Reading Veda Bhashya

You should NOT read the Vedas & here’s the tea.

When it comes to getting spiritual knowledge about our true reality, our vedas are the highest authority but what most Gen-Zs were never told is that these Vedas were never originally be books.

They are shrutis i.e. secrets given to our rishis by God & they were passed down orally using a special kind of authentication codes built within the mantras themselves that ensured that there was no mistranslation or incorrect info being passed down.

So their secret power is not just in the words but the correct pronunciations, meters & way of reciting them that produces the right vibrations to open your mind.

This means unless you have a certified guru teaching them to you in Sanskrit, just reading the English translations on your own will bore you to death because it will feel like mind-numbing theoretical word salad, with many verses being symbolic praises to different ancient Gods like Agni, Surya, Varun, etc. And the philosophical ideas in the last sections, called Upanishads, are also complex.

The 4 books you hear of today - Rig, Sam, Yajur & Atharva were compiled & written to preserve this sacred wisdom for the betterment of humanity in the modern age, which got more comfortable with writing & reading as a form of communication.

For common people, we should read BHASHYAS i.e. expert commentaries & interpretations of these Vedas & their Upanishads, using different philosophical lenses & approaches by smart expert people, because they are simpler & easier to understand.

+ Rig Bhashya by Sri Madhavacharya

+ Rigvedadi Bhashya by Sri Danayand Saraswati

+ Vedartha Sangraha of Sri Ramanujacarya

+ Sri Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhashya on Upanishads

+ Secret of the Vedas by Sri Aurobindo

+ Bhashya by Sayana (oldest & longest one)

And for absolute noobs, the best starting point is the Srimad Bhagavad Gita!