vedic

Vedic refers to the corpus of texts known as the Vedas and to the culture that produced them, primarily in the northwestern Indian subcontinent during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, commonly dated to roughly 1500–500 BCE. The term is also used to denote the language of these texts, Vedic Sanskrit, an early form of Indo-Aryan.

The Vedas consist of four collections: the Rigveda, the oldest, a collection of hymns dedicated to various deities; the Yajurveda, a compilation of prose mantras for ritual sacrifice; the Samaveda, a book of melodic verses for liturgy; and the Atharvaveda, a collection of spells, charms and incantations. The four are complemented by a body of interpretive and ritual literature known as the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, and the Upanishads, which illuminate ritual practice, cosmology, and philosophy and trace the transition from ritual emphasis to speculative thought.

Vedic religion centered on sacral fire, offerings, and the worship of deities such as Agni, Indra, Soma, and Varuna, performed by priestly groups in ritual contexts called yajñas. The Vedic tradition laid the groundwork for later Hindu thought, including developments in Vedantic philosophy and in social and ritual frameworks. The term "Vedic" is thus used to describe texts, language, religion, and culture associated with this early phase of Indian history, while acknowledging later developments in classical Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.