Hinduism

The Rig-Veda was increased by two other Vedas, The Yajur-Veda (the textbook for sacrifice) and the Sama-Veda (the hymnal). A fourth book, the Atharva-Veda (a collection of magic spells), was probably added about 900 B.C. At this time, too, the Brahmanas - lengthy Sanskrit texts expounding priestly ritual and the myths behind it- were composed. Beginning about 600 B.C., the Upanishads were composed; these are mystical- philosophical meditations on the meaning of existence and the nature of the universe.
             The Vedas, including the Brahmanas and the Upanishads, are regarded as revealed canon and no syllable can be changed. The actual content of this canon, however, is unknown to most Hindus. The practical compendium of Hinduism is contained in the Smriti, or " what is remembered," which is also orally preserved. No prohibition is made against improvising variations on, translating, or challenging the Smriti. The Smriti includes the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana; the many SanskritPuranas, including 18 great Puranas and several dozen more subordinate Puranas; and the many Dharmashastras and Dharmasutras (textbooks on sacred law), of which the one attributed to the sage Manu is the most frequently cited.
             The two epics are built around central narratives. The Mahabharata tells of the war between the Pandava brothers, led their cousin Krishna, and their cousins the Kauravas. The Ramayana tells of the journey of Rama to recover his wife Sita after she is stolen by the demon Ravana. But these stories are embedded in a rich corpus of other tales and discourses on philosophy, law, geography, political science, and astronomy, so that the Mahabharata (about 200,000 lines long) constitutes a kind of encyclopedia or even a literature, and the Ramayana (more than 50,000 lines long) is comparable. Although it is therefore impossible to fix their dates, the main bodies of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were probably composed between 300 B.