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Vedanga
The Vedanga (Sanskrit: वेदाङ्ग vedāṅga, “limbs of the Veda”) are six subsidiary disciplines of Hinduism that developed in ancient times and were associated with the study of the Vedas.
List of the Vedanga
1. Shiksha (śikṣā): phonetics, phonology, pronunciation. This subsidiary discipline focused on the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, stress, quantity, stress, melody and the rules of euphonic word combination in Vedic recitation.
2. Chandas (chandas): prosody. This subsidiary discipline focused on poetic meters, including those based on a fixed number of syllables in a verse and those based on a fixed number of morae in a verse.
3. Vyakarana (vyākaraṇa): grammatical and linguistic analysis. This subsidiary discipline focused on the rules of grammar and linguistic analysis to establish the precise form of words and sentences in order to express ideas correctly.
4. Nirukta (nirukta): etymology, explanation of words, especially those that are archaic and of ancient use with unclear meaning. This subsidiary discipline focused on linguistic analysis to help determine the correct meaning of words given the context in which they are used.
5. Kalpa (kalpa): ritual instruction. This discipline focused on standardizing procedures for Vedic rituals, rites of passage associated with significant life events such as birth, marriage and death in the family, as well as discussing personal conduct and the proper duties of an individual at different stages of his life.
6. Jyotisha (jyotiṣa): Correct time for rituals with the help of nakshatra position and asterisms and astronomy. This subsidiary Vedic discipline focused on the observance of time.
History
The figure of the Vedangas has roots in antiquity and is mentioned in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as an integral part of the Brahmanas layer of Vedic texts. These subsidiary fields of study arise with the codification of the Vedas in Iron Age India. It is not clear when the list of six Vedangas was first conceptualized. The Vedangas probably developed towards the end of the Vedic period, around or after the middle of the 1st millennium BC. An early text of this genre is Yaska’s Nighantu, dated to around the 5th century BC. These subsidiary fields of Vedic studies emerged because the language of the Vedic texts compiled centuries ago became too archaic for the people of that time.
The Vedangas developed as subsidiary studies to the Vedas, but their insights into meters, sound and language structure, grammar, linguistic analysis, and other subjects influenced post-Vedic studies, art, culture, and various schools of Hindu philosophy. The study of Kalpa Vedanga, for example, gave rise to the Dharma-sutras, which later expanded into the Dharma-shastras.
