturgy or ritual.
The Classical Sanskrit term bhakti has a general meaning of "attachment, devotion, fondness for, devotion to" etc. also in terms of human relationships, most often as beloved-lover, friend-friend, parent-child, and master-servant.^[6] It may refer to devotion to a spiritual teacher (Guru) as guru-bhakti,^[21][22] to a personal form of God,^[23] or to divinity without form (nirguna).^[24]

History

Main article: Bhakti movement

Scholarly consensus sees bhakti as a post-Vedic movement that developed primarily during the era of Indian epic poetry.^[25][26] The Bhagavad Gita is the first text to explicitly use the word "bhakti" to designate a religious path, using it as a term for one of three possible religious approaches.^[27] The Bhagavata Purana develops the idea more elaborately,^[6] while the Shvetashvatara Upanishad evidences a fully developed Shiva-bhakti (devotion to Shiva)^[19] and signs of guru-bhakti.^[28] An early sutra by Pāṇini (c. 5th century BCE) is considered by some scholars as the first appearance of the concept of bhakti, where the word "vun" may refer to bhakti toward "Vasudevarjunabhya" (with implied reference to Krishna Vasudeva).^[29] Other scholars question this interpretation.^[30][31]
The Bhakti Movement was a rapid growth of bhakti beginning in Tamil Nadu in Southern India with the Saiva Nayanars (4th-10th century CE)^[5] and the Vaisnava Alvars (3rd-9th century CE) who spread bhakti poetry and devotion throughout India by the 12th-18th century CE.^[4][5] The Alvars ("those immersed in God") were Vaishnava poet-saints who wandered from temple to temple singing the praises of Vishnu. They established temple sites (Srirangam is one) and converted many people to Vaishnavism. Their poems were collected in the 10th century as the Four Thousand Divine Compositions also referred to as Dravida Veda or Alwar Arulicheyalgal or Divya Prabhandham, which became an influential scripture for the Vaishnavas. The Alwars and Nayanmars were instrumental in propagating the Bhakti tradition. For the first time, Bagwan or God reached the masses and the masses were able to associate themselves with the religion. Another significant thing was that the Alwars and Naynmars came from various background and castes including that of the Sudras (working class). The Bhagavata Purana's references to the South Indian Alvar saints, along with its emphasis on a more emotional bhakti, have led many scholars to give it South Indian origins, though there is no definitive evidence of this.^[32][33]
Like the Alvars the Saiva Nayanar poets softened the distinctions of caste and gender. The Tirumurai, a compilation of hymns by sixty-three Nayanar poets, is still of great importance in South India. Hymns by three of the most prominent poets, Appar (7th century CE), Campantar (7th century) and Cuntarar (9th century), were compiled into the Tevaram, the first volumes of the Tirumurai. The poets' itinerant lifestyle helped create temple and pilgrimage sites and spread devotion to Shiva.^[34] Early Tamil-Siva bhakti poets quoted the Black Yajurveda specifically.^[35]
By the 12th to 18th centuries, the bhakti movement had spread to all regions and languages of India. Bhakti poetry and attitudes began to color many aspects of Hindu culture, religious and secular, and became an integral part of Indian society.^[5] Prominent bhakti poets such as Ravidas and Kabir wrote against the hierarchy of caste.^[36] It extended its influence to Sufism,^[37] Sikhism,^[9] Christianity,^[10] and Jainism.^[11] Bhakti offered the possibility of religious experience by anyone, anywhere, at any time.^[38]

Bhakti Yoga

Main article: Bhakti yoga

The Bhagavad Gita introduces bhakti yoga in combination with karma yoga and jnana yoga,^[39][40] while the Bhagavata Purana expands on bhakti yoga, offering nine specific activities for the bhakti yogi.^[41] Bhakti in the Bhagavad Gita offered an alternative to two dominant practices of religion at the time: the isolation of the sannyasin and the practice of religious ritual.^[38] Bhakti Yoga is described by Swami Vivekananda as "the path of systematized devotion for the attainment of union with the Absolute".^[42] In the twelfth chapter of the Gita Krishna describes bhakti yoga as a path to the highest spiritual attainments.^[43] In the ninth chapter, he says,
Fill thy mind with Me, be My devotee, sacrifice unto Me, bow down to Me; thus having made thy heart steadfast in Me, taking Me as the Supreme Goal, thou shalt come to Me. (B-Gita 9.34)^[44]
Shandilya and Narada produced two important Bhakti texts, the Shandilya Bhakti Sutra and Narada Bhakti Sutra.^[45][46] They define devotion, emphasize its importance and superiority, and classify its forms.^[47]

Types and classifications

In Valmiki's Ramayana, Rama describes the path as ninefold (nava-vidha bhakti):
Such pure devotion is expressed in nine ways, . First is satsang or association with love-intoxicated devotees. The second is to develop a taste for hearing my nectar-like stories. The third is service to the guru (...) Fourth is to sing my kirtan (communal chorus) (...) Japa or repetition of my Holy name and chanting my bhajans are the fifth expression (...) To follow scriptural injunctions always, to practice control of the senses, nobility of character and selfless service, these are expressions of the sixth mode of bhakti. Seeing me manifested everywhere in this world and worshipping my saints more than myself is the seventh mode of bhakti. To find no fault with anyone and to be contented with one's lot is the eighth mode of bhakti. Unreserved surrender with total faith in my strength is the ninth and highest stage. Shabari, anyone who practices one of these nine modes of my bhakti pleases me most and reaches me without fail.^[48]
The Bhagavata Purana teaches nine similar facets of bhakti, as explained by Prahlada:^[49]
(1) śravaṇa ("listening" to the scriptural stories of Kṛṣṇa and his companions), (2) kīrtana ("praising", usually refers to ecstatic group singing), (3) smaraṇa ("remembering" or fixing the mind on Viṣṇu), (4) pāda-sevana (rendering service), (5) arcana (worshiping an image), (6) vandana (paying homage), (7) dāsya (servitude), (8) sākhya (friendship), and (9) ātma-nivedana (self-surrender). (from Bhagata Purana, 7.5.23-24)

Bhavas

Traditional Hinduism speaks of five different bhāvas or "affective essences".^[50] In this sense, bhāvas are different attitudes that a devotee takes according to his individual temperament to express his devotion towards God in some form.^[51] The different bhāvas are: śānta, placid love for God; dāsya, the attitude of a servant; sakhya, the attitude of a friend; vātsalya, the attitude of a mother towards her child; and madhura, the attitude of a woman towards her lover.^[51] Several saints are known to have practiced these bhavas. The nineteenth century mystic, Ramakrishna is said to have practiced these five bhavas.^[52] The attitude of Hanuman towards lord Rama is considered to be of dasya bhava.^[53] The attitude of Arjuna and the shepherd boys of Vrindavan towards Krishna is regarded as sakhya bhava.^[52][54] The attitude of Radha towards Krishna is regarded as madhura bhava.^[52] The attitude of Yashoda, who looked after Krishna during his childhood is regarded as vatsalya bhava.^[55] Caitanya-caritamrta mentions that Mahaprabhu came to distribute the four spiritual sentiments of Vraja loka: dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, and sringara. Sringara is the relationship of the intimate love.

Samaveda

The Sama veda (Sanskrit:  , sāmaveda, from sāman "melody" + veda "knowledge" ), is third (in the usual order i.e. Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samveda, Atharvaveda) of the four Vedas, the ancient core Hindu scriptures. Its earliest parts are believed to date from 1700 BC (since all of its verses are from the Rigveda) and it ranks next in sanctity and liturgical importance to the Rigveda. It consists of a collection (samhita) of hymns, portions of hymns, and detached verses, all but 75 taken from the Sakala Sakha of the Rigveda, the other 75 belong to the Bashkala Sakha, to be sung, using specifically indicated melodies called Samagana, by Udgatar priests at sacrifices in which the juice of the Soma plant, clarified and mixed with milk and other ingredients, is offered in libation to various deities.
The verses have been transposed and re-arranged, without reference to their original order, to suit the rituals in which they were to be employed. There are frequent variations from the text of the Rigveda that are in some cases glosses but in others offer an older pronunciation than that of the Rigveda (such as [ai] for common [e]). When sung the verses are further altered by prolongation, repetition and insertion of stray syllables (stobha), as well as various modulations, rests and other modifications prescribed in the song-books (Ganas). Samaveda's Upaveda (technical manual) is Gāndharvaveda that deals not only with the topics of music but also of dance and theatre.
The Samaveda Samhita (from sāman, the term for a melody applied to metrical hymn or song of praise^[43]) consists of 1549 stanzas, taken almost entirely (except for 78 stanzas) from the Rigveda.^[26] Like the Rigvedic stanzas in the Yajurveda, the Samans have been changed and adapted for use in singing. Some of the Rigvedic verses are repeated more than once. Including repetitions, there are a total of 1875 verses numbered in the Samaveda recension translated by Griffith.^[44] Two major recensions remain today, the Kauthuma/Ranayaniya and the Jaiminiya. Its purpose was liturgical, as the repertoire of the udgātṛ or "singer" priests who took part in the sacrifice.

Shiva Samhita

Shiva Samhita śivasaṁhitā (also Siva Samhitā) is a Sanskrit text on yoga, written by an unknown author^[1]. The text is addressed by the Hindu god Shiva to his consort Parvati ("Shiva Samhita" means "Shiva's Compendium"). It is one of three major surviving classical treatises on hatha yoga, the other two being Gheranda Samhita and Hatha Yoga Pradipika^[2]. The Shiva Samhita is considered the most comprehensive and the most democratic treatise on hatha yoga

Date

Many believe that Shiva Samhita was written in 17th^[4][5] or 18th^[1][6] century, but in a 2007 translation, James Mallinson dates the text before 1500CE^[7], as it has been cited by many works believed to have been composed in 17th century. Based on the clues given in the text, Mallinson also believes that the Shiva Samhita was composed in or around Varanasi.

Content

Mallinson says Shiva Samhita exposes a yoga teaching, yet also calls itself a tantra; he also describes it as an eclectic collection of yoga lore.^[7] Shiva Samhita talks about the complex physiology, names 84 different asanas (only four of which are described in detail), describes five specific types of prana, and provides techniques to regulate them^[3]. It also deals with abstract yogic philosophy, mudras, tantric practices, and meditation^[8]. It emphasizes that even a common householder can practice yoga and benefit from it.
The first chapter mentions various methods of liberation and philosophical standpoints. The second chapter describes the nadis, the internal fire, and the working of the jiva. The third chapter describes the winds in the body, the importance of the guru, the four stages of the Yoga, the five elemental visualizations and four asanas in detail. The fourth chapter deals with the eleven mudras that can result in yogic attainments. The fifth chapter is the longest and most diverse -- it describes obstacles to the liberation, the four types of aspirants, the technique of shadow gazing, the internal sound, the esoteric centers and energies in the body (such as the kundalini), the seven lotuses, the "king of kings of yogas", and a global mantra^[7].

Translations

Many English translations of Shiva Samhita have been made. The earliest known English translation is by Shri Chandra Vasu (1884, Lahore) in the series known as "The Sacred Books of the Hindus" The translation by Rai Bahadur and Srisa Chandra Vasu in 1914, also in the series known as "The Sacred Books of the Hindus", was the first translation to find a global audience. However, it omits certain sections (such as vajroli mudra) and is considered inaccurate by some^[7]. In 2007, James Mallinson made a new translation to address these issues. The new translation is based on the only available critical edition of the text — the one publIshed in 1999 by the Kaivalya Dham Yoga Research Institute.

Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta

Shiva Sutras are a collection of seventy seven aphorisms that form the foundation of the tradition of spiritual mysticism known as Kashmir Shaivism. They are attributed to the sage Vasugupta of the 8th century C.E.
Vasugupta is said to have lived near Mahadeva Mountain in the valley of the Harvan stream behind the what are now the Shalimar Gardens near Srinagar. One myth is that he received the aphorisms in a dream visitation of a Siddha or semi-divine being. Another is that Lord Shiva came to him in a dream and instructed him to go to a certain rock on which he would find the teachings inscribed. This rock called Shankaropala is still visited by devotees. The other theory is that Lord Shiva taught the Siva-Sutras to Vasugupta in a dream. Whatever the truth is these myths point to the traditions belief that the Shiva sutras are of divine origin or revelation and are not considered the product of the human mind.
Historically the Shiva Sutras and the ensuing school of Kashmir Shaivism are a Tantric or Agamic tradition. The Tantrics saw themselves as independent of the Vedic mainstream schools of thought and practice, and as beyond the rules that had been put in place by them.
A number of commentaries were written by Vasugupta’s contemporaries or successors. Most famous of them is Kshemeraja’s Vimarshini (10th Century C.E.) which has been translated into English by Jaideva Singh and Swami Lakshman Joo. Another is a commentary called the Varttika by Bhaskara (11th century C.E.) which has been translated into English by Mark Dyczkowski.
There are many translations of the Shiva Sutras in to English. A translation by Swami Shankarananda can be found on Wikisource s:Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta. It is also available a painstaking Italian translation of the Sutras and the Kshemaraja's Vimarshini by Raffaele Torella. Kriya yogi Shri Shailendra Sharma translated Shiva Sutras from Sanskrit to Hindi with commentary

Smriti

Smriti (Sanskrit: स्मृति, Smṛti, IPA: [s̪mr̩.t̪i] ^?) literally "that which is remembered," refers to a specific body of Hindu religious scripture, and is a codified component of Hindu customary law. Smṛti also denotes non-Śruti texts^[1] and is generally seen as secondary in authority to Śruti. The literature which comprises the Smrti was composed after the Vedas around 500 BCE. Smrti also denotes tradition in the sense that it portrays the traditions of the rules on dharma, especially those of lawful virtuous persons. This is understood by looking at traditional texts, such as the Ramayana, in which the traditions of the main characters portray a strict adherence to or observance of dharma (the same however need to be understood as experiences rather than binary haves or have-nots)

Role of Smriti within Hindu law

Smriti is the second source of authority for dharma. The first source of dharma is Sruti: the Vedas or Revelations. With regards to Hindu law, scholars have commonly translated Smriti as “tradition”. Although Smriti is also considered a written source; it differs from Sruti in that Smriti does not have divine origins. Smriti’s literal translation, “to remember” explains this. In a sense, Smriti consists of the memories of wisdom that sages have passed on to their disciples. These memories consist of traditions. It is these memories that make up the second source of dharma and consequently have been recorded to become a written source; commentaries such as Laws of Manu, for example. The Smrti texts have become a binding of “sacred literature” which includes the six Vedangas, the Ithihasas : the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, as well as, the Puranas ^[3] It is within all of these works that the rules of dharma remain and are passed down. However, Smriti is still only considered a second authority after Sruti and becomes relevant only when Sruti provides no answer.

• There are two important sides of Smriti: Smriti as Tradition and Smriti as Texts. Smriti as Tradition consists of Smriti as memories. It is from these memories that the rules of dharma are preserved and passed down. Conversely, Smriti as Texts refers to the notion of Traditional Texts. These consists of mostly the dharmasastras and are described as literature which has been “inspired by the smrti”.^[4]

Smriti as Tradition

The history of smrti begins around 500 BCE. Some scholars argue that the original meaning of smrti differs from the medieval Sanskrit commentators’ understanding of smrti. This is understood by looking at passages where the word smriti appears. It is from the context in which the word is used that scholars find evidence for a switch in the meaning and understanding of the term. The present general understanding of smrti consists of non-Vedic literatures that portray the rules of dharma; for example, the Dharmasastra, Itihasa, and Purana. Some scholars argue that this general understanding is inaccurate.^[5] The view of Smriti as literature, specifically that of Dharmasastra texts, has created this notion of Smriti as Traditional texts. However, some scholars argue that the original meaning of Smriti was used to refer to tradition in its simplest understanding and not to texts.^[6] This process looks at the textualization of tradition and examines passages where smrti refers to literature in contrast to passages where there are no connections between smrti and literature. The earliest texts where the term smriti is used are also examined. By a process of looking at the context of what is being stated within the passage, a scholar is able to better derive the correct definition. Scholars also argue about Smriti in terms of it meaning “specifically ‘Brahmanical tradition’”.^[7]

Smriti as Texts

The smṛtis are metrical texts. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of texts that fall into this category and it is remarkable how consistent the topics and reasoning used in these texts are. Though the smṛti texts acknowledge variability in regional religious and legal practices, their principal concern is to explain dharma. This unity of purpose led to a standardization of topics dealt with by the texts, even though the texts still exhibit differences between them. Whether these differences can be attributed to differences in the provenance or time period of the texts, to ideological or other disagreements between authors, or to some other factor is an issue open to debate.
The most famous and the earliest known smṛti text is the Laws of Manu, which dates to approximately the first century AD. The Laws of Manu, or Mānavadharmaśāstra, has recently been critically edited and translated by Patrick Olivelle (2004, 2005). His introduction and translation are perhaps the best starting points for understanding the nature of Dharmaśāstra and its contents. A major piece of the Hindu law tradition is, however, not represented in the main body of this translation, but rather in its footnotes – namely, the commentarial or scholastic tradition that took texts like the Laws of Manu and explained and elaborated upon them in an unbroken tradition that extended at least up to the time of the British and in some ways beyond. Similar to other scholastic traditions of religious law, the Dharmaśāstra commentators' first concern was to explain the sacred legal texts precisely, with careful attention to word meanings, grammatical structures, and principles of legal hermeneutics.

Styles of Memorization

Prodigious energy was expended by ancient Indian culture in ensuring that these texts were transmitted from generation to generation with inordinate fidelity.^[8] For example, memorization of the sacred Vedas included up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text. The texts were subsequently "proof-read" by comparing the different recited versions.

• Forms of recitation included the jaṭā-pāṭha (literally "mesh recitation") in which every two adjacent words in the text were first recited in their original order, then repeated in the reverse order, and finally repeated again in the original order.^[9] The recitation thus proceeded as:

word1word2, word2word1, word1word2; word2word3, word3word2, word2word3; ...

• In another form of recitation, dhvaja-pāṭha^[9] (literally "flag recitation") a sequence of N words were recited (and memorized) by pairing the first two and last two words and then proceeding as:

word1word2, word(N-1)wordN; word2word3, word(N-3)word(N-2); ...; word(N-1)wordN, word1word2;

• The most complex form of recitation, ghana-pāṭha (literally "dense recitation"), according to (Filliozat 2004, p. 139), took the form:

word1word2, word2word1, word1word2word3, word3word2word1, word1word2word3; word2word3, word3word2, word2word3word4, word4word3word2, word2word3word4; ...

That these methods have been effective, is testified to by the preservation of the most ancient Indian religious text, the Ṛgveda (ca. 1500 BCE), as a single text, without any variant readings.^[9] Similar methods were used for memorizing mathematical texts, whose transmission remained exclusively oral until the end of the Vedic period (ca. 500 BCE).

Śruti

Śhruti (Sanskrit: श्रुति, IAST: śhrúti, lit. "hearing, listening"), often spelled sruti or sruthi mainly in South India, is a term that describes the sacred texts comprising the central canon of Hinduism and is one of the three main sources of dharma and therefore is also influential within Hindu Law.^[1] These sacred works span much of the history of Hinduism, beginning with some of the earliest known Hindu texts and ending in the early modern period with the later Upanishads.^[2]
This literature differs from other sources of Hindu Law, particularly smṛti or “remembered text”, because of the purely divine origin of śruti. This belief of divinity is particularly prominent within the Mimamsa tradition.^[3] The initial literature is traditionally believed to be a direct revelation of the “cosmic sound of truth” heard by ancient Rishis who then translated what was heard into something understandable by humans.

Distinction between Shruti and Smriti

Both Shruti and Smriti represent categories of texts that are used to establish the rule of law within the Hindu tradition. However, they each reflect a different kind of relationship that can be had with this material.^[5] Śruti is solely of divine origin and contains no specific concepts of law. Because of the divine origin, it is preserved as a whole, instead of verse by verse.

Texts

For more information on the textual nature of Śruti see main article for Veda
Pre-eminent in śruti literature are the four Vedas:^[6]

• Rig-Veda (hymns recited by the hotar)
• Yajur-Veda (hymns recited by the adhvaryu)
• Sama-Veda (hymns recited by the udgatr)
• Atharva-Veda (a collection of ancient spells and charms, brahma)

The liturgical core of each of the Vedas are supplemented by commentaries on each text which all belong to the śruti canon:

• Brahmanas
• Aranyakas
• Upanishads

The literature of the shakhas, or schools, further amplified the material associated with each of the four core traditions.^[7]

Role in Hindu Law

The idea of śruti established a set group of people who were granted access to the information contained in the Vedas. Because of its divine nature and of Achara, or regional customary laws developed by a person who reads and interprets the Vedas, began to be understood. This, in conjunction with Smrti texts that provide further human interpretation of Śruti, developed the information hierarchy that Hindus looked toward to dictate the proper conduct of their lives. The specific information regarding such proper conduct was not found directly in the Vedas because they do not contain explicit codes or rules that would be found in a legal system.^[8] However, because of the Vedas’ divine and unadulterated form, a rule that claims connection to this literature is given more merit even if it does not cite a specific passage.^[9] In this sense, Śruti exists as a source for all Hindu Law without dictating any specifics.

Quotation

Max Müller in an 1865 lecture stated
"In no country, I believe, has the theory of revelation been so minutely elaborated as in India. The name for revelation in Sanskrit is Sruti, which means hearing; and this title distinguished the Vedic hymns and, at a later time, the Brahmanas also, from all other works, which however sacred and authoritative to the Hindu mind, are admitted to have been composed by human authors. The Laws of Manu, for instance, are not revelation; they are not Sruti, but only Smriti, which means recollection of tradition. If these laws or any other work of authority can be proved on any point to be at variance with a single passage of the Veda, their authority is at once overruled. According to the orthodox views of Indian theologians, not a single line of the Veda was the work of human authors. The whole Veda is in some way or the other the work of the Deity; and even those who saw it were not supposed to be ordinary mortals, but beings raised above the level of common humanity, and less liable therefore to error in the reception of revealed truth. The views entertained by the orthodox theologians of India are far more minute and elaborate than those of the most extreme advocates of verbal inspiration in Europe. The human element, called paurusheyatva in Sanskrit, is driven out of every corner or hiding place, and as the Veda is held to have existed in the mind of the Deity before the beginning of time...

Hindu law

Hindu law in its current usage refers to the system of personal laws (i.e., marriage, adoption, inheritance) applied to Hindus, especially in India.^[1] Modern Hindu law is thus a part of the law of India established by the Constitution of India (1950).
Prior to Indian Independence in 1947, Hindu law formed part of the British colonial legal system and was formally established as such in 1722 by Governor-General Warren Hastings who declared in his Plan for the Administration of Justice that "in all suits regarding inheritance, marriage, caste and other religious usages or institutions, the laws of the Koran with respect to the Mohamedans and those of the Shaster with respect to the Gentoos shall invariably be adhered to."^[2] The substance of Hindu law implemented by the British was derived from early translations of Sanskrit texts known as Dharmaśāstra, the treatises (śāstra) on religious and legal duty (dharma). The British, however, mistook the Dharmaśāstra as codes of law and failed to recognize that these Sanskrit texts were not used as statements of positive law until they chose to do so. Rather, Dharmaśāstra contains what may be called a jurisprudence, i.e., a theoretical reflection upon practical law, but not a statement of the law of the land as such.^[3] Another sense of Hindu law, then, is the legal system described and imagined in Dharmaśāstra texts.
One final definition of Hindu law, or classical Hindu law, brings the realm of legal practice together with the scholastic tradition of Dharmaśāstra by defining Hindu law as a usable label for myriad localized legal systems of classical and medieval India that were influenced by and in turn influenced the Dharmaśāstra tradition. Such local laws never conformed completely to the ideals of Dharmaśāstra, but both substantive and procedural laws of the tradition did impact the practical law, though largely indirectly. It is worth emphasizing that Sanskrit contains no word that precisely corresponds to 'law' or religion and that, therefore, the label "Hindu Law" is a modern convenience used to describe this tradition.
This article will briefly review the Hindu law tradition from its conceptual and practical foundations in early India (Classical Hindu Law) through the colonial appropriations of Dharmaśāstra (Anglo-Hindu Law) to the establishment of the modern personal law system (Modern Hindu Law).

Dharma and law

Dharma and law are not precisely the same. Dharma refers to a wider range of human activities than law in the usual sense and includes ritual purification, personal hygiene regimens, and modes of dress, in addition to court procedures, contract law, inheritance, and other more familiarly "legal" issues. In this respect, Hindu law reveals closer affinities to other religious legal systems, such as Jewish law. Dharma concerns both religious and legal duties and attempts to separate these two concerns within the Hindu tradition have been widely criticized.^[4] According to Rocher, the British implemented a distinction between the religious and legal rules found in Dharmaśāstra and thereby separated dharma into the English categories of law and religion for the purposes of colonial administration.^[5] However, a few scholars have argued that distinctions of law and religion, or something similar, are made in the Hindu legal texts themselves.^[6]

Sources of dharma

There are usually three principal sources of dharma in the Dharmaśāstra texts:

1. śruti, literally translates as "what is heard," but refers to the Vedas or Vedic literature which are the liturgical and praise hymns of the earliest Hindu tradition
2. smŗti, literally "what is remembered," but refers to the Dharmaśāstra texts as well as other Sanskrit texts such as the Purāņas and the Epics (Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaņa)
3. ācāra, literally "practice," but refers to the norms and standards established by educated people who know and live by the first two sources of dharma

In two important texts, namely the Laws of Manu [Manu Smriti] (2.6) and the Laws of Yājñavalkya [Yajnavalkya Smriti] (1.7) another source of dharma, ātmastuṣṭi, literally "what is pleasing to oneself," is also given, but later texts and commentaries severely restrict this source of dharma.^[7]
Effectively, the three ideal sources of dharma reduce to two - texts and the practiced norms of people who know the texts. It is the latter category that gave Hindu law a tremendous flexibility to adapt to different temporal and geographic contexts.

Important legal concepts in Dharmaśāstra

The Dharmaśāstra developed an extensive repertory of legal concepts denoted by Sanskrit terms, many of which were adapted from older theological, philosophical, and political discourses. Although Dharmaśāstra itself was rarely cited directly in litigation or other legal practice, many of these concepts show up in South and Southeast Asian legal documents such as deeds, charters, and orders preserved in inscriptions or other records, including those not composed in Sanskrit (Lubin, forthcoming). Important examples^[8] include:

• vyavahāra – In Dharmaśāstra, vyavahāra refers to the matters justiciable before a formal court of the king or constituted by the king. Vyavahara has two principal sections – legal procedure (vyavahāra-mātŗkā) and the traditional eighteen Titles of Hindu Law (vyavahāra-pada).

• adhikāra – practical authority, authorization, legal capacity, entitlement, responsibility^[9]

• pramāṇa – source of epistemic authority (pramāṇatva, prāmāṇya)^[10]

• ṛṇa – debt

• svatva – property

• daṇḍa – threat of punishment

• prāyaścitta – penance, expiation^[11]

Classical Hindu law

Main article: Classical Hindu law

There is little evidence for the practice of law in India prior to about the eighteenth century. In some regions, such as Maharashtra, a kind of hybrid Hindu and Islamic legal system was fashioned under the Maratha kings.^[12] In other places, such as South India, temples were intimately involved in the administration of law.^[13]
Law during the classical period was highly based upon the teachings of the dharmaśāstra and the distinguished sources of dharma as dictated by those learned in the Vedas.^[14] Although theologically law was primarily derived from Vedic knowledge, in actual practice, the community norms of particular social groups determined the actually rulings. Law was therefore highly decentralized and quite particular in nature towards specific groups.^[15]
What is almost completely lacking for classical and medieval India are the records of courts. In lieu of such records, other kinds of evidence for legal practice must be used to piece together an outline of Classical Hindu Law in practice. Such evidence includes prominently the numerous inscriptions from this period that record a variety of legal transactions, gifts, contracts, decrees, etc. associated with political rulers, temples, corporate groups and others. Many aspects of law were likely under the jurisdiction of castes or other corporate groups such as merchant guilds, military groups, traders, and religious orders.
Beginning around the eighth century, Hindu legal traditions began to be imported into certain parts of Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Java, Bali, Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma) as part of a larger cultural influence mediated by trade and diplomatic relations. In each of these regions, Hindu law fused with local norms and practices, giving rise to legal texts (Āgamas such as the Kuṭāra-Mānawa in Java, and the Buddhist-influenced Dhammasattas/Dhammathats of Burma and Thailand)^[16] as well as legal records embodied (as in India) in stone and copper-plate inscriptions.

Sūtra

Sūtra (Sanskrit: सूत्र, Pāli: sutta, Ardhamagadhi: sūya) is an aphorism (or line, rule, formula) or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a text in Hinduism or Buddhism. Literally it means a thread or line that holds things together and is derived from the verbal root siv-, meaning to sew^[1] (these words, including Latin suere and English to sew, all ultimately deriving from PIE *siH-/syuH- 'to sew'), as does the medical term "suture." The word "sutra" was very likely meant to apply quite literally to these texts, as they were written down in books of palm leaves sewn together with thread. This distinguishes them from the older sacred Vedas, which until recently were only memorised, never committed to paper.
In ancient Indian literature, sutra denotes a distinct type of literary composition, based on short aphoristic statements, generally using various technical terms. This literary form was designed for concision, as the texts were intended to be memorized by students in some of the formal methods of scriptural and scientific study (Sanskrit: svādhyāya). Since each line is highly condensed, another literary form arose in which commentaries (Sanskrit: bhāṣya) on the sutras were added, to clarify and explain them.^[2]
In Brahmin lineage, each family is supposed to have one Gotra, and one Sutra, meaning that a certain Veda (Śruti) is treasured by this family in way of learning by heart.
One of the most famous definitions of a sutra in Indian literature is itself a sutra and comes from the Vayu Purana:
alpākṣaraṃ asandigdhaṃ sāravad viśvatomukham
astobhaṃ anavadyaṃ ca sūtram sūtravido viduḥ
Of minimal syllabary, unambiguous, pithy, comprehensive,
continuous, and without flaw: who knows the sūtra knows it to be thus.
In Jainism, sūtra refers to canonical sermons of the Mahavira contained in the Jain Agamas, and to some later (post-canonical) normative texts.
In Buddhism, the sūtra refers mostly to canonical scriptures, many of which are regarded as records of the oral teachings of Gautama Buddha. In Chinese, these are known as 經 (pinyin: jīng). These teachings are assembled in part of the Tripitaka which is called Sutra Pitaka. There are also some Buddhist texts, such as the Platform Sutra, that are called sūtras despite being attributed to much later authors.
In the book "Modern Buddhism", Geshe Kelsang Gyatso defines sūtra as "The teachings of Buddha that are open to everyone to practice without the need for empowerment. These include Buddha's teachings of the three turnings of the dharma wheel.^[3]
Some scholars consider that the Buddhist use of sūtra is a mis-Sanskritization of Prakrit or Pali sutta, and that the latter represented Sanskrit sūkta, "well spoken", "good news" (as the Buddha himself refers to his speech in his first sermon; compare the original meaning of Gospel), which would also resolve as sutta in Pali.^[4] The early Buddhist sutras do not present the aphoristic, nearly cryptic nature of the Hindu sutras,^[5] even though they also have been designed for mnemonic purposes in an oral tradition. On the contrary, they are most often lengthy, with many repetitions which serve the mnemonic purpose of the audience. They share the character of sermons of "good news" with the Jaina sūtras, whose original name of sūya (in Ardhamagadhi language) can derive from Sanskrit sūkta, but hardly from sūtra.
The Pali form of the word, sutta is used exclusively to refer to the scriptures of the early Pali Canon, the only texts recognized by Theravada Buddhism as canonical.

Sutras primarily associated with Hinduism

Vedanga

• Shiksha (phonetics)
• Chandas (metrics)
• Vyakarana (grammar)
• Ashtadhyayi (Pāṇini), discussing grammar
• Nirukta (etymology)
• Jyotisha (astrology)
• Kalpa (ritual)
• Srauta Sutras, performance of sacrifices
• Smarta Sutras
• Grhya Sutras, covering domestic life
• Samayacarika or Dharma Sutras
• Sulba Sutras, architecture of sacrificial area

Hindu philosophy

• Yoga Sutras
• Samkhya Sutra
• Nyaya Sutras
• Vaisheshika Sutra
• Purva Mimamsa Sutras
• Brahma Sutras (or Vedanta Sutra) (Badarayana)
• Shiva Sutras
• Narada Bhakti Sutra

Sushruta Samhita

The Sushruta Samhita (सुश्रुतसंहिता) is a Sanskrit redaction text, attributed to Sushruta. The Sushruta compendium or "samahita" was probably compiled circa 6th cen BCE. At the end of several chapters, ancient sanskrit texts themselves explicitly declare that they have been supplemented, edited, and partially rewritten by earlier authors, whose dates run up to about the 8th century BC. The Sushruta Samhita was translated to Arabic as Kitab-i-Susrud in the 8th cen CE. It was studied by Bhishagratna translated a version (? By Nagarjuna) to English in 1907. The redaction text, Sushruta Samhita contains 184 chapters and description of 1120 illnesses, 700 medicinal plants, a detailed study on Anatomy, 64 preparations from mineral sources and 57 preparations based on animal sources.^[1] It is the main reference book for ayurvedic surgeons.
ompatel 10 a doon international public school The Sushruta samhita is in two parts, first one is Purva-tantra in five sections and the second one is Uttara-tantra.
Those two parts together encompass, apart from Salyya and Salakya, the other specialities like medicine, pediatrics, geriatrics, diseases of the ear, nose, throat and eye, toxicology, aphrodisiacs and psychiatry.
Thus the whole Samhita, devoted as it is to the science of surgery, does not fail to include the salient portions of other disciplines too. In fact, Sushruta emphasizes in his text that unless one possesses enough knowledge of relevant sister branches of learning, one cannot attain proficiency in one's own subject of study.
The Samhita is thus an encyclopaedia of medical learning with special emphasis on Salya and Salakya.
The Sutra-sthana, Nidana-sthana, Sarira-sthana, Kalpa-sthana and Chikitsa-sthana are the five books of the Purvatantra containing one hundred and twenty chapters.
Incidentally, the Agnivesatantra known better as the Charaka Samhita and the Ashtanga Hridayam of Vagbhata also contain one hundred and twenty chapters in all.
The Nidana-sthana gives the student the knowledge of aetiology, signs and symptoms of important surgical diseases and those ailments, which have a bearing on surgery.
The rudiments of embryology and the anatomy of the human body along with instructions for venesection (cutting of veins), the positioning of the patient for each vein, and protection of vital structures (marma) are dealt with in the Sarira-sthana. This also includes the essentials of obstetrics.
Principles of management of surgical conditions including obstetrical emergencies are contained in the Chikitsa-sthana, which also includes a few chapters on geriatrics and aphrodisiacs.
The Kalpa-sthana is mainly Visa-tantra, dealing with the nature of poisons and their management.
Thus the Purva-tantra embraces four branches of Ayurveda.
The Uttara-tantra contains the remaining four specialities, namely Salakya, Kaumarabhfefefrtya, Kayacikitsa and Bhutavidya. The entire Uttara-tantra has been called Aupadravika since many of the complications of surgical procedures as well as fever, dysentery, cough, hiccough, krmi-roga, pandu, kamala, etc., are briefly described here. The Salakya-tantra portion of the Uttara-tantra contains various diseases of the eye, the ear, the nose and the head. Thus the whole Samhita is a comprehensive treatise on the entire medical discipline.

Surgical procedures described

Sushruta and om patel doon has pointed out that haemorrhage can be arrested by apposition of the cut edges with stitches, application of styptic decoctions, by cauterisation with chemicals or heat. That the progress of surgery and its development is closely associated with the great wars of the past is well known. The vrana or injury, says Sushruta, involves breakdown of body-components and may have one or more of the following seats for occurrence, viz., skin, flesh, blood-vessels, sinews, bones, joints, internal organs of chest and abdomen and vital structures. Classically vrana, the wound, is the ultimate explosion of the underlying pathological structure. It is, in Sushruta's words, the sixth stage of a continuous process, which starts with sotha (inflammation). Sushruta says that in the first stage, the ulcer is unclean and hence called a dusta-vrana. By proper management it becomes a clean wound, a suddha-vrana. Then there is an attempt at healing and is called ruhyamana-vrana and when the ulcer is completely healed, it is a rudha-vrana. Sushruta has advocated the use of wine with incense of cannabis for anaesthesia.^[2] Although the use of henbane and of Sammohini and Sanjivani are reported at a later period, Sushruta was the pioneer of anaesthesia.
Sushruta describes eight types of surgical procedures: Excision (chedana) is a procedure whereby a part or whole of the limb is cut off from the parent. Incision (bhedana) is made to achieve effective drainage or exposure of underlying structures to let the content out. Scraping (lekhana) or scooping is carried out to remove a growth or flesh of an ulcer, tartar of teeth, etc. the veins, hydrocele and ascitic fluid in the abdomen are drained by puncturing with special instrument (vyadhana). The sinuses and cavities with foreign bodies are probed (esana) for establishing their size, site, number, shape, position, situation, etc. Sravana (blood-letting) is to be carried out in skin diseases, vidradhis, localised swelling, etc. in case of accidental injuries and in intentional incisions, the lips of the wound are apposed and united by stitching (svana.)
To obtain proficiency and acquiring skill and speed in these different types of surgical manipulations, Sushruta had devised various experimental modules for trying each procedure. For example, incision and excision are to be practised on vegetables and leather bags filled with mud of different densities; scraping on hairy skin of animals; puncturing on the vein of dead animals and lotus stalks; probing on moth-eaten wood or bamboo; scarification on wooden planks smeared with beeswax, etc. On the subject of trauma, Sushruta speaks of six varieties of accidental injuries encompassing almost all parts of the body.
Sushruta also gives classification of the bones and their reaction to injuries. varieties of dislocation of joints (sandhimukta) and fractures of the shaft (kanda-bhagna) are given systematically. He classifies and gives the details of the six types of dislocations and twelve varieties of fractures. He gives the principles of fracture treatment, viz., traction, manipulation, appositions and stabilisation. Sushruta has described the entire orthopaedic surgery, including some measures of rehabilitation, in his work.
As war was a major cause of injury, the name Salya-tantra for this branch of medical learning is derived from Salya, the arrow of the enemy, which in fights used to be lodged in the body of the soldiers. He emphasises that removal of foreign bodies is fraught with certain complications if the seat of the Salya be a marma.
Sushruta also discusses certain surgical conditions of ano-rectal region, he has given all the methods of management of both haemorrhoids and fistulae. Different types of incision to remove the fistulous tract as langalaka, ardhalangalaka, sarvabhadra, candraadha (curved) and kharjurapatraka (serrated) are described for adoption according to the type of fistula.
Sushruta was well aware of the urinary stones, their varieties; the anatomy of urinary bladder along with its relations is well recorded in the chapter on urinary stones. Varieties of stones, their signs and symptoms, the method of extraction and operative complication are given in detail. Apart from the above, surgery of intestinal obstruction (baddha-gudodara), perforated intestines (chidrodara), accidental injuries to abdomen (assaya-bhinna) in which protrusion of omentum occurs are also described along with their management.
Though the contributions of Sushruta are mainly in the field of Plastic and Cataract surgery,^[1] a number of his other contributions to medicine are listed below:

Plastic surgery

The samahita lays down the basic principles of plastic surgery by advocating a proper physiotherapy before the operation and describes various methods or different types of defects, viz., (1) release of the skin for covering small defects, (2) rotation of the flaps to make up for the partial loss and (3) pedicle flaps for covering complete loss of skin from an area. He has mentioned various methods including sliding graft, rotation graft and pedicle graft. Reconstruction of a nose (rhinoplasty) which has been cut-off, using a flap of skin from the cheek has been described. Labioplasty too has received attention in the samahita.
==Legacy== by advice of om patel doon The “Bower manuscript” (found in a Buddhist monastery in Chinese Turkestan), a sanskrit language text written in the Brahmi script (same script as in Asokan edicts of 3rd cen BCE) written on birch leaves (circa 5th cen CE) mentions the name Susrutha as one of the 10 sages residing in the Himalayas. The manuscript is dated on paleographic grounds to the second half of the 4th century.^[3]
The medical compendiums of both Sushruta and Charaka were translated into Arabic language during the Abbasid Caliphate (750 AD). These Arabic works made their way into Europe via intermediaries. In Italy the Branca family of Sicily and Gasparo Tagliacozzi (Bologna) became familiar with the techniques mentioned in the Sushruta Samahita.
Reports on "Indian" rhinoplasty performed by a local Vaidya of the Koomhar caste (thought to be descendants of Brahma's son), using the forehead skin, in the presence of two British surgeons (not the cheek flap as mentioned in the susrutha samahita) were published in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1794. Joseph Constantine Carpue after reading this article and researching for 20 more years, was able to perform the "Indian" method of nose reconstruction and publish it in 1815.

Shalakya tantra

'Shalakya tantra' is a branch of ayurveda, the Indian system of medicine.
Ayurveda has eight major branches. They are named as Kayachikitsa, Balachikitsa, Grahachikitsa(Manorogachikitsa), Salakyatanthra, salyatanthra, vishachikitsa (damshtrachikitsa), rasayana (jarachikitsa)and Vajeekarana.
Salakyatanthra is the branch which deals with the health and disease of head and neck portions of the body. The father of this speciality was Nimi (king of videha), He learned this science from lord Sun. This tantra deals with health and disease of head and neck portions of the body. Mainly they include
Nethrachikitsa (Ophthalmology) Karnachikitsa (otology) Nasachikitsa (rhinology) Mukharogachikitsa(oral hygiene Dentistry and Laryngology) and Shirorogachikitsa(diseases of the cranium).
Of these, ophthalmology is the most widely practised sub-speciality, In this field total 76 eye diseases have been described with classification such as Vartma gata roga i.e. diseases of the lids, Krishnagata roga (Diseases of cornea)etc. In India, especially in the southern state of Kerala, almost all these branches are still alive and popular.
There are special treatment procedures for the treatment of the organs of head and neck. They include Nasyam, Dhoomapnam, Gandoosham, Kabalam, Shirodhara, Shirovasthi, Anjanam, Tharpanam, and Pratisaranam.
Ayurvedic ophthalmology is seen to be highly effective in many degenerative ailments as well as infectious diseases.^{[citation needed][dubious – discuss]} There are several methods advised in the classical textbooks of ayurveda regarding proper care and prophylactic measurements for eyes.

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