Vedic age the “threefold Veda” (trayi-vidya) These reflect the religious life of the priestly group The Atharva-Veda (knowledge from the teacher Atharva) differs greatly from the other three It is composed of spells, prayers, curses, and charms that are practical in nature They include prayers for warding off snakes or sickness When sacrifices were performed the priest would sing or chant materials from the Vedas that were appropriate to the type of sacrifice A different priest would handle each part of a sacrifice There were at least three groups of priests using the Rig-Veda at the sacrifices The chief priest (hotr) would take material for his changes from the Rig-Veda The priest responsible for chanting the sacred formulas (mantras) was the adhvaryu A third group of priests, the chanters (udgatr), would chant melodic recitations that were linked to the Rig-Veda Over time additional materials came to be attached to each of the four Vedas Most commonly the Vedas are viewed as including the Brahmanas, the Arayankas, and the Upanishads The Brahmanas (Brahman books) were the name for the priests, or Brahmans They are the manuals for sacrifice They discussed in detail rituals, proper time and place for ceremonies, the preparation of the ground, ritual objectives, purification rites, and other matters Ascetic holy men who went into the forests to meditate composed the Arayankas (forest books) These books interpreted the Vedas in a nonliteral and symbolic ways They contain speculations on sacrifice, especially the sacrificial fire and the New Year festival The Upanishads (Sittings near a teacher) were the last to be composed and added to the Vedic collections Several theories have been proposed to explain the origin of the name Upanishad The belief is that they were composed as disciples sat near a guiding teacher With the disciple sitting near the priest, both of them would experience spiritual enlightenment They would experience the spiritual reality that is the unifying reality underlying all of the separate realities of the world Most of the Upanishads are dialogic The prose Upanishads, like the Chandogya, Birhadaranyaka, Taittiriya and the Kena are probably earlier than the poetic ones such as Katha and Mandukya The emphasis on spiritual experience suggests a shift in Vedic religion from the view that only hereditary priests can be religious masters to the view that both priests and nonpriests can experience spiritual realities The Upanishads are the most philosophical of the Vedas and are concerned with ultimate philosophical truth They number about 100 Their concerns are to record insights into internal and external reality See also Aryan invasion; Hindu philosophy; Vedic age 479 Further reading: Basham, A L The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991; Bloomfield, Maurice Hymns of the AtharvaVeda: Together with Extracts from the Ritual Books and the Commentaries Reprint, Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1964; ——— The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India New York: AMS Press, 1969; Chatterji, Jagadish Chandra The Wisdom of the Vedas Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980; Elizarenkova, T Y., and Wendy Doniger Language and Style of the Vedic Rsis Albany: State University of New York, 1995; Gonda, J The Vision of the Vedic Poets The Hague, Switzerland: Mouton, 1963; ——— Vedic Literature: Samhitas and Brahmanas Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1975; ——— Vedic Ritual: The Non-solemn Rites Leiden, Netherlands: E J Brill, 1980; Griffith, Ralph T H., and Jagdish Lal Shastri The Hymns of the Rgveda Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973; Keith, Arthur Berriedale The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971; Miller, Jeanine The Vision of Cosmic Order in the Vedas Boston: Routledge, 1985; Muller, F Max, and Hermann Oldenberg Vedic Hymns Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1964; O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger The Rig Veda: An Anthology New York: Penguin Books, 1981 Andrew J Waskey Vedic age The roughly 1,000 years between 1500–500 b.c.e is called the Vedic, or Aryan, age The beginning of the Vedic age corresponded with the end of the Indus civilization (c 2500–1500 b.c.e.), although it is not clear what precise role the Aryans played in the final fall of the Indus civilization The two peoples belonged to different racial groups, and the Indus urban culture was more advanced than the mainly pastoral society of the IndoEuropean Aryans The 1,000 years after 1500 is divided into the Early and Late Vedic age, each spanning about 500 years, because of significant differences between the cultures of the two halves The earlier period marked the conquest and settlement of northern India by Indo-Europeans who crossed into the subcontinent across the Hindu Kush passes into the Indus River valley, across the Thar Desert and down the Ganges River valley The latter half saw the development of a more sophisticated sedentary culture The name Vedic refers to the Vedas, sacred texts of the Aryans, which is a principal source of information of that era