Vedas the earliest Hindu sacred texts. ‘Veda’ literally means a text that contains knowledge, in particular sacred knowledge concerning the nature of ultimate reality and the proper human ways of relating thereto. Passed down orally and then composed over a millennium beginning around 1400 B.C., there are four collections of Vedas: the Rg Veda (1,028 sacred songs of praise with some cosmological speculations), the Sama Veda (chants to accompany sacrifices), Yajur Veda (sacrificial formulas and mantras), and Atharva Veda (magical formulas, myths, and legends). The term ‘Veda’ also applies to the Brahmanas (ritual and theological commentaries on the prior Vedas); the Aranyakas (mainly composed by men who have passed through their householder stage of life and retired to the forest to meditate), and the Upanishads, which more fully reflect the idea of theoretical sacred knowledge, while the early Vedas are more practice-oriented, concerned with ritual and sacrifice. All these texts are regarded as scripture (sruti), ‘heard’ in an oral tradition believed to be handed down by sages by whom their content was ‘seen.’ The content is held to express a timeless and uncreated wisdom produced by neither God nor human. It contains material ranging from instructions concerning the proper sacrifices to make and how to make them properly, through hymns and mantras, to accounts of the nature of Brahman, humankind, and the cosmos. Sruti contrasts with smrti (tradition), which is humanly produced commentary on scripture. The Bhagavad Gita, perhaps strictly smrti, typically has the de facto status of sruti. K.E.Y.