Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/33

 The Veda the shaping of Vedic thought. For the present it will be advantageous to turn to the Vedic religion of historic times, so that there may be some basis for discriminating between what is old and what is new. And as it would not be gra- cious to presume too much knowledge of so remote a theme as the Veda, we must first describe briefly the documents of which consists the Veda, the most ancient literary monument of India, the most ancient literary document of the Indo-European peoples-the foundation for all time of India's religious thought. 2 17 THE VEDA The word veda means literally "knowledge," that is, "sacred knowledge." It is derived from vid, "to know," and connected with Greek (F)oida, Gothic wait, German weiss, English wit, "to know." The term Veda is used in two ways: either as the col- lective designation of the entire oldest sacred literature of India, or as the specific name of So single books belonging to that literature. then, on the one hand, we speak of the Veda as the bible of ancient India; or, on the other hand, we speak of Rig-Veda, Atharva-Veda, etc., as individual books of that great collection. The number of books which, in one sense or another, are counted more. The Hindus as Veda is a hundred or