The four Vedas—
Ṛgveda
,
Yajurveda
,
Sāmaveda
,
Atharvaveda
—are the canonical religious and cultural texts of the light-skinned Aryans (Indo-European-speaking people from the Iranian plateau) who arrived in the Indian subcontinent from the northwest around 1800 b.c. These four canonical collections comprise the earliest Hindu sacred writings. The oldest Vedic text, the Ṛgveda (veda ‘knowledge
’) is a compilation of 1,028 metrical hymns encompassing 10,462 verses...
