Names and Groups of Books

The core of this collection is the set of four types of books, namely Rigveda mantra Samhita, Yajurveda mantra Samhita, Sāmaveda mantra Samhita and the Atharvaveda mantra Samhita; each type having one or more recensions. These are all poems, some metrical and some non-metrical. These are the earliest books of the entire humanity. Each verse in these books is called a mantra and they collectively number more than 20,000. These mantrās are the inspired words shruti heard by the sage when they were in a super-conscient state as a result of their askesis. Veda is not man-made in the sense it is not born of human intellect, human imagination or speculation. The mantrās are the perceptions of deep spiritual truths and occult phenomena revealed to these sages. The rişhis number is more than thousand; they include several women also such as vāk ambriņi, apāla, lopamudra, sūryā etc., we will mention more details later.

Associated with each of the four mantra-samhita books, there are brāhmaņa books, āraņyaka books and the Upanishad books. Thus the sixteen types of books are divided into four groups named Rigveda, Yajurveda, Sāmaveda and Atharvaveda. Rigveda denotes the set of Rigveda Samhita books along with their associated brāhmaņa, āraņyaka and Upanishad books. Yajurveda has two major recensions, Shukla Yajurveda and the Krişhņa Yajurveda. We give below the names of the books in the major or well known recensions of the four Vedās.

Names of The Books

Rig Veda (RV)

Sukla Yajur Veda (SYV)

m: mādhyandina, k: kāņva

Krishna Yajur Veda (KYV)

Sama Veda (SV)

Atharva Veda (AV)