u/WarmStrength9654

Hello guys ,

I am a teenager and got recently interested in vedic culture.

The one thing that goes over my head is the concept of shakhas of the vedas , i keep reading here and there that majority of the vedas is lost and that initially there were like 1 lakh hymns and now there are only 20,000 hymns left , and there is this one verse in vishnu purana that says 3/4 of the original vedas are lost. So there is a lot of confusion , let me just copy paste whatever I know from wikipedia

. The Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali refers to 21 śākhās of the Rigveda; however, according to Śaunaka's Caraṇa-vyuha there are five śākhās for the Rigveda: the Śākala, Bāṣkala, Aśvalayana, Śaṅkhāyana, and Māṇḍukāyana, of which only the Śākala and Bāṣkala and few of the Aśvalayana are now extant. The only complete recension of Rigveda known today is of the Śākala School.

So as you can see above it says, that originally there were 21 , but now only one is left .

So that raises major questions regarding the preservation of the vedas and also about the remaining shakhas that we have left

I also read somewhere that even swami Vivekanand confirmed that majority if the vedas were lost.

Now my questions to you guys are as follows.

1. are the vedas completely preserved and do we have the complete vedas since the time they were composed, if not , then what percentage is lost and how did we lose it ,

2. what is the role of these shakhas and are the contents of one shakha different from the contents of the other shakhas of the same veda

And please do provide proper scholarly references for the answers you are going to give.

Sorry if i am appearing rude , but i am just very confused with all this information which i don't know how to verify

I will be grateful if you answer these questions with references

Dhanyawad🙏

Many pakistanis think that vedas are just 4 books composed at a time which are the highest scriptures of hinduism and because the rig veda was composed in punjab region of pakistan, so hence hinduism is from Pakistan

But this is far from the truth , because when we talk about one veda , we don't mean just one book , in fact within a veda there are various parts like samhitas , aranyakas , Upanishads and pratishakyas , all these texts constitute a veda , and all these texts are integral part of the vedas . Upanishads deal with philosophy, samhita deal with incantations , pratishakyas deal with pronounciation of Sanskrit words

When we say rigveda was majorly composed in pakistan side of Punjab , we mean the rig vedic samhita which is the collection of mantras , was composed mainly in pakistan side of Punjab, but the Upanishads belonging to rig veda like aitereya and kaushitaki Upanishads were composed in the gangetic plains

Now indian scholar named shrikant talageri has proved that the rig vedic clans moved from east to west not west to east like most of you would believe, i would advise you all to read yis research

There is also a sanskrit scholar in quora called ram abloh who frequently writes on hinduism, he wrote an answer on rigvedic rivers proving that vedic clans moved from east to west not the other way round . You guys should read him too

I am copy pasting his answer here

The geographical horizon of the Rig Veda consists of western Uttar Pradesh in the east, up to the Indus valley and neighbouring regions in eastern Afghanistan in the west. The geography of the Rig Veda is centered at Haryana, in Kurukṣetra, which is situated on the eastern bank of the river Sarasvati, between Sarasvatī and its tributary Dṛṣadvatī, now known as Ghaggar-Hakra river system.

Hence, there is no mention of any region outside the Indian subcontinent.

This is abundantly and plainly evident in the mantras. The easternmost major river mentioned is the Gaṅgā. The westernmost major river mentioned is the Indus.

When this geographical data is superimposed on the internal chronology of the various Mandalas (books) of the Rigveda, we find that the oldest Maṇḍala (6th Maṇḍala) only knows rivers Gaṅgā and Sarasvatī (thereby also implying Yamunā, being in-between Gaṅgā and Sarasvatī). The newer Maṇḍalas begin to show names of western rivers such as Sutlej and the other four tributaries of Indus, and finally Indus. The order in which river names appear from older to newer Maṇḍalas, is east to west.

The chronology of the Maṇḍalas, arranged from oldest to newest, is as follows:

“Old Rig Veda” — 6 (Oldest), 3, 7, 4, 2

“New Rig Veda” — 5+(parts of 1) (Oldest), 8, 9, (new parts of 1), 10

This internal chronology is derived from the generations of the rishis and cross-references to kings and rishis. For example, the 6th Maṇḍala does not refer to any other rishi or king found in the other Maṇḍalas, and also the rishis who composed the 6th Maṇḍala are the oldest generation in the Rig Veda, hence it is the oldest. Newer generations of rishis in the newer Maṇḍalas refer to the rishis of the 6th Maṇḍala, and so on. This internal chronology of the Rig Veda Maṇḍalas is well-acknowledged by all scholars.

This geographical data combined with the chronological data shows that the Vedic culture was indigenous to north India, and its most ancient native place was in western UP and Haryana, in the valley between the ancient Sarasvatī and Gaṅgā rivers. The centre of the culture was the river Sarasvatī, which is the most frequently mentioned river in Rig Veda.

The Vedic people expanded from the east to the west, pushing out the ancient Iranian people who lived in Punjab, further west into Afghanistan and Iran.

An important point to note is that the Rig Veda predominantly represents the Pūru family. The other related Vedic families of Yadu and Turvaśa had friendly relations with the Pūru and lived in the interior parts of India, in the southwest and east. The other two related Vedic families of Anu and Druhyu had unfriendly relations with the Pūru and were eventually pushed out of India as well.

For an extremely meticulous, detailed, systematic, scientific and unbiased analysis of the geographical data in the Rig Veda, please read Shrikant Talageri’s masterpiece, “The Rig Veda: A Historical Analysis” (2000). Especially please carefully read the following chapters:

Chapter 2: The Chronology of the Rig Veda

Chapter 3: The Geography of the Rig Veda

Talageri has an excellent blog, where he summarizes some of the chapters and content of his books.

I am recently seeing that some people, just because the rig veda was written majorly in punjab , are now mocking indians that hinduism originated from the other side , and i also saw some people mocking indians by calling them gangetic as if they are now making a distinction between what vedas say and what hindus practice nowadays.

Let me just give a reality check to all the pakistanis that even though rig veda was composed majorly in punjab , the rest of vedic literature was composed in the gangetic plains , the Upanishads which are the core of indian philosophy was composed entirely in the regions of modern day UP , bihar and haryana and rest of north india