chanting them forwards and backwards) a method of ensuring their purity was established that
allowed these hymns to be passed on over thousands of years without loss. The Veda we
possess today, unbelievable as it may seem, is thus an expression of the sounds heard many
thousands of years ago.
It was only in relatively recent times, probably around 3000 BC, that the Veda and Vedic
literature, were committed to writing. Before that Veda was an oral tradition.
Maharishi identifies 40 distinct branches of the Veda and the Vedic literature. These forty
branches include, first and foremost, the Rig Veda samhita, and of equal importance, the
Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, and Atharva Veda. These four bodies of sound are what is meant
by the Veda.
In addition to the Veda, the Vedic literature includes 36 branches, all based on the Veda
itself. These include the six branches of Vedanga, six branches of Upanga, and six branches
of Ayur-Veda, for example. All branches of Vedic literature are considered, like the Veda
itself, uncreated or eternal structures of knowledge.
The extent of the Veda and the entire Vedic literature is vast, huge—much larger, for
example, than the remaining body of literature of all of ancient Greece and Rome. There are
ten volumes of the Rig Veda alone in one of the best editions available in English (the Wilson
translation). There are 54 books of Kalpa, just one of six branches of the Vedangas. There
are 18 books of Puranas. The Itihasa includes the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the later
of which is printed in an English edition which has 20 volumes. There are thus, for example,
over a hundred volumes in just these four branches of the Veda and the Vedic literature.
Maharishi sees this vast body of the Veda and the Vedic literature as a systematic body of
literature that has a detailed, intricate structure in every part, and all systematically related in a
whole. It is systematic in the sense that is not a random collection of books that were written
over vast stretches of time, but it forms a complete whole, with a comprehensive organization
and structure. Each of the books of Vedic literature relates in a systematic way to all the
others and each forms an essential part of the whole of Vedic literature.
The Veda is expressed in sounds that are recited and heard, but the Veda itself exists in the
unmanifest field of unbounded pure consciousness, called parame vyoman. This is a universal
silent field of consciousness that pervades everything in the universe. Since it is all-pervading,
it pervades the body and mind of every individual. It exists on the most subtle, or fine scale, of
activity. It is smaller than the smallest particle of the atomic nucleus. It is on a scale smaller