ABSTRACT
Although it is probable that the roots of what would become the Vedas stretch far back into the distant past, the Vedas took on their mature form during the earliest historical period following the spread of the Sanskrit language in India, roughly between 1500 and 1000 bce. This historical era is called the Vedic Age. The Vedas were organized into four great collections. They share much in common, but each of the four has its own general emphasis. The earliest, and by far the most significant, is the Rig Veda. The Vedas—Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva—provided the Brahmin priests with all the sacred verses they needed to properly conduct the great rituals of yajna, the Vedic sacrifice. The place where the sacrifice was to occur was holy ground, a special piece of land presumably set apart from the living area of the community.
