A Concise History of Science in India c5.s2.1

c5.s2.1

The Vedic literature is the oldest Indian and also the most outstanding specimen of the earliest Indo-European literary effort. Unlike the canonical literature of other great religions, which often represents a complete collection worked out in some definite time, the *Vedas* are considered to be revealed (*śruti*) knowledge *par excellence* handed down from generation to generation by a unique method of oral transmission. The whole literature has been conveniently divided, according to content and chronology in a general way, into three distinct classes, e.g. the *Saṃhitās*, the *Brāhmaṇas*, and the *Āraṇyakas-Upaniṣads*. Despite this classification, there is a great deal of unity and intermixture of materials among the three divisions. Chronologically, although the *Saṃhitās* are older than the *Brāhmaṇas* and the *Brāhmaṇas* than the *Āraṇyakas-Upaniṣads*, some of the *Brāhmaṇas* are older than, or contemporaneous with, some of the *Saṃhitās*, and likewise with the *Brāhmaṇas vis-à-vis* the *Āraṇyakas-Upaniṣads*.