English: The Vedas are scriptures of Hinduism. They consist of four layers of texts: samhita, brahmana, aranyaka and upanishads (they also have Vedangas such as above, and appendices to these main layer of texts). The samhitas are dated to between 1500 and 1000 BCE. The Brahmanas and Aranyaka texts are probably from about 1100 to 700 BCE, while the Upanishads from about 900 to 200 BCE. Each Vedic layer consists of books.

These oldest texts are in the archaic Sanskrit language. The Vedic texts between 900 to 500 BCE are close to the classical Sanskrit, which was formalized by Panini. The Aranyaka hymns that cover a mix of topics: benedictions, mythologies, questions and riddles, drama and poems, philosophy and mystical speculations.

The corpus of Vedic texts, as well all post-Vedic texts, are generally accepted to have been orally transmitted from generation to generation for over a millennium, till about the start of the common era. In Sanskrit, they were written in many Indic scripts. The scripture was written on palm leaf manuscripts, copied for preservation in Hindu temples and monasteries. Later paper and cloth versions were produced, where the page size was similar to the heritage palm leaf-like long pages.

The above image is from Yajnavalkya Siksha, also called Vajasaneyi Siksa or Traisvarya Laksana.

Shiksha is one of the six Vedangas, or limbs of Vedic studies, on phonetics and phonology in Sanskrit. It is the study of sound, focusing on the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, accent, quantity, stress, melody and rules of euphonic combination of words during a Vedic recitation.

Language: Sanskrit

Script: Devanagari

The manuscript was discovered in Varanasi (Kashi, Benares) – one of the largest colonial era source for ancient Sanskrit literature. It was bought by European collectors in the 19th-century. It is now preserved with the Cambridge University Sanskrit manuscript collection.

The photo above is of a 2D artwork of a text that is over 2,000 years old, from a manuscript that was produced in 1863 CE. Therefore Wikimedia Commons PD-Art licensing guidelines apply. Any rights I have as a photographer is herewith donated to wikimedia commons under CC 4.0 license.