The Vedas
Over a period of centuries from about 1200 B.C. to 500 B.C., ancient sacred texts of four collections of hymns called the Vedas (veda meaning “knowledge”) came into being. The Vedas were divinely revealed through the medium of sacred sound to the mythical race of Indian Rishis. These scriptures, as they evolved into written “hymns,” were the basis for all the religious mythology leading forward to the Classical Age of Hinduism, which peaked in the first millennium AD. It is in the Vedic writings that the doctrine of rebirth, reincarnation, or “transmigration of souls,” first appears.
In the Vedas, the doctrine of “karma” as a universal principle of cause and effect—life actions with consequences—determines the cycles of life, death and rebirth. If one was ethically motivated, he would be promised a “better” rebirth, but human desires were really the cause for attachment to this cycle. “The round of birth and death—with some rebirths better because of good deeds and some worse because of bad deeds—is called “samsara.” (Religions Of The World, 1969:383)
During the Vedic epoch, a class system of “varnas” developed, which was a system of social divisions into which an individual was born and died. The highest, most privileged class was the one composed of Brahmans (or Brahmins), who studied and taught Vedic learning. Within the Brahmin class were the powerful, learned and honored priests who could alone propitiate the gods in sacrificial rituals involving plants and animals in the sacred fire. As well, they were venerated by the other classes with presents.
Over time, the rise of Brahmanism from the Vedic Age led to the development of spiritual centers that were essentially great temple-cities in regional kingdoms, supporting the sovereignty of the current dynasty. These continued to be influential throughout the evolution of Hinduism, which began its flowering into the “Golden Age” in the centuries following the birth of Christ. As a continuation of the Vedic tradition, classical Hinduism, as it came to be known, held sacred the four Vedas and the pantheon of gods. However, a new emphasis was on inner wisdom and devotional worship of the deity of choice with flowers and fruit, both in the temple and in the home.
The transition came about through one of the later additions to the Vedic compositions, emerging between 800 B.C. and 500 B.C., called the Upanishads. The content of the writing (which was fully developed Sanskrit by then) contained the development of a new scholasticism through the consideration of abstract spiritual concepts. This marked a shift in the religion toward the idea that the gods were only symbolic, and the process of inner contemplation was most necessary for spiritual understanding.
In regards to this evolution, it could be said that a seeker was able, through worship of the gods, to reach awareness of the Ultimate Reality, called Brahman. In the un-manifested state, the scriptures say “Brahman is truth, the world is illusion….The appearance of universes and their disappearance are therefore….cyclic events.” (Larousse Encyclopedia Of Mythology, 1968:206). For the search for this awareness to be comprehensible to humans, the concept of Atman (spark of God within) was revealed as one-Self; it “designates what is manifested in the fact of consciousness as being the thinking principle.” This ultimate non-dualism is known as Advaita, which later became the most famous school of Indian philosophy in the 8th century—the one of Advaita Vedanta.
As the Vedic Age came to a close with these vaster perspectives in scriptural recordings, three aspects of the impersonal Brahman could now be conceptualized as “God Made Manifest” through the “Trimurti” or the Three-fold God. Represented as a group of three faces on one head, these are Brahma, the Creator of Life; Vishnu, the Preserver of Life; and Shiva, the Destroyer of Life. All other gods could be seen to essentially revolve around these vast principles in human incarnation. Vedic sacrificial ritual, in general orthodoxy, was therefore replaced with “loving devotion to Shaivite [followers of Shiva] or Vaishnavite [followers of Vishnu] deities (Religions Of The World, 1969:391).” However, at the popular levels in villages, there continued to exist in some areas sacrificial cults worshipping the destructive aspects of Shiva and Kali from many centuries before.