The Vedāṅgas in the Vāmana and Agni Purāṇas
Vedāṅga · veda-aṅga, “a limb of the Veda”
The Vedāṅgas, the six limbs of the Veda, are named in the accounts and stotras of the Vāmana Purāṇa and counted among the vidyās in the Agni Purāṇa. 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 one who knows them; 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. The Agni Purāṇa, which Agni Deva taught to Vasishṭha Maharshi, counts the six Vedāṅgas in the aparā vidyā, names the knower of the Veda and Vedāṅgas as the worthy one to receive a dāna, says that one who gives the Vedāṅgas gains svarga, and calls on them to protect a king at his abhisheka. Every passage is given below with its chapter.
The Vedāṅgas in the Vāmana Purāṇa
Brahmā, master of the Vedas and Vedāṅgas. Pulastya Maharshi, telling Nārada Maharshi how Bhagavān Śiva came to be called Kapālī, goes back to the time of pralaya, when the whole universe was one ocean and a blind darkness covered everything. The Paramātmā (the Supreme Self) slept in it for a thousand years; at the end of that night he took a rājasa form and created the worlds. From that creation arose the five-faced one in whom rajas predominates, the master of the Vedas and Vedāṅgas, the creator of the moving and the unmoving: Brahmā.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 2
Bhagavān Vishṇu is the Vedas and their six aṅgas. Bhagavān Śiva, bearing the pāpa of Brahmahatyā, came to Kurujāṅgala and there had darśana of Bhagavān Vishṇu as Garuḍadhvaja, holding the śaṅkha, cakra and gadā. With joined palms he praised him in a stotra, and in it he said: “The four Vedas with their six aṅgas are you; you are the one who knows them; the supreme tattva (truth) to be known through them is you; the Upavedas are you; you are all things. Salutations to you.”
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 3
Saṃvaraṇa‘s study. King Saṃvaraṇa of the Soma vaṃśa, a bhakta of Bhagavān Vishṇu from his childhood, studied the Vedas with all their aṅgas and upāṅgas under his purohita Vasishṭha, the son of Varuṇa.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 22
Bhagavān Śiva, knower of the Vedāṅgas. When the daitya Andhaka, purified by the fire of Bhagavān Bhairava‘s eyes, came to know the true nature of Mahādeva, he praised him with a stotra. In it he says: “You are the knower of the Vedāṅgas (vedāṅga-vettā), beyond the objects of the senses, lord of the three worlds, of auspicious form. I have taken refuge in you.”
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 44
The Vedāṅgas in the Mahāpadma nidhi. Lakshmī Devī, coming to Bali when he had established the three worlds in dharma, told him of the four nidhis (treasuries) belonging to the four women whom Janārdana made. The treasury of the white one, formed as the Mahāpadma nidhi, holds the itihāsas and purāṇas, the Vedas, the Vedāṅgas and the sixty-four kalās (arts).
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 49
Bhagavān Vāmana’s study. When Bhagavān Vishṇu was born as Vāmana and his upanayana had been performed, Bhagavān Vāmana, Bhūtabhāvana, studied the Vedas with their aṅgas while the maharshis praised him with stotras, and he learned the Sāmaveda from Bharadvāja the Āṅgirasa.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 62
In the sabhā of Brahmā. When the devas went to Brahmaloka, they heard in Brahmā’s sabhā the Ṛgveda chanted in krama, pāda and akshara, and the discourses of dvijas expert in śikshā, the science of sound. Among those who serve Brahmā there, taking bodily form, are the four Vedas with their aṅgas and upāṅgas.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 3
The Vedāṅgas in the Agni Purāṇa
The six limbs in the aparā vidyā. At Naimishāraṇya the maharshis led by Śaunaka, performing a yajña for Hari, asked Sūta for the essence of all essences, knowing which a man knows all. Sūta told them what Vyāsa had taught at Badarikāśrama, and Vyāsa told what Vasishṭha Maharshi had heard from Agni Deva. Agni, speaking as Vishṇu who is Kālāgni Rudra, taught that two vidyās are to be known, the parā and the aparā, and that both are the forms of Vishṇu. The aparā vidyā is the four Vedas, Ṛg, Yajus, Sāma and Atharva; the six Vedāṅgas, Śikshā, Kalpa, Vyākaraṇa, Nirukta, Jyotisha and Chandas; and Kośa (the lexicon), Mīmāṃsā, Dharma-śāstra, Purāṇa, Nyāya-śāstra, Āyurveda, Saṅgīta-śāstra (music), Dhanurveda (the science of the bow) and Artha-śāstra. The parā vidyā is the vidyā that teaches Brahma: that which cannot be seen or grasped, which has no gotra and no śākhā, and which is eternal.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 1
Hari is all the vidyās. Closing his teaching on prāyaścitta (expiation), Agni Deva says that the Purāṇas, the smṛtis, jyotisha-śāstra, Āyurveda and Dhanurveda, Śikshā, Chandas, Vyākaraṇa, Nirukta, Abhidhāna (the lexicon), Kalpa, Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā and all the other vidyās are Hari alone, the one Vishṇu, in manifest and unmanifest forms. Śrī Mahāvishṇu alone is of the form of the eighteen vidyās.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 174
The knower of the Veda and Vedāṅgas receives the gift. In the saṅkalpa (formal resolve) for a dāna, the giver names the one who receives it as a knower of the Veda and Vedāṅgas, a mahātmā and a worthy recipient. Then he releases water on the ground and makes the gift.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 209
The gift of the Vedāṅgas. In its teaching on vidyā-dāna, the gift of learning, the Agni Purāṇa says that go-dāna, vidyā-dāna and bhū-dāna bear equal fruit, and that vidyā alone is the kāmadhenu and vidyā alone is the eye. One who gives the vidyā of the Veda is freed from pāpa and dwells in Brahmaloka; one who gives the upavedas such as the Gāndharva rejoices with the gandharvas; and by giving the Vedāṅgas one gains svarga.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 211
The Vedāṅgas bless the king. Pushkara, teaching Paraśurāma the mantras for the abhisheka (consecration bath) of a king, gives the blessing “May these fourteen vidyās protect you”: the four Vedas beginning with the Ṛgveda; the six Vedāṅgas, Śikshā, Vyākaraṇa, Chandas, Nirukta, Jyotisha and Kalpa; and Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, Dharmaśāstra and Purāṇa; together with the upavedas Itihāsa, Āyurveda, Gāndharvaveda, Dhanurveda and the rest.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 219
All forms of Hari. At the end of the Purāṇa, Agni Deva tells Vasishṭha Maharshi that vidyā is of two kinds, expanded and condensed. The vidyā in the form of the Ṛg, Yajus, Sāma and Atharva Vedas is Vishṇu, the cause of the world. Chandas, śikshā, vyākaraṇa, nighaṇṭu (the lexicon), jyotisha, nirukta, dharma-śāstra, mīmāṃsā, nyāya, āyurveda, purāṇa, dhanurveda, gāndharva, artha-śāstra, vedānta and the rest are all forms of Hari. This is the aparā vidyā; the vidyā that teaches the supreme truth of the ātmā is the parā vidyā. Then Sūta, telling the munis led by Śaunaka at Naimiśāraṇya all that the Agni Purāṇa holds, names among its subjects Chandas, Vyākaraṇa, Alaṅkāra (poetics), Nighaṇṭu, Śikshā and Kalpa, and says that the eighteen vidyās are told in it.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 383
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 2–3, 22, 44, 49, 62
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 3
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 1, 174, 209, 211, 219, 383