Who wrote the Vedas, and how old are they?

tradition says no one wrote them — ṛṣis “saw” them; historians date the oldest hymns to well over 3,000 years ago.

In Hindu tradition the Vedas are apauruṣeya, “not of human authorship”. The sages are called mantra-draṣṭās, seers of the mantras: they did not invent the hymns but perceived eternal truths in deep meditation. Each hymn is still recited with the name of its ṛṣi, its metre and its deity. Schools differ slightly — Mīmāṃsā holds the Veda is eternal in itself, while Nyāya and some Vedānta schools see it as revealed by God — but all agree it is not an ordinary human book.

Modern historians, working from language and archaeology, usually date the Ṛgveda to roughly the second millennium BCE, with the other Vedas and the Upaniṣads following over many centuries. Some Indian scholars argue for earlier dates.

Either way, the Vedas were passed on orally, teacher to student, with remarkable accuracy for a very long time before being written down — itself one of the wonders of human culture.

Apauruṣeya: not of human authorship · Each mantra: ṛṣi, chandas, devatā

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