ABSTRACT
The corpus of Vedic literature consists broadly of two kinds—ritualistic and intellectual—and is classified into four groups: the Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads. The Vedic corpus incorporates early human spiritual experience, all the way from being one with nature to the metaphysical world of identification of the self with the abstract cosmic ultimate reality. Of the four Vedas, the oldest and most basic is the Rig-Veda. The Vedic gods were classified into three groups: samraj, viraj, and svaraj, representing the regions of heaven, earth, and the middle region between the two, respectively. The Brahmanas represented ritual texts, a kind of manual to help the Brahmans in their task of officiating as priests at different rituals and sacrifices. The Aranyakas offered a mystic interpretation of Brahmanical rites, rituals, and sacrifices. The Mandukya Upanishad observes the three states of the soul—waking, dreaming, and sleeping—are included in a fourth, which is intuitional consciousness, where there is no knowledge of objects, internal or external.
