Q : Throw light on the Brahman literature as a source of Ancient History.
Brahmanical Literature consists of the Vedas, Epics, Puranas, Vedanganas and the Dharmasutras. These texts convey the religious beliefs and practices of the brahmins, and as a source for history, they provide information on the society in the northern and north-western India in the during the 2nd and 1st millennium BC.
The Vedas had have been composed and orally transmitted hundreds of years before they were written. From the study of the old Sanskrit of the Vedas, historians noticed its similarity with Greek and Latin, and developed the theory of a common ancestral language – the Indo-European. This helped link the ancestry of the Vedic people to central Asia.
The Vedas are are a collection of hymns, prayers, sacrificial rituals, magic and nature poetry. There are four Vedas:
a. Rig Veda, a collection of 1028 hymns in praise of gods and creation,
b. Sama Veda, containing hymns, mostly from Rig Veda, to be chanted during sacrifices in which the juice of the Soma plant was offered,
c. Yajur Veda, dealing with details of rituals and sacrifices, and
d. Atharva Veda, dealing with spells, magic and charms.