Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/33

The Veda
the shaping of Vedic thought. For the present
it will be advantageous to turn to the Vedic
religion of historic times, so that there
may be
some basis for discriminating between what is old
and what is new. And as it would not be gra-
cious to presume too much knowledge of so remote
a theme as the Veda, we must first describe briefly
the documents of which consists the Veda, the most
ancient literary monument of India, the most ancient
literary document of the Indo-European peoples-the
foundation for all time of India's religious thought.
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THE VEDA
The word veda means literally "knowledge," that
is, "sacred knowledge." It is derived from vid, "to
know," and connected with Greek (F)oida, Gothic
wait, German weiss, English wit, "to know." The
term Veda is used in two ways: either as the col-
lective designation of the entire oldest sacred
literature of India, or as the specific name of
So
single books belonging to that literature.
then, on the one hand, we speak of the Veda as the
bible of ancient India; or, on the other hand, we
speak of Rig-Veda, Atharva-Veda, etc., as individual
books of that great collection. The number of
books which, in one sense or another, are counted
more. The Hindus
as Veda is a hundred or