The Vedas can be conveniently described as books of offerings-offerings of prayers, material objects, symbolic objects and the self. The orthodox tradition, however, defines the Vedas as a mass of literature consisting of Mantras and Brahmanas i.e. prayers and their applications. The Brahmanas are again divided into three parts-objective rituals, subjective rituals and cosmic rituals or philosophical speculations. These three parts are known as Brahmanas proper, ...
