p 



VEDA. 



nuine ; and has no doubt but the Vedas will appear to be 

 of this defcription. In pronouncing them genuine, he means 

 to fay that they are the fame compofitions, which, under the 

 fame title of Veda, have been revered by Hindoos for hun- 

 dreds, if not thoufands of years. He thinks it probable 

 they were compiled by Dwapayana, the perfon who is faid 

 to have collefted them ; and who is thence named Vyafa, or 

 the compiler. See Vya.sa. 



The following is the concluding paragraph of Mr. Cole- 

 brooke's very inftrudtive paper on the Vedas, in the eighth 

 volume of the Aiiatic Refearches, to which we have already 

 acknowledged our obligations for a portion of this article. 



" The preceding defcription may ferve to convey fome 

 notion of the Vedas. They are too voluminous for a com- 

 plete tranflation of the whole ; and what they contain would 

 hardly reward the labour of the reader ; much lefs that of 

 the tranflator. The ancient dialeft in which they are com- 

 pofed, efpecially that of the three firft Vedas, is extremely 

 difficuh and obfcure ; and though curious, as the parent of a 

 more polifhed and refined dialeft (the claffical Sanfcrit), its 

 difficulties mufl long continue to prevent fuch an examination 

 of the whole Vedas as would be requifite for extrafting all 

 that is remarkable and important in thofe voluminous 

 works : but they deferve to be occalionally confulted by the 

 Oriental fcholar." See Shaxscrit. 



We fhall now proceed to notice, as briefly as we can, the 

 fabled and believed origin of the Vedas ; the reverence in 

 which they are held by Hindoos ; their fuppofed antiquity ; 

 and fome other points that may incidentally arife in the courfe 

 of fuch confiderations. 



In the Inftitutes of Menu, chap.i. v. 23, it is laid down, 

 that " from fire, from air, and from the fun, He (the Su- 

 preme Ruler) milked out, as it were, the three primordial 

 Vedas, named Rich, Yajufli, and Saman, for the due per- 

 formance of the facrifice." 



Chap. iv. 1 24. " The Rigveda is held facred to the gods ; 

 the Yajurvcda relates to mankind ; the Samaveda concerns 

 the manes of anceftors ; and the found of it, when chanted, 

 raifes therefore a notion of fomething impure." 



A commentator on the firft of thefe texts explains it by 

 remarking, that the Rigveda opens with a hymn to fire, and 

 the Yajurveda with one in which air is mentioned. Another 

 commentator has recourfe to the popular notions refpefting 

 the renovations of the univerfe, at the end of the periods 

 called Kalpa. " In one Kalpa the Vedas proceeded from 

 fire, air, and the fun ; in another, from Brahma at his alle- 

 gorical immolation." See Kalpa and Paru.sha. 



The moft general belief is, that the /o«/- Vedas iflued from 

 the four mouths of Brahma, as the like number of individuals 

 did in whom originated the four grand civil lefts, from 

 appropriate parts of his body (fee Sects of Hindoos^) ; 

 the Brahman, or divine, from his mouth. Now Brahma is 

 fabled to have once had five heads, and in this article we 

 have noticed affth Veda. Siva, in one of his forms, is alfo 

 five -headed ; hence called Panchamuki ; which fee. ( See alfo 

 Siva. ) Some authorities attribute the Vedas generally to Pa- 

 vaka, the god of fire. (SeePAVAKA.) Others to Sai-afwati, 

 the goddefs of literature, &c. confort of Brahma. (See Sa- 

 RASWATI.) No female, however, is permitted to read the 

 holy volumes. Sir W. Jones tells us ( Af. Ref. vol. iii. ), that 

 " the Veda is called alfo Jgama ; but this title refers more 

 particularly to a myfterious book, or fet of books, fo named 

 from having come from the mouth of Siva, as the Vedas pro- 

 ceeded feverally from the four mouths of Brahma. The 

 fame word means alfo the Veda." The word Agama, and 

 fimilar words in other tongues, feem to imply fomething 

 Biyfterious. See Ogham and O'm. 



The idea of impurity arifing from the chanting of the 

 Samaveda, is not uniformly held. Mr. Colebrooke informs 

 us, " that a peculiar degree of holinefs feems to be attached, 

 according to Indian notions, to the Samaveda, if reliance 

 may be placed on the inference fuggeiled by the etymo- 

 logy of its name, which is expounded as denoting fomething 

 which defiroys Jin." And this inference, we may remark, 

 is countenanced by the circumftance of Kridina, when enu- 

 merating, in the Bhagavat Gita, various grders of beings 

 and things, to the chief of which he compares himfelf, de- 

 claring, that " among the Vedas, I am the Saman." It 

 may be faid, however, that this Veda more efpecially re- 

 lating to mufic, over which Krilhna, the Hindoo Apollo, 

 preiides, he may advert only to its harmonious pre-eminence. 



iv. 125. " Let the learned," Menu commands, " read 

 the Veda on every lawful day, having firft repeated in order 

 the pure effence of the three Vedas, namely, the Pranava, 

 the Vyahritis, and the Gayatri." Of thefe fee under O'm. 



xi. 262. " A prieft who (hould retain in his memory the 

 \\hole Rigveda, would be abfolved from guilt, even if he 

 had flain the inhabitants of the three worlds, and had eaten 

 food from the fouleft hands." 



263. " By thrice repeating the Mantras and Brahmanas 

 of the Rig, or thofe of the Yajufli, or thofe of the Saman, 

 with the Upanifhads, he fliall perfeftly be cleanfed from 

 every poflible fin." 



264. " As a clod of earth, caft into a great lake, finks into 

 it, thus is every finful aft fubmerged in the triple Veda." 



266. " The primary triliteral fyllable, in which the three 

 Vedas themfelves are comprifed, mull be kept as fecret as 

 another triple Veda : he knows the Veda, who knows the 

 myftic fenfe of that word." Of which fee under O'm. 



In the above texts from Menu, we fee the propenfity of 

 the Hindoos to bring every thing into a ternary arrange- 

 ment. The three Vedas, and the triple Veda, are ever re- 

 curring. In a hymn by fir W. Jones to the fun, or rather 

 to its ruler, Surya, he fays, 



" Nor e'en the Vedas three to man explain 



Thy myftic orb triform, though Brahma tun'd theftrain." 



See SuRYA. See alfo Trimurti for many inftances of this 

 difpofition for triune clafllfication. 



The philofophical writers and their difciples, who profefc 

 to adhere clofely to the doftrines of the Veda, are called 

 Vtdanta; which fee. 



On the age of the Vedas, we have to obferve, that fir W. 

 Jones (Af. Ref. vol. i. J rejefts their claim to the very high 

 antiquity that fome warm advocates were difpofed to affign 

 to them : he could never believe that they were aftually 

 written before the flood ; but ventures to aflert, that they 

 are far older than any other Sanfcrit compofition. And 

 in vol. ii. he fays, that he " firmly believes, from internal 

 and external evidences, that three of the Vedas are more 

 than three thoufand years old." And in vol. iii. that they 

 appear to ftand next in antiquity to the five books of Mofes. 

 In the preface to the Inftitutes of Menu, the learned tranf- 

 lator deems the three firft Vedas to have been compofed 

 about three hundred years before the Inftitutes, and about 

 fix hundred before the Puranas, which he is fully purfuaded 

 were not the produftion of Vyafa. The Inftitutes he fup- 

 pofes to have received their prefent form about 880 years 

 before Chrift's birth. By one mode of reckoning, the 

 higheft age of the Yajurveda is carried to 1580 years 

 before the birth of our Saviour, (which would make it 

 older than the Pentateuch,) and the Inftitutes muft then 

 be affigned to about 1280 years before the fame epoch : 

 but fir W. Jones deemed the former date of 880 years 



B.C. 



