Writings

Writings: Hinduism

The oldest Hindu texts, the Vedas, were memorized first and are still recited from memory. The ten entries are three inscriptions, of about the fifth to seventh century CE, and seven manuscript entries. Among them, the oldest dated manuscript is a Skandapurana read as 810 CE, and the oldest dated Vedic copies are from the 1400s CE.

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The entries

  1. The Rigveda manuscripts at Pune

    Manuscript. Copy made: 1464 CE as the UNESCO nomination gives it.

  2. The Nepal Skandapurana

    Manuscript. Copy made: 810 CE.

  3. The Cambridge Parameshvaratantra

    Manuscript. Copy made: 819 to 859 CE, by different readings of the colophon year 252.

  4. The Paippalada codex at Tubingen

    Manuscript. Copy made: 1419 or about 1550 CE.

  5. The Khoh charter of Maharaja Sarvanatha

    Inscription. Copy made: 533 to 534 CE.

  6. The Dadhimati Mata inscription

    Inscription. Copy made: 608 CE.

  7. The Veal Kantel inscription (K. 359)

    Inscription. Copy made: 7th century CE.

  8. The Mahabharata Shalyaparvan of 1392

    Manuscript. Copy made: 12 November 1392 CE.

  9. The Nepal Ramayana of Samvat 1076

    Manuscript. Copy made: about 1020 or 1154 CE.

  10. Five Sharada Bhagavadgita manuscripts at BORI

    Manuscript. Copy made: 1376 CE for the oldest of the five.

How were Hindu texts handed down?

Memory came first for the Vedas, the oldest Hindu texts, and it still does.1 UNESCO's 2008 listing reported that Vedic chanters are taught from childhood to keep each word's sound unaltered, and that only thirteen of over a thousand recitation branches (chanting schools) had survived.2

The Mimamsa school of philosophy holds that no one composed the Veda: rishis, or seers, heard and memorized it.3 ISKCON Educational Services (ISKCON is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness), a Vaishnava source (Vaishnavas worship Vishnu and his incarnations, especially Krishna and Rama), holds that the Vedas were written down when memory began to deteriorate, at the start of the Kali Yuga, the present age.456 Michael Witzel, in a 2000 mailing-list post that gives one scholar's view, wrote that script was not used in India between the Indus civilization and Ashoka (third century BCE). He noted news from Sri Lanka of earlier use of the Brahmi script, around 500 BCE, that needed checking, and added that written texts did not become the main way of passing on the Veda until much later and, counting modern recitation, not even today.7

How much survives, and how old are the oldest copies?

No source used here counts all Hindu manuscripts. The ten entries are three inscriptions and seven manuscript entries (30 manuscripts in the Rigveda entry, five in the Gita entry), all in Sanskrit, and the oldest dated manuscript is read as 810 CE.8 Six of the seven manuscript entries were copied or found in Nepal or Kashmir; the exception is the Rigveda, whose copies were gathered from several regions of India.891011121314

The three inscriptions are dated from about the fifth to the seventh century CE on their editors' readings. They name the Mahabharata and Ramayana (two epics) and an unnamed Purana (a long religious text). One stone names no source, but its editor, Ram Karna, traces its verse to the Devi Mahatmya, a text praising the goddess.11516171819 On those dates, an inscription shows that a text existed in some form by then, not what it said.

In four other entries the oldest dated copy is later than the Skandapurana, Parameshvaratantra, and Ramayana copies: 1376 CE for the Gita (a book of the Mahabharata), by Bhandarkar Institute calculation, and 1392 for a volume of the Mahabharata. The Paippalada Atharvaveda, a version of the fourth Veda, is 1419 (about 1550 on one dating), and the Rigveda, which scholars usually consider the oldest Veda, is 1464 (per India's UNESCO nomination).1311201014121

  • The Vedas. The Arya Samaj, a reform movement, holds, on one center's website, that the Vedas are older than humanity.2223 Dancing with Siva, a catechism of a monistic (soul and God are in the end one) Shaiva Siddhanta (Shiva-centered) lineage, dates them 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, and ISKCON reports that tradition often dates them to about 3000 BCE, the start of the Kali Yuga.24252621 Alf Hiltebeitel dates the Vedic literature to about 1400 to 400 BCE, with the four collections probably complete by 1000 BCE, and Jan Heesterman writes that no definite dates can be assigned to the Veda or any of its parts.127 The gap to the 1464 CE Rigveda copy is about 1,860 to 2,860 years on Hiltebeitel's span for all Vedic literature, and about 4,500 to 7,500 years on Dancing with Siva's figure and ISKCON's date for the writing down (computed here from 2026).5 For the Arya Samaj and Mimamsa views, no gap can be counted.
  • The Mahabharata and the Gita. ISKCON's site credits the Mahabharata to the sage Vyasa and places its war at the end of the Dvapara Yuga, the age before the Kali Yuga, which it says began some 5,000 years ago. Shankara, a teacher of Advaita Vedanta (a school of nondualism), writes that Vyasa embodied the Gita in 700 verses. Neither gives a year for the epic's composition.2852930 Hiltebeitel dates the composition to about 500 BCE to 400 CE, by authors who probably drew on older bardic traditions. Eliot Deutsch and Lee Siegel date the Gita's place in it probably to the third century BCE.3129 The 1392 CE Shalyaparvan volume (the Shalya book) is about 1,000 to 1,900 years after the epic on Hiltebeitel's dating, and about 4,400 years after the war on ISKCON's reckoning (computed here).32
  • The Ramayana. ISKCON's site credits the poet-sage Valmiki, says some Hindus date Rama to the Treta Yuga (the second of four ages) and others far more recently, and reports that unnamed Indian scholars date him to the third millennium BCE. Velcheru Narayana Rao reports that tradition also places the epic there. Neither gives that age a year, so no gap can be counted on it.3334 Hiltebeitel dates the epic to about 400 to 200 BCE; Narayana Rao writes that its origins are obscure and its date nearly impossible to fix, though scholarly work narrows its current form to 750 to 500 BCE. The two ranges do not overlap.134 The Nepal copy is about 1020 or 1154 CE, because its colophon, the scribe's closing note, names no era: about 1,200 to 1,900 years after those dates, and about 3,000 to 4,200 years after the report of the third millennium BCE (computed here).1211
  • The Puranas and a Shaiva scripture. E. H. Rick Jarow reports that tradition credits the great Puranas to Vyasa without giving a year, so no gap can be counted there. He writes that they derive from an extensive oral tradition and resist exact dating.15 Yuko Yokochi dates the early Skandapurana to 550 to 650 CE. Its Nepal copy, probably 810 CE in Ben Staiger's reading, is about 160 to 260 years later (computed here).8 The Parameshvaratantra copy, from the dualist (Shiva and souls stay distinct) Shaiva Siddhanta school,35 is 828 CE on Cambridge University Library's reading and 857 to 859 CE in catalogues of 1883 and 1905.93637

How should the entries be read?

Equal slots do not mean equal evidence. For the epics and the Gita, the statements of tradition found come from a Vaishnava site, Shankara, and scholars' reports.3134 No Shaiva statement was found for any of the three, nor a Shakta (goddess-centered) one for the epics.38 The dates and views of Hiltebeitel, Heesterman, Narayana Rao, and Deutsch and Siegel come from entries dated 1987 in one encyclopedia, which the source list dates by its 2005 edition.1273429 The Gita entry's 1376 CE date and the Rigveda entry's 1464 CE date both rest on UNESCO filings by Indian institutions.1314 See Hindu Scriptures and how ancient texts are dated.

Sources

  1. Alf Hiltebeitel. Hinduism. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  2. UNESCO. Tradition of Vedic chanting. UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2008. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  3. Stephen Phillips and Anand Vaidya. Epistemology in Classical Indian Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2024, section 6, Testimony. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  4. ISKCON Educational Services. Heart of Hinduism: Scripture and Guru. ISKCON Educational Services. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  5. ISKCON Educational Services. Heart of Hinduism: The Tradition's Own Version. ISKCON Educational Services. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Dancing with Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism, sixth edition: Sloka 9, What Is the Devotional Vaishnava Sect?. Himalayan Academy (web edition), 2003, Sloka 9, What Is the Devotional Vaishnava Sect?. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  7. Michael Witzel. Dates of written Rgveda (post to the INDOLOGY mailing list). INDOLOGY list archive (list.indology.info), 2000, the whole post (March 2000). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  8. Ben Lennart Staiger. The Skanda Myth in the Skandapurana: A Critical Edition and Study of Adhyayas 163 to 165 of the Skandapurana. Doctoral dissertation, University of Hamburg (Faculty of Humanities), 2017, pp. 3 to 5 and note 5; pp. 8 to 11 and notes 11 to 18; pp. 23 to 24; p. 109 (list of manuscripts). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  9. Vincenzo Vergiani (author of the record), Cambridge University Library. Parameshvaratantra (MS Add.1049.1), Sanskrit Manuscripts. Cambridge Digital Library, Cambridge University Library, catalogue record fields: Abstract, Date of Creation, Origin Place, Provenance, Acquisition, Extent, Material, Script, Condition, Excerpts (colophon), Alternative Title(s), Author(s). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  10. Umberto Selva. The Study of the Paippalada Recension of the Atharvaveda: The State of the Art. Kervan: International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies, no. 23, special issue (2019), pp. 199 to 234, University of Turin, 2019, pp. 199 to 203 and 211, with footnotes 2, 3, 10, 12, and 16. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  11. Luciano Petech. Mediaeval History of Nepal (c. 750-1482), second, thoroughly revised edition (Serie Orientale Roma 54). Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, Rome, 1984, p. 142 (documents 30 and 31), p. 153 (the Mahabharata undertaking of Jayasimha Rama), and pp. 208 to 209 (the Ramayana colophon of Samvat 1076 and the dispute over its era). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  12. Cecil Bendall. The History of Nepal and Surrounding Kingdoms (1000-1600 A.D.) compiled chiefly from MSS. lately discovered. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 72, part 1, no. 1, 1903, pp. 18 to 19 (section III, Tirhut). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  13. Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (nominator), for the Government of India. UNESCO International Memory of the World Register, Nomination Form: Bhagavadgita: Five Select Manuscripts in Sarada Script. UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, 2024, PDF pp. 5 to 8 (section 6.3, the five manuscripts), pp. 14 to 16 (history and provenance), and pp. 27 and 33 (the dates and the Kashmir recension). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  14. National Mission for Manuscripts (Government of India) and the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (nominators). Memory of the World Register, Ref N. 2006-58: Rigvedasamhita, Rigvedasamhita-Padapatha and Rigvedasamhitabhashya. UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, Part A, sections 1, 3.1, 3.2, 4, and 5; pp. 1 to 9. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  15. E. H. Rick Jarow. Puranas. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  16. John Faithfull Fleet. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. 3: Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings and Their Successors. Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta (1888); the saved text is the Indological Book House reprint of 1963, as scanned by the Internet Archive, 1888, introduction pp. 8 to 10 (the Gupta era and the Kalachuri alternative for the Uchchakalpa dates); p. 98, note 5 (the verses on land grants and their attributions); Nos. 28 to 31, pp. 125 to 139 (the Khoh plates, with No. 31, the year 214, on pp. 135 to 139). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  17. Daniel Balogh (digital edition); DHARMA project. Khoh Charter 2 of Sarvanatha, year 214 (DHARMA_INSSiddham00088). DHARMA (Development of Digital Resources for the Study of Indic Languages and Cultures), the Sanskrit edition, lines 1 to 29; the bibliography. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  18. Kunthea Chhom (digital edition), Gerdi Gerschheimer and Dominic Goodall (edition). K. 359. Stone slab from Veal Kantel, 7th century CE (DHARMA_INSCIK00359). DHARMA (Development of Digital Resources for the Study of Indic Languages and Cultures), the edition, the translation by Goodall (2017), the French translation by Barth (1885), the apparatus, and the bibliography. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  19. Ram Karna (with notes by the editors of Epigraphia Indica). Dadhimati-Mata Inscription of the Time of Dhruhlana; [Gupta-]Samvat 289 (No. 31). Epigraphia Indica, vol. 11 (1911 to 1912), Archaeological Survey of India; text via jainqq.org, 1911, printed pp. 299 to 303 (scan pages 350 to 354). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  20. Walter Slaje (with prefatory remarks by Arlo Griffiths, one of the volume's two editors). Three Bhattas, Two Sultans, and the Kashmirian Atharvaveda. In Arlo Griffiths and Annette Schmiedchen (eds.), The Atharvaveda and its Paippaladasakha: Historical and Philological Papers on a Vedic Tradition (Shaker Verlag, Aachen, 2007), pp. 329 to 353; the author's offprint, which he posted to the INDOLOGY list on 10 February 2014, 2007, paper pp. 2 to 3 (volume pp. 330 to 331) and the discussion and postscript, pp. 16 to 20 (volume pp. 344 to 348); Griffiths's prefatory remarks, p. ii. Accessed 2026-11-06.
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  22. Arya Samaj Ved Niketan, Troy, Michigan (the page names no author). Scriptures. aryasamaj.com, the page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
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  26. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Dancing with Siva: What Is the Nature of the Veda Texts?. Himalayan Academy, 2003. Accessed 2026-10-29.
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