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, Aranyakas and Upanisads respectively. The contents of these parts are often so much overlapping and intermixed with each other that one fails to correctly identify their class unless he is already told of it. The texts which go by the name of Aranyakas are mostly continuation and extension of the Brahmanas proper. Nevertheless we do find in them some remarkable symbolic and meditative thoughts bordering on the line of Upanisadic ideas and expressions and serving as a prelude to them.
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