The Vedas are therefore regarded as Shruti in Hinduism meaning “what is heard” as contrasted with other texts designated Smritis (“what is remembered”), accounts of great heroes and their struggles in works such as the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Bhagavad Gita (although some sects of Hinduism regard the Bhagavad Gita as Shruti). The texts which make up the Four Vedas are:

• Rig Veda
• Sama Veda
• Yajur Veda
• Atharva Veda
• 
• Each of these is further divided into types of text included within them:
• Aranyakas – rituals, observances
• Brahmanas – commentaries on said rituals
• Samhitas – benedictions, prayers, mantras
• Upanishads – philosophical narratives and dialogues
• The Upanishads are the best known and most often read of the Vedas because their discourse is presented in dialogue/narrative form and they were the first to be translated into other languages. The four Vedas, conversely, are considered the literal sounds of the Divine which, when recited or sung, recreate the primal vibrations of the universe. Accordingly, they are actually impossible to translate and what one reads in a translation should be understood as a paraphrase at best.

  Orthodox Hindu denominations recognize the Vedas as a significant spiritual authority but not all Hindu sects follow suit. Reform movements throughout the modern era, beginning in the 19th century CE, place greater value on personal religious experience than scriptural authority and tradition and so some sects, or off-shoots of Hinduism (such as the Brahmos Movement) reject the Vedas entirely as superstition. Even so, the works continue to be recited, studied, and venerated in the present and remain an important part of Hindu religious observances, festivals, and ceremonies.

   

  Early Origin, Dating, & Development

  No one knows the origin of the Vedas although many scholars and theologians have advanced differing claims on the subject. It is most commonly believed (though by no means universally accepted) that the Vedic vision came to India by way of nomadic Aryan tribes who migrated there from Central Asia sometime around the 3rd millennium BCE. “Aryan” should be understood as it was by the people of the time, meaning “free” or “noble”, a class of people, not a race, and not Caucasian (as was claimed by 18th- and 19th-century CE Western scholars). These Indo-Aryans are thought to have broken off from a larger group which also included the Indo-Iranians who settled in the region of modern-day Iran and came to be known in the West (via the Greeks) as Persians. Similarities between Early Iranian Religion (and later Zoroastrianism) and early Hinduism suggest a common belief system, which then developed separately.

  The Indo-Aryan Migration theory holds that the Vedic vision was developed in Central Asia and brought to India during the decline of the indigenous Harappan Civilization (c. 7000-600 BCE) between c. 2000-1500 BCE, merging that culture‘s beliefs with their own. Another theory, however, known as Out of India (OIT) claims that the Harappan Civilization had already developed this vision and exported it from India to Central Asia from whence it then returned with the migration of the Indo-Aryans.

  There are sound reasons for recognizing the motivation, at least, for either claim (though the OIT is rejected by mainstream academia) and scholars seem to hold to one or the other more for personal reasons than any based on objective, scholarly research. The most reasonable response to the question of the origin and dating of the Vedas is simply that one does not know. The human need to resolve what appears to be mysterious, however, keeps the debate alive in the present day. Scholars Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund comment briefly on the early development of the dating/origin issue:

  Muller’s work continues to inform the debate in the present day, and his claims are generally considered the most probable or even certain. Wherever the Vedic vision originated, and however long it existed in oral form, it developed in India during the Vedic Period after the arrival of the Indo-Aryans.