Veda Vihangam-The Essential Veda

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The Vedas Rk, Sama, Yajuh, Atharva are the oldest and most sacred Hindu scriptures. While these timeless texts have shaped Indian religious, social and cultural sentiments, their footprints are visible in practically every aspect of the Indian way of life. The chant of Gayatri and the sacred symbol Om, the growth of geometry, the invention of zero, the development of prosody, and much more, are directly related to the Vedas.

Despite this enduring legacy, very few of us ever read, or even chance upon the Vedas and most of the existing, albeit misinterpreted, scholarship is courtesy of Western scholars. In Veda Vihangam: The Essential Veda, Hindu monk and teacher Samarpan unravels the majestic scope and immediate relevance of this set of religious texts by bringing to our attention and elucidating select mantras and hymns. Drawing from the great Sāyaṇācārya's commentary on the Vedas, Samarpan aligns the Vedic spiritual thought process with the contemporary world.

Told in a lucid, easy-to-understand manner, Veda Vihangam is a true collectible and a must-read for all.

Samarpan is a Hindu monk, teacher and writer of several books, articles, memoirs, etc. His articles, under his monastic name, have appeared in different journals. His talks on scriptures are available online. He teaches ancient and modern scriptures at the deemed university of the organization to which he belongs.

The most sacred books of the Hindus, the Veda - Rk, Sama, Yajuh and Atharva - are the oldest scriptures of the world, which have come down to us exactly the way they were composed thousands of years ago by the great sages of the prehistoric Indian subcontinent.

Over the millennia, the Veda have shaped Indian religious, social and cultural life, while their footprints are visible in practically every aspect of the Indian way of life. The chant of Gayatri, sacred symbol Om, rituals related to birth, death, life and marriage, the growth of geometry, founding of algebra, invention of zero in mathematics, prosody in poetry, languages, dance, music, drama - all this and many more, with which a Hindu feels inextricably connected, are directly related to the Veda. Consciously or unconsciously every Indian breathes in the Veda and when his life-breath leaves the body, his onward journey too is facilitated by the Veda.

In spite of this timeless connection to their source, very few Hindus ever read, or even chance to see the Veda. One occasionally hears a chant, a mantra or a quote here and there, and that is the end of it. Talking about the dwindling interest in the Veda in Bengal, which applies equally to the whole of India, Swami Vivekananda had lamented, 'The study of the Veda has almost disappeared from Bengal. How I wish that day will soon come when in every home the Veda will be worshipped together with Shalagrama, the household deity, when the young, the old and the women will inaugurate the worship of the Veda! (CW: III.457).

The chief reasons for this indifference are: the belief that these are meant for the priests, the truly voluminous size of the four Vedas (collectively these contain tens of thousands of verses), their archaic language, the missing context of the content, and a popular misconception that these texts are only about rituals and prehistoric ceremonies, which rarely give results in the modern-day world. In short, the Veda are believed to be abstruse, distant and irrelevant.

**Contents and Sample Pages**