| The Vedic hymns were probably collected and | | | | the course of the sacrifice: and the Sâma Veda, |
| arranged between 1000 and 500 B.C. At that period | | | | a book of chants, consisting almost entirely of verses |
| rites and ceremonies multiplied and absorbed man's | | | | taken from the Rig Veda and arranged for singing. |
| mind to a degree unparalleled in the history of the | | | | The Rig Veda is clearly older than the others: its |
| world and literature occupied itself with the | | | | elements are anterior to the Brahmanic liturgy and |
| description or discussion of this dreary ceremonial. | | | | are arranged in less complete subservience to it than |
| Buddhism was a protest against the necessity of | | | | in the Yajur and Sâma Vedas. |
| sacrifices and, though Buddhism decayed in India, the | | | | The restriction of the words Veda and Vedic to the |
| sacrificial system never recovered from the attack | | | | collection of hymns, though convenient, is not in |
| and assumed comparatively modest proportions. But | | | | accordance with Indian usage, which applies the name |
| in an earlier period, after the composition of the | | | | to a much larger body of religious literature. What we |
| Vedic hymns and before the predominance of | | | | call the Rig Veda is strictly speaking the mantras of |
| speculation, skill in ceremonial was regarded as the | | | | the Rig Veda or the Rig-Veda-SaChitâ: besides |
| highest and indeed only science and the ancient | | | | this, there are the BrâhmaGas or ceremonial |
| prayers and poems of the race were arranged in | | | | treatises, the ÂraGyakas and Upanishads |
| three collections to suit the ritual. | | | | containing philosophy and speculation, the Sûtras |
| These were the Rig Veda, containing metrical | | | | or aphoristic rules, all comprised in the Veda or Zruti |
| prayers: the Yajur Veda (in an old and new recension | | | | (hearing), that is the revelation heard directly by |
| known as the Black and the White) containing | | | | saints as opposed to Sm[iti (remembering) or tradition |
| formulæ mainly in prose to be muttered during | | | | starting from human teachers. |