Vedas in the context of "Saṃsāra"

Anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to 30,000 years ago. Sedentariness began in South Asia around 7000 BCE; by 4500 BCE, settled life had spread, and gradually evolved into the Indus Valley Civilisation, one of three early cradles of civilisation in the Old World, which flourished between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE in present-day Pakistan and north-western India. Early in the second millennium BCE, persistent drought caused the population of the Indus Valley to scatter from large urban centres to villages. Indo-Aryan tribes moved into the Punjab from Central Asia in several waves of migration. The Vedic Period of the Vedic people in northern India (1500–500 BCE) was marked by the composition of their extensive collections of hymns (Vedas). The social structure was loosely stratified via the varna system, incorporated into the highly evolved present-day Jāti system. The pastoral and nomadic Indo-Aryans spread from the Punjab into the Gangetic plain. Around 600 BCE a second urbanization occured resulting in a new interregional culture; then, smaller janapadas (realms) were consolidated into mahajanapadas (great states). This period saw the rise of new ascetic movements and religious concepts, including the rise of Jainism and Buddhism. The latter was synthesized with the preexisting religious cultures of the subcontinent, giving rise to Hinduism.

Chandragupta Maurya overthrew the Nanda Empire and established the first great empire in ancient India, the Maurya Empire. India's Mauryan king Ashoka is widely recognised for the violent Kalinga War and his historical acceptance of Buddhism and his attempts to spread nonviolence and peace across his empire. This period marks the rapid dissemination of Śramaṇic religions.

Hinduism (/ˈhɪnduˌɪzəm/) is an umbrella term for a range of Indian religious and spiritual traditions (sampradayas) that are unified by adherence to the concept of dharma, a cosmic order maintained by its followers through rituals and righteous living, as expounded in the Vedas. The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest surviving religion in the world, it is also described by the 19th century term Sanātana Dharma (lit. 'eternal dharma'). Vaidika Dharma (lit. 'Vedic dharma') and Arya Dharma are historical endonyms for Hinduism.

Hinduism entails diverse systems of thought, marked by a range of shared concepts that discuss theology, mythology, and other topics in textual sources. Hindu texts have been classified into Śruti (lit. 'heard') and Smṛti (lit. 'remembered'). The major Hindu scriptures are the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Mahabharata (including the Bhagavad Gita), the Ramayana, and the Agamas. Prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include karma (action, intent and consequences), saṃsāra (the cycle of death and rebirth) and the four Puruṣārthas, proper goals or aims of human life, namely: dharma (ethics/duties), artha (prosperity/work), kama (desires/passions) and moksha (liberation/emancipation from passions and ultimately saṃsāra). Hindu religious practices include devotion (bhakti), worship (puja), sacrificial rites (yajna), and meditation (dhyana) and Yoga. Hinduism has no central doctrinal authority and many Hindus do not claim to belong to any denomination. However, scholarly studies notify four major denominations: Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Smartism. The six Āstika schools of Hindu philosophy that recognise the authority of the Vedas are: Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedanta.

Indian philosophy consists of philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The philosophies are often called darśana, meaning "to see" or "looking at." Ānvīkṣikī means “critical inquiry” or “investigation." Unlike darśana, ānvīkṣikī was used to refer to Indian philosophies by classical Indian philosophers, such as Chanakya in the Arthaśāstra.

A traditional Vedic classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy, depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Vedas as a valid source of knowledge; whether the school believes in the premises of Brahman and Atman; and whether the school believes in afterlife and Devas. (though there are exceptions to the latter two: Mimamsa and Samkhya respectively).

Hindu philosophy or Vedic philosophy is the set of philosophical systems that developed in tandem with the first Hindu religious traditions during the iron and classical ages of India. In Indian philosophy, of which Hindu philosophy is a prominent subset, the word used for philosophy is Darshana (Sanskrit: दर्शन; meaning: "viewpoint or perspective"), from the Sanskrit root 'दृश' (drish) meaning 'to see, to experience'.

The schools of thought or Darshanas within Hindu philosophy largely equate to the six ancient orthodox schools: the āstika (Sanskrit: आस्तिक) schools, defined by their acceptance of the Vedas, the oldest collection of Sanskrit texts, as an authoritative source of knowledge. Of these six, Samkhya (सांख्य) is the earliest school of dualism; Yoga (योग) combines the metaphysics of Samkhya with meditation and breath techniques; Nyaya (न्याय) is a school of logic emphasising direct realism; Vaisheshika (वैषेशिक) is an offshoot of Nyaya concerned with atomism and naturalism; Mimamsa (मीमांसा) is a school justifying ritual, faith, and religious obligations; and Vedanta (वेदान्त) contains various traditions that mostly embrace nondualism.

Ravana (Sanskrit: रावण, romanized: Rāvaṇa, lit. 'roaring') is the principal antagonist of the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana and its several other versions. He is traditionally depicted as a ten-headed rakshasa (demon) king of Lanka. In the Ramayana, Ravana is described as the eldest son of sage Vishrava and Kaikasi. He abducted Rama's wife, Sita, and took her to his kingdom of Lanka, where he held her in the Ashoka Vatika. Rama, with the support of vanara King Sugriva and his army of vanaras, launched a rescue operation for Sita against Ravana in Lanka. Ravana was subsequently slain, and Rama rescued his beloved wife Sita.

Ravana was well-versed in the six shastras and the four Vedas, including the Shiva Tandava Stotra. Ravana is also considered to be the most revered devotee of Shiva. Images of Ravana are often seen associated with Shiva at temples. He also appears in the Buddhist Mahayana text Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, in Buddhist Jatakas, as well as in Jain Ramayanas. In Vaishnava scriptures, he is depicted as one of Vishnu's cursed doorkeepers.

The Rigveda or Rig Veda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद, IAST: ṛgveda, from ऋच्, "praise" and वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (sūktas). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (śruti) known as the Vedas. Only one Shakha of the many survive today, namely the Śakalya Shakha. Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum.

The Rigveda is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text. Its early layers are among the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Most scholars believe that the sounds and texts of the Rigveda have been orally transmitted with precision since the 2nd millennium BCE, through methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, though the dates are not confirmed and remain contentious until concrete evidence surfaces. Philological and linguistic evidence indicates that the bulk of the Rigveda Samhita was composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent (see Rigvedic rivers), most likely between c. 1500 and 1000 BCE, although a wider approximation of c. 1900–1200 BCE has also been given.

The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (c. 1500–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE. The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, which developed in the Kuru kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes. The Vedas contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Indo-Aryan and Vedic culture to be traced and inferred.

The Vedas were composed and orally transmitted with precision by speakers of an Old Indo-Aryan language who had migrated into the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent early in this period. The Vedic society was patriarchal and patrilineal. Early Indo-Aryans were a Late Bronze Age society centred in the Punjab, organised into tribes rather than kingdoms, and primarily sustained by a pastoral way of life.

Varna (Sanskrit: वर्ण, romanized: varṇa, Hindi pronunciation: ['ʋəɾɳə]), in the context of Hinduism, refers to a social class within a hierarchical traditional Hindu society. The ideology of varna is epitomized in texts like Manusmriti, which describes and ranks four varnas, and prescribes their occupations, requirements and duties, or Dharma.

• Brahmins: Vedic scholars, priests or teachers.
• Kshatriyas: Rulers, administrators or warriors.
• Vaishyas: Agriculturalists, farmers or merchants.
• Shudras: Artisans, labourers or servants.

This quadruple division is a form of social stratification, quite different from the more nuanced system of Jātis, which correspond to the term "caste".

In Indian religions and philosophies, a śramaṇa (from Sanskrit) or samaṇa (from Pali), sometimes anglicised as shramana, is a person "who labours, toils, or exerts themselves for some higher or religious purpose" or a "seeker, or ascetic, one who performs acts of austerity".

In the early Vedic texts, the term is an epithet for the great rishi sages in association with their ritualistic exertion. However, it has since come to refer to a broad class of spiritual movements originally comprising wandering ascetics from ancient India—collectively called the Śramaṇa tradition, Shramanic tradition, or occasionally Shramanism—historically parallel to but distinct from the Vedic religion, Brahmanism, and their Hindu successor movements. The Śramaṇa tradition includes Jainism, Buddhism, and others such as the Ājīvika, Ajñana, and Cārvāka, while definitively excluding Hinduism. The tradition's name comes from the semantic narrowing of the term śramaṇa to mean a religious individual who specifically rejects the authority of the Vedas; however, the word did not hold this connotation until certain post-Vedic texts considered canonical by Buddhists and Jains. Similarly, in Indian philosophy, the terms āstika versus nāstika largely equate to this distinction between Vedic versus non-Vedic belief systems.