VEDIC LITERATURE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Vedic literature mean? 

• VEDIC LITERATURE (noun)
  The noun VEDIC LITERATURE has 1 sense:

1. (from the Sanskrit word for 'knowledge') any of the most ancient sacred writings of Hinduism written in early Sanskrit; traditionally believed to comprise the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, and the Upanishads

  Familiarity information: VEDIC LITERATURE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VEDIC LITERATURE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(from the Sanskrit word for 'knowledge') any of the most ancient sacred writings of Hinduism written in early Sanskrit; traditionally believed to comprise the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, and the Upanishads

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

Veda; Vedic literature

Hypernyms ("Vedic literature" is a kind of...):

religious text; religious writing; sacred text; sacred writing (writing that is venerated for the worship of a deity)

Domain category:

Hindooism; Hinduism (a body of religious and philosophical beliefs and cultural practices native to India and based on a caste system; it is characterized by a belief in reincarnation, by a belief in a supreme being of many forms and natures, by the view that opposing theories are aspects of one eternal truth, and by a desire for liberation from earthly evils)

Sanskrit; Sanskritic language ((Hinduism) an ancient language of India (the language of the Vedas and of Hinduism); an official language of India although it is now used only for religious purposes)

Instance hyponyms:

Samhita (one of four collections of sacred texts)

Brahmana (prose works attached to the Samhitas instructing the brahmins to perform the very elaborate sacrificial rituals)

Aranyaka (a treatise resembling a Brahmana but to be read or expounded by anchorites in the quiet of the forest)

Vedanga (Vedic texts from the fifth and fourth centuries BC dealing with phonetics and ritual injunctions and linguistics and grammar and etymology and lexicography and prosody and astronomy and astrology)