Vedāṅgas

Vedāṅga · veda-aṅga, “the limbs of the Veda”

Rajas has other meanings too: see all meanings of Rajas. Kalpa has other meanings too: see all meanings of Kalpa.

The Vedāṅgas (वेदाङ्गम्, “limbs of the Veda”) are the six helping sciences of the Vedic tradition: Śikshā (the sounds and accents of the Veda), Vyākaraṇa (grammar), Chandas (metre), Nirukta (the meaning of Vedic words), Jyotisha (the movements of the heavens and the right time for rites) and Kalpa (the procedures of yajña, in its four parts: the Śrauta, Gṛhya, Dharma and Śulba Sūtras). They were studied so that the Veda could be recited correctly, understood and applied in yajña (sacred fire offering); they are the limbs (aṅga) that support the body of the Veda.

The Nārada Purāṇa gives five chapters of its first half (Pūrvārdha, Chapters 53–57) to short teachings on the Vedāṅgas: Nirukta, Jyotisha, Jātaka, Saṃhitā and Chandas. The Agni Purāṇa, which Agni Deva taught to Vasishṭha Maharshi, counts the six Vedāṅgas in the aparā vidyā and teaches that every vidyā is a form of Bhagavān Vishṇu: Hari alone is all the vidyās. In it Agni Deva teaches śikshā, the sixty-three or sixty-four sounds of the Veda and how speech arises from the ātmā (Chapter 336), and the science of chandas as Piṅgala told it (Chapters 328–335), and Skanda teaches Kātyāyana the grammar called the Kaumāra Vyākaraṇa (Chapters 349–359). It names the knower of the Veda and Vedāṅgas as the worthy one to receive a dāna (sacred gift), says that one who gives the Vedāṅgas gains svarga, and calls on them among the fourteen vidyās to protect a king at his abhisheka. In the Vāmana Purāṇa, Brahmā arises at creation as the master of the Vedas and Vedāṅgas; Bhagavān Śiva praises Bhagavān Vishṇu as the four Vedas with their six aṅgas, and the daitya Andhaka praises Bhagavān Śiva as the knower of the Vedāṅgas; King Saṃvaraṇa and Bhagavān Vāmana study the Vedas with their aṅgas; and in the sabhā of Brahmā the Vedas with their aṅgas and upāṅgas take bodily form and serve Pitāmaha.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa names all six Vedāṅgas when the guru Sāndīpani teaches Balarāma and Śrī Kṛshṇa, sets them in the study of the brahmacārī, shows them in embodied form in Satyaloka bowing to the foot of Trivikrama, and names the Nirukta in the account of how the Ṛgveda śākhās were handed down.

Each of the following has its own full page: the six Vedāṅgas one by one, Śikshā as the Agni Purāṇa teaches it, the Vedāṅgas in the Vāmana and Agni Purāṇas, and three of the Nārada Purāṇa’s teachings. Each is given below in short, with a link to its page. Vyākaraṇa, Chandas and Jyotisha also have their own pages, linked above.

The six limbs

The Six Vedāṅgas

The Six Vedāṅgas describes the six limbs one by one: Śikshā, the sounds and accents of the Veda; Vyākaraṇa, the grammar whose best-known work is Pāṇini‘s Ashṭādhyāyī, and which Skanda taught Kātyāyana in short as the Kaumāra Vyākaraṇa; Chandas, the metres such as Gāyatrī, Trishṭubh and Jagatī, which Agni Deva sets out as Piṅgala told it; Nirukta, the explanation of Vedic words, whose main text is Yāska’s; Jyotisha, the reckoning of time and auspicious moments, with the Vedāṅga Jyotisha as its foundational text; and Kalpa, the procedures of rites, in its four parts, the Śrauta, Gṛhya, Dharma and Śulba Sūtras.

It gives the table of the five chapters of the Nārada Purāṇa on the Vedāṅgas, Nirukta, Jyotisha, Jātaka, Saṃhitā and Chandas (Pūrvārdha, Chapters 53–57), and closes with why the Vedāṅgas matter: together they are the framework for preserving and rightly using the knowledge of the Vedas.

Śikshā in the Agni Purāṇa

Śikshā in the Agni Purāṇa gives the whole chapter that Agni Deva devotes to the science of pronouncing the sounds of the Veda. The varṇas number sixty-three or sixty-four: twenty-one svaras, twenty-five sparśas, eight from ya onward, four yamas, with the anusvāra, visarga, jihvāmūlīya, upadhmānīya and the lakāras. Agni Deva tells how speech arises: the ātmā joins the manas, the manas strikes the fire in the belly, the fire stirs the vāyu, and the prāṇa-vāyu in the heart, throat and head makes the low, middle and high svaras, which serve the three savanas of the soma rite.

The varṇas are known by pitch, length, place, inner and outer effort; there are eight places of sound, and it gives which sounds come from each. It closes with who pronounces rightly, and with the teaching that Veda learned from a bad guru is burnt and dry while Veda study with good svara is radiant, and that one who uses the varṇas well is honoured in Brahmaloka.

The Vedāṅgas in the Vāmana and Agni Purāṇas

The Vedāṅgas in the Vāmana and Agni Purāṇas gathers every passage of the two Purāṇas that names the Vedāṅgas. From the Vāmana Purāṇa: Brahmā arising at the end of the pralaya as master of the Vedas and Vedāṅgas; Bhagavān Śiva‘s stotra at Kurujāṅgala praising Bhagavān Vishṇu as the four Vedas with their six aṅgas; Saṃvaraṇa‘s study under Vasishṭha; Andhaka‘s stotra to Bhagavān Śiva as the knower of the Vedāṅgas; the Mahāpadma nidhi that holds the Vedas, the Vedāṅgas and the sixty-four kalās; Bhagavān Vāmana’s study and his learning of the Sāmaveda from Bharadvāja; and the Vedas with their aṅgas serving Brahmā in his sabhā.

From the Agni Purāṇa: the frame at Naimishāraṇya and the aparā vidyā that holds the six Vedāṅgas, beside the parā vidyā that teaches Brahma; Hari as all the eighteen vidyās; the knower of the Veda and Vedāṅgas as the worthy recipient of a dāna; the gift of the Vedāṅgas, which gains svarga; the fourteen vidyās asked to protect a king at his abhisheka; and Agni Deva’s closing word to Vasishṭha Maharshi that all the vidyās are forms of Hari.

The Vedāṅgas in the Nārada Purāṇa

Nirukta in the Nārada Purāṇa

Nirukta is the Vedāṅga that explains Vedic words: where they come from and what they mean. The Nārada Purāṇa calls it the śrotrāṅga, the “ear” or hearing-limb of the Veda: as the ear takes in sound and makes sense of it, Nirukta lets the listener take in the full meaning of Vedic speech. Its teaching is in Chapter 53.

The chapter teaches the five ways in which Vedic words are formed (pañca-nirukta): adding a sound (haṃsa), swapping sounds (hiṃsa to siṃha), changing a sound, dropping a sound (pṛshodara) and joining sounds. It explains bāhulaka, “the rule of wide usage”, by which unusual Vedic forms are accepted in four ways: the rule applies, does not apply, applies optionally, or applies in a different way. It sorts the dhātus (verbal roots) into named groups by pada type and by the tone of their marker letter.

It also covers Vedic sound: the four vivṛttis, the three svaras (udātta, anudātta and svarita), which are the thread on which the consonants are strung as jewels, raṅga and svara-bhakti. It closes with rules for the student who recites the Veda: rise at dawn and meditate on Brahman, begin in a deep tone, and do not hold the breath while reciting. The Agni Purāṇa does not teach the rules of Nirukta, but names it among the six Vedāṅgas and as a form of Hari.

Jātaka in the Nārada Purāṇa

Jātaka is the branch of Jyotisha that reads the birth chart, drawn for the moment of birth, to know a person’s nature, qualities and destiny. Chapter 55 of the Nārada Purāṇa gives a short teaching on it, mostly about the doshas (faults) and śubha-yogas (auspicious combinations of planets) that matter when the lagna, the sign rising at the chosen moment, is chosen for a marriage.

It teaches which lagnas and navāṃśas are good and which must be given up: Tulā, Mithuna, Kanyā and Dhanu navāṃśas give good, and a lagna with a bad navāṃśa is given up even if it is full of every other good quality. It sets out what the Moon joined with each planet brings to the couple, and that the Moon in the eighth house from the lagna brings death to both. The chief remedy, given here and again in Chapter 56, is Bṛhaspati, Śukra or Budha in a kendra: these three helpful planets cancel all the faults of the lagna.

Saṃhitā and Muhūrta in the Nārada Purāṇa

Saṃhitā is the branch of Jyotisha that finds muhūrta, the auspicious time, for saṃskāras (life-cycle rites), yātrās (journeys and pilgrimages) and every important undertaking. Chapter 56 of the Nārada Purāṇa gives a long teaching on it, centred on the muhūrta for marriage.

A full muhūrta needs seven kinds of śuddhi (purity): of the lagna, tithi, weekday, nakshatra, yoga and karaṇa, and freedom from the twenty-one mahādoshas (great faults), such as an eclipse, the sun’s passage into a new sign, Venus in the sixth house (Bhṛgu-shashṭha), Mars in the eighth (Kujāshṭama), Gaṇḍānta, Kartarī and the visha-ghaṭī. A lagna with a fault in the pañcāṅga is like milk mixed with poison and must be given up.

As in the chapter on Jātaka, the great remedy is Bṛhaspati, Śukra or Budha in a kendra from the lagna, which destroys all doshas. The best lagna of all is one with an auspicious shaḍvarga, the six divisional charts.

The Vedāṅgas in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa

Taught at Sāndīpani’s gurukula. Śrī Śuka Maharshi tells Parīkshit Mahārāja that Balarāma and Śrī Kṛshṇa, wishing to live in a gurukula, went to the guru Sāndīpani of the Kāśyapa gotra in the city of Avantī. They served him with reverence and bhakti, as one serves a devatā, showing the world the faultless way to conduct oneself with a guru. Pleased with their service, the guru, best of the knowers of the Veda, taught them the four Vedas together with the Upanishads and the Vedāṅgas, which the text names in full: Śikshā, Kalpa, Vyākaraṇa, Chandas, Jyotisha and Nirukta. With these he taught them Dhanurveda with its mantras and their devatās, the Dharmaśāstras, the methods of reasoning such as Mīmāṃsā, Tarka-vidyā and the six kinds of rājanīti.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 45

In the study of the brahmacārī. Nārada Maharshi, teaching Dharmarāja Yudhishṭhira the dharma of the āśramas, says: “One who has the upanayana saṃskāra, living thus in the gurukula, should, according to his strength and his need, study the three Vedas, their Upanishads and their aṅgas: śikshā, vyākaraṇa, chandas, kalpa, jyotisha and nirukta, and also reflect on the study of the Veda.” Then he offers the guru the gift the guru asks for and, with his leave, enters the gṛhasthāśrama, or goes to the forest for tapas, or takes sannyāsa, or stays on in the gurukula.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 12

In Satyaloka. When Bhagavān Vāmana grew into Trivikrama and his foot rose to Satyaloka, Brahmā, the maharshis, Nārada and the other naishṭhika brahmacārīs, and the yogīs led by Sanandana went forward to meet it. Śuka tells Parīkshit that those who dwell in Satyaloka in embodied form also bowed to that foot: the Vedas, the Upavedas, the yamas and niyamas, Nyāyaśāstra, the Itihāsas, the Vedāṅgas, the Purāṇas and the Saṃhitās. Then Brahmā offered arghya to the foot of Śrī Vishṇu and praised it.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 8, Chapter 21

The Nirukta among the Ṛgveda śākhās. Sūta Maharshi, telling Śaunaka and the ṛshis how the Vedas were divided and handed down, says that Jātūkarṇya Maharshi, a disciple of Śākalya, divided his saṃhitā-śākhā into three and taught them, together with the Nirukta, the Vedāṅga that defines words, to Balāka, Paija, Vaitāla and Viraja.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 6

Sources

• Nārada Purāṇa, Pūrvārdha, Chapters 53–57
• Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 2–3, 22, 44, 49, 62
• Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 3
• Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 1, 174, 209, 211, 219, 328–336, 349–359, 383
• Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 12; Skandha 8, Chapter 21; Skandha 10, Chapter 45; Skandha 12, Chapter 6