Any of a group of sacred hymns and verses composed in archaic Sanskrit, probably in the period 1500–1200 BC.
Together they form a body of liturgical literature that grew up around the cult of the soma ritual. They extol the hereditary deities that personified various natural and cosmic phenomena. The entire corpus of Vedic literature, including the Vedic religion . See also Rig Veda , {{link=Vedanta">Vedanta .