Question

How many are the Vedas? Name them. Give details in brief of each.

Answer 1

Hint:The Vedas are a vast body of ancient India-origin religious texts. They are written in Vedic Sanskrit. These texts are from the oldest layer of Hinduism's Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures.

Complete answer:
There are four Vedas- the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda
Rigveda- The Rigveda is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text. Its early layers are one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. The sounds and texts of Rigveda have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE. The philological and linguistic evidence indicates that the bulk of the Rigveda Samhita was composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, most likely between c. 1500 and 1200 BCE, although a wider approximation of c. 1700–1100 BCE has also been given.
Yajurveda- The Yajurveda is mostly the Veda of prose mantras for rituals of worship. It is a collection of ritual-offering formulas that were said by a priest while a person performed ritual acts such as those before the yajna fire, an ancient Vedic Sanskrit text. One of the four Vedas, and one of the scriptures of Hinduism, is Yajurveda. The exact century of the composition of Yajurveda is uncertain, and Witzel estimates it to be between 1200 and 800 BCE, contemporaneous with Samaveda and Atharvaveda.
Samaveda- The Samaveda is the Veda with chants and melodies. It is an ancient Sanskrit Vedic text and a part of Hinduism's scriptures. One of the four Vedas, which consists of 1,549 lines, is a liturgical text. All but 75 of the Rigveda verses were taken. Three recensions of the Samaveda have survived, and variant manuscripts of the Veda have been found in various parts of India.
Atharvaveda- The Atharva Veda is the "knowledge storehouse of atharvāṇas, the procedures for everyday life" This text is the fourth Veda, but it was a late addition to Hinduism's Vedic scriptures. In Vedic Sanskrit, the Atharvaveda is written, and it is a series of 730 hymns with around 6,000 mantras, broken down into 20 volumes. Approximately one-sixth of the Atharvaveda texts adapt verses from the Rigveda, and the text is in poem form, deploying a number of Vedic matters, except for Books 15 and 16.

Note:There are four subdivisions of a Veda-
1. The Samhitas (mantras and benedictions),
2. The Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices),
3. The Brahmanas (Rituals, Ceremonies and Sacrifices Commentaries), and
4. The Upanishads (texts discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge).
A fifth group is introduced by some scholars- the Upasanas (worship).