ABSTRACT
The Indian philosophical tradition in its rudiments began in the Vedas, the earliest extant texts of the Hindus. The Vedas are not the name of a particular book, but of the literature spanning over two thousand years, which record the religious and speculative thinking of the Hindus, These texts were collected over several centuries by several generations of poets, philosophers, and brahmins (priests) and were not systematized as a collection until around 800 BCE. Thus it is not surprising that these texts vary significantly not only in form but also in content.
